At a hearing Tuesday, Blumenthal plans to press Zuckerberg to commit to broad changes to protect user privacy, including requiring users to “opt in” rather than “opt out” of tracking by data-mining companies. Blumenthal also wants Facebook users to be able to see all the information collected about them.
Energy and Environment
Posted inEnergy & Environment
EPA plan to ease car emission standards would affect CT more than most
The Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to ease auto emissions standards has particular resonance for Connecticut, with the potential to force the state to accept cars that are more polluting than it wants and make its notoriously bad air even worse.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Despite dissatisfaction, committee sends energy bill to the floor
The Energy and Technology Committee Thursday voted to send major energy legislation to the full legislature for consideration, despite widespread dissatisfaction with the bill as it exists now. The approval came after assurances from committee leadership that the bill would be revised further before it’s debated on the floor.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Energy bill heads for committee showdown, uncertain future
With the Energy and Technology Committee’s approval deadline for bills this session on Thursday, committee leaders, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, the governor’s office and environmental advocates are racing the clock on one of the most consequential energy bills in years. Solar policy could stop them — again.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money, Politics
Lawmakers urge reversing clean-energy cuts, but lack budget fix
A coalition of legislators and energy-efficiency advocates pledged Tuesday to work to restore at least some of the roughly $175 million stripped from green programs in the new two-year state budget. But none identified offsetting spending cuts or revenue increases.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Solar is again the flashpoint in CT’s new energy strategy
The final version of Connecticut’s new energy strategy and the bills that would implement it are before the legislature. So is a controversy that has dogged the plan since it was first released – solar policy.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
DEEP wants sneak environmental permit rule reversed
Slid into last year’s budget during final negotiations was a provision that limits the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to 90 days to either approve or deny a laundry list of nearly four-dozen permits. If DEEP doesn’t take action, the permit automatically goes into effect. DEEP calls the sneak change “awful public policy,” and the fight is on.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
State says Millstone will get a final chance to prove it needs relief
State energy officials recommended Thursday that the Millstone nuclear power station be allowed to offer further evidence of financial distress as part of a new procurement process that could enhance the profitability of Connecticut’s biggest source of zero-carbon electricity.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
CT’s clean energy edge: Going, going . . . or coming back?
Connecticut, once a national leader in clean and renewable energy and energy efficiency, has slipped behind many other states, including its neighbors. Most of the finger-pointing is at the state’s budget problems and questionable choices by the legislature. But the state may have started to lose its energy edge before then. The question is, can it get it back?
Posted inEnergy & Environment
State says more data necessary to assess Millstone’s viability
A long-awaited assessment of the energy market released Monday by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority does not resolve questions about the economic viability of the region’s biggest provider of carbon-free electricity, the Millstone nuclear station at Waterford. State officials say they need more information from its owner, Dominion Energy.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Malloy, environmentalists blast Trump proposal to open North Atlantic to drilling
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday proposed opening most of the nation’s offshore areas to oil and gas drilling, including areas in the North Atlantic off the New England coast that have been off limits to exploration for decades. That move was roundly denounced by environmental groups, and coastal governors including Dannel P. Malloy.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Health, Money
CT’s poor find winter energy bills increasingly unaffordable
With natural gas and fuel oil prices rising, more than 320,000 poor Connecticut households faced energy bills this year that exceed their ability to pay by a collective $450 million, a new, nonprofit study has reported.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT’s preliminary conclusion: Millstone profitable through 2035
State energy officials concluded in a preliminary report released Thursday that the Millstone nuclear power station in Waterford will be profitable through 2035, undercutting its owner’s assertion that Connecticut must change how its electricity is sold or face the early retirement of New England’s largest source of carbon-free power. But they reached no conclusions on whether the profits represent a sufficient return on investment for the owner, Dominion Energy.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Malloy signs Millstone bill, then questions its need
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed a bill Tuesday that allows the state to enhance the profitability of Dominion Energy’s Millstone nuclear power plant in Waterford, while pointedly asserting that Dominion has not convinced his administration any such help is warranted.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Millstone bill passes House, goes to governor
After blocking similar bills over two years, the House of Representatives voted 75 to 66 for final passage Thursday of a measure variously derided as a windfall for a major energy company and praised as a responsible first step toward stabilizing the finances of Connecticut’s last nuclear plant.