Lamont promises to prioritize environment

Governor says ‘nothing is more important,’ will take it into account in every decision, including mass transit

HARTFORD — Gov. Ned Lamont promised Thursday that every decision he makes as the state’s chief executive will take into account the effect on Connecticut’s environment.

“Nothing is more important,” Lamont told a gathering of hundreds of Connecticut environmental activists at Trinity College. “Everything I do in the next four years, I’m going to do looking through an environmental lens.”

Lamont said a critical piece of his environmental agenda involves his commitment to improving mass transit to get people “out of their darned cars” in order to reduce auto pollution.

“My biggest priority, the place where I can make the most difference in the next four years, is transportation,” Lamont said, saying that getting people to use mass transit instead of cars would make “an enormous difference” to the environment.

Lamont said he’s heard some complaints that his focus on mass transit is also focusing too much on cities and not enough on other parts of Connecticut. But Lamont said improved urban transit systems will also “protect open space in the rest of the state.”

He vowed to move this state on the path toward a “zero carbon” future, but acknowledged that “it’s going to take a generation to get there.”

Connecticut’s new governor received an enthusiastic reception from activists attending the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters summit Thursday.

But Lamont, responding to reporter’s questions after leaving the stage, also declined to commit to increasing staff at the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Environmentalists say repeated cutbacks at the agency have damaged its ability to monitor and enforce key regulatory areas like pesticides and water pollution.

“I hope not,” Lamont said when asked if the state needs more environmental staff. “But if we do, we do.”

He said he hopes increasing the use of high tech systems will make additional DEEP staffing unnecessary and would also help streamline the environmental permitting process for businesses and industry.

Lamont said a key to achieving the goal of a zero-carbon-emissions state in the future is making the right decisions now about developing renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. He also said his administration needs to find “the right mix” between those types of renewable energy and nuclear power.

Former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was a strong advocate for expanding the use of natural gas in Connecticut as a cleaner and cheaper fossil fuel alternative to oil and coal. Malloy also supported construction of new multibillion-dollar pipelines to bring more natural gas into New England and Connecticut.

“I hope we don’t need to go there,” Lamont said following his departure from the Trinity College stage. He said new gas pipelines carry “an enormous capital expense” and that Connecticut will eventually be moving away from natural gas toward zero-carbon emission renewable energy sources.

Lamont added that energy experts are warning that limited natural gas supplies could lead to brownouts and said he agrees with those who believe natural gas must be part of the energy mix for the next five to 10 years.

Many Connecticut environmentalists see President Donald Trump’s administration as being anti-environment, and Lamont voiced similar views during his talk. He said the nation’s governors all need to focus on protecting the environment because it’s clear the Trump administration isn’t making pro-environmental decisions.

Rohan Patel, director of policy and development at Tesla and a former Obama environmental adviser, was a speaker at Thursday’s conference and said Lamont had “passed his first acid test” by naming Katie Dykes as his Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner.

Dykes, a former deputy commissioner at the agency under the Malloy administration and most recently chair of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority, told the conference that the state really doesn’t have to make “hard choices between the environment… and economic development.”

“We know that an environment-first agenda … can be an economic engine for our state,” Dykes said.