Environmental Protection Agency News and In-Depth Reporting

Trump budget would rip CT safety net for poor

by Ana Radelat May 22, 2017 @ 7:10 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:14 pm

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.

Energy & Environment, Politics

CT fires its first shots in battle with Trump over environment

by Jan Ellen Spiegel April 20, 2017 @ 5:00 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:11 pm

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.”

Energy & Environment

Malloy names Gina McCarthy to Green Bank board

by Mark Pazniokas April 17, 2017 @ 3:31 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:11 pm

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.

Energy & Environment, Politics

Congress considers L.I. Sound program Trump wants to defund

by Ana Radelat March 28, 2017 @ 7:05 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:12 pm

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.

Energy & Environment, Money

Trump would slash CT environment funds; hit to Sound feared

by Jan Ellen Spiegel March 17, 2017 @ 5:00 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:08 pm

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.

Education, Health, Money, Politics, Transportation

Trump budget would end CT heating aid, housing, after-school programs

by Ana Radelat March 16, 2017 @ 1:48 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:08 pm

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.

Energy & Environment

CT gets good news for now on its EPA grants

by Jan Ellen Spiegel January 26, 2017 @ 5:50 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:04 pm

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.

Energy & Environment, Politics

Q&A: EPA’s McCarthy hopes Trump won’t unravel her work

by Ana Radelat December 14, 2016 @ 11:57 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 11:01 pm

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,

Energy & Environment, Politics

Malloy, Cuomo face off over dumping in Long Island Sound

by Ana Radelat August 17, 2016 @ 7:00 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 10:56 pm

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.

Health, Politics

Esty asks feds for money to combat lead in tainted CT water systems

by Ana Radelat April 27, 2016 @ 7:33 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 10:54 pm

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.

Energy & Environment, Politics

Recycling food waste in Connecticut: Slow as molasses

by Jan Ellen Spiegel April 11, 2016 @ 5:00 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 10:50 pm

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.

Energy & Environment, Health

Most CT schools don’t test water for lead, but that could change

by Ana Radelat April 1, 2016 @ 5:00 amMarch 4, 2022 @ 10:49 pm

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.

Energy & Environment

EPA’s Gina McCarthy stops by with a Paris postcard

by Mark Pazniokas December 18, 2015 @ 4:37 pmMarch 4, 2022 @ 10:44 pm

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.

Energy & Environment

Herbicide finding intensifies battle over GMO labeling

by Jan Ellen Spiegel November 9, 2015 @ 5:30 amJuly 11, 2022 @ 1:00 pm

More than two years after passing the nation’s first law requiring labels on most foods containing genetically engineered components, there are still no labels for Genetically Modified Organisms – GMOs – in Connecticut or anywhere else in the U.S. But GMO labeling advocates now have some new ammunition for a counter-offensive.

Energy & Environment

A storm rages over CT’s stormwater

by Jan Ellen Spiegel February 25, 2015 @ 5:32 amAugust 1, 2022 @ 1:43 pm

Managing the water that flows into the thousands upon thousands of storm drains around the state — an otherwise standard municipal function — has become something close to a standoff between the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and a battalion of those municipalities.

Connecticut's budget + economy, explained