In call for ‘ transition’ from oil, GOP sees opening
Biden debate remark used as political ammo by Trump
Connecticut likely will struggle for a decade or longer to undo the economic damage created by the coronavirus pandemic, a University of Connecticut thinktank warned Friday.
In its first long- term forecast, the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis also warned the state was headed for financial trouble even before the pandemic struck, having failed for more than a decade to make vital investments in information technology.
“It looks bad,” economist Fred V. Carstensen, the center’s director, and senior research fellow Peter Gunther wrote in their report. “Even an optimistic scenario argues recovery will be slow and painful; a more realistic assessment sees Connecticut struggling to recover in employment, real output, personal income, and state revenues out past 2030.
When the pandemic’s outbreak in March and April eliminated 277,000 jobs, many state officials still hoped for an economic recovery within the calendar year.
But the lack of a proven vaccine, coupled with several economic weaknesses that pre- dated the pandemic, has left Connecticut vulnerable, the report states.
Several projections, including a recent analysis from The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, project CO
VID- 19 could kill at least one out of every thousand Americans and cause permanent health damage to another four per 1,000.
“To state the obvious, the dead do not work and disabled may be less productive,” Carstensen and Gunther wrote.
Further complicating matters, Connecticut still had not recovered all of the nearly 117,000 jobs lost in the Great Recession — which ran from late 2007 through mid- 2009 — when the
Democrat Joe Biden’s remark that he would “transition” away from oil in the U. S. in favor of renewable energy drew quick attention Thursday night from President Donald Trump, who saw it as a boon to his election chances in key states.
“I would transition away from the oil industry, yes,” Biden said in the presidential debate’s closing minutes under peppering from Trump. “The oil industry pollutes, significantly. It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time.“
The Biden campaign’s climate plan calls for the U. S. to have net- zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. And he repeated his pledge to end federal subsidies for the oil and gas industry. However, Biden’s plan does not call for a ban on climatedamaging fossil fuels, focusing instead on technologies that can capture pollution from oil and other sources.
Still, Trump seemed surprised and pleased by Biden’s comment, declaring it a “big statement,” and suggesting it would come with political blowback in oil- producing states that stand to lose jobs.
“Basically what he is saying is he is going to destroy the oil industry,” Trump said. “Will you remember that Texas? Pennsylvania? Oklahoma? Ohio?”
Trump won all four states in 2016, but Pennsylvania in particular is a pivotal swing state this cycle, with both candidates investing heavily. Ohio is also in play, and Democrats even see Texas as a longshot pickup on an expanded electoral map.
After the debate, Biden told reporters he would not “ban” fossil fuels or move away from them for “a long time.”
Tackling climate change means sharply cutting oil, gas and coal emissions, scientists say, and that means eliminating most