WASHINGTON – Gov. Dannel Malloy on Friday lauded the U.S. Environmental Agency’s reversal of its decision to delay a new rule that would lower the level of ozone emissions permitted from fossil-fuel burning, such as the exhaust from auto tailpipes and power plant smokestacks. Malloy had argued a stricter ozone rule is needed because Connecticut is polluted by emissions from other states, putting its businesses at a disadvantage and threatening the health of state residents.
Environmental Protection Agency
Posted inMoney, Politics
Trump budget: CT health, education, research hit — defense a mixed bag
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s budget would require Connecticut to drop residents from key social and health programs in the state, and make tough decisions on how to handle other proposed federal cuts to education, housing and the environment. Connecticut’s congressional delegation vowed to fight it.
Posted inMoney, Politics
Trump budget would rip CT safety net for poor
Updated at 9:35 p.m.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s first budget, to be released in detail Tuesday, would cut Medicaid funding to Connecticut and eliminate other programs state residents rely upon to try to make ends meet, such as one that helps low-income people heat their homes. Many of the proposed cuts will meet resistance from Congress.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
CT fires its first shots in battle with Trump over environment
The state could turn out to be one of the most uniquely qualified to challenge the Trump administration on environmental policy. “Connecticut fights way above its weight in a number of the areas on the national scene,” Attorney General George Jepsen said. “Environmental issues is one of those areas.”
Posted inEnergy & Environment
Malloy names Gina McCarthy to Green Bank board
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy engaged in some high-level recycling Monday, bringing back Gina McCarthy to serve on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Green Bank. Before becoming the EPA administrator, she was commissioner of environmental protection in Connecticut.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Congress considers L.I. Sound program Trump wants to defund
WASHINGTON — Even as President Donald Trump wants to strip all money from the program, a key congressional committee on Tuesday moved on a bill that would authorize the Environmental Protection Agency to spend $65 million a year on the cleanup of Long Island Sound.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Money
Trump would slash CT environment funds; hit to Sound feared
The Trump administration called massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency an attempt to ease the burden of unnecessary federal regulations. Connecticut’s environmental commissioner called it an assault on public health and the environment.
Posted inEducation, Health, Money, Politics, Transportation
Trump budget would end CT heating aid, housing, after-school programs
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s first budget proposal would strip Connecticut of tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, eliminating programs that subsidize heating bills for nearly 110,000 Connecticut households and provide housing for the homeless and after-school care. But the budget would boosting the state’s defense industry and fund a border wall.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
CT gets good news for now on its EPA grants
At least for the near term, the major EPA grants to the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection will keep flowing despite a freeze and review of contracts and grants by the Trump administration.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Q&A: EPA’s McCarthy hopes Trump won’t unravel her work
WASHINGTON — On Gina McCarthy’s watch, the Environmental Protection Agency toughened the clean water and clean air regulations and finalized regulations for the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce emissions from power plants to combat climate change. She recently gave The Connecticut Mirror a wide ranging interview and spoke, in her distinct Boston accent, of her hopes that her legacy will survive,
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Malloy, Cuomo face off over dumping in Long Island Sound
WASHINGTON – New York officials say a plan to dump dredged material in eastern Long Island Sound is potentially harmful to the ecology and tourism, but Connecticut supporters say it’s key to the state’s economic development and to keeping Naval Submarine Base New London off a base closure list.
Posted inHealth, Politics
Esty asks feds for money to combat lead in tainted CT water systems
WASHINGTON – Connecticut does not have the type of water problems that are harming Flint, Mich., but staff cutbacks in the state’s drinking water monitoring program – in addition to problems and incidents of lead-tainted water in some state water systems – have prompted U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty to ask the federal government for help.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Politics
Recycling food waste in Connecticut: Slow as molasses
Five years after legislative initiatives designed to do something about the large amount of food waste in Connecticut’s trash, very little has been implemented, and the food waste problem is getting bigger. A lot bigger.
Posted inEnergy & Environment, Health
Most CT schools don’t test water for lead, but that could change
WASHINGTON – Most of Connecticut’s more than 1,000 schools and child care centers don’t have to test their water for lead under federal or state laws. But the tragedy in Flint, Mich., has spawned a number of proposals to better combat lead contamination in schools and elsewhere.
Posted inEnergy & Environment
EPA’s Gina McCarthy stops by with a Paris postcard
Gina McCarthy, the environmental regulator who worked in New England for Govs. Mitt Romney and M. Jodi Rell before leading the charge for President Obama on climate change, returned to Hartford on Friday for a post-Paris curtain call. She said the deal will create markets for clean energy.