New state DEEP commissioner takes helm

Katie Dykes has sat at the large conference table in the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner’s office many times. But not the way she does now.

Now she sits at the head of that table as the third person to lead DEEP since it was created from the old Department of Environmental Protection in 2011.

A self-described geek who admits she wears the description energy wonk as “a badge of honor,” Dykes was the deputy commissioner of DEEP’s Energy Bureau from 2012 until 2015 as it created the first-ever energy strategy for the state, including the first organized policy around renewable and clean energy deployment.

She moved into the world of energy regulation in 2015, becoming chairwoman of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), until Gov. Ned Lamont, in a move that surprised just about everyone, tapped her to run the department.

Now back — not only in DEEP administration but as the boss — she lives a packed, sometimes double-booked life that has her racing across the state while juggling the care of three young children with her husband Mackey Dykes, who is equally busy as vice president of commercial and industrial programs at the Connecticut Green Bank.

Awonk family for sure when it comes to the often highly technical, complex, jargon- and acronym-filled vagaries of energy policy — renewable or otherwise.

Dykes takes over as the department arguably moves into its second generation. DEEP’s first commissioner, Dan Esty — Dykes’ professor when she was a Yale undergrad and then a law student — Esty’s successor Rob Klee, and the governor they served — Dan Malloy – are gone.

Their philosophy and very clear marching orders over eight years – to usher in cheaper, cleaner and more reliable energy — sometimes succeeded and sometimes didn’t. The department Dykes inherited has been battered by budget cuts and personnel losses and faces a federal government that is openly hostile to many of its own environmental mandates, leaving states like Connecticut to pick up the slack with fewer federal resources.

Meanwhile, the energy and environmental philosophy from Lamont – create jobs and reduce carbon emissions — remains a bit fuzzy. And Dykes faces growing pains that remain unresolved from the Malloy years, as well as divisive new issues. Most of them involve that wonky subject she loves — energy.

But DEEP’s other missions involve classic environmental concerns, encompassing everything from running state parks and wildlife management to tackling more recent challenges associated with climate change, such as the sea level rise that threatens the Connecticut coast.

It’s somewhat new territory for the energy-focused Dykes and she returns repeatedly to her energy comfort zone for paradigms. But the first subject she addresses when asked to contemplate her return to DEEP administration is environmental.

“Climate change clearly has to be at the top of our agenda,” she said, sitting at her big conference table on a recent morning, a sports fleece over her commissioner-appropriate clothes — not unlike her two predecessors, who sometimes turned up at work in suits and hiking boots.