Gov. Lamont pitches climate plan as temps soar
NEW HAVEN — With much of Connecticut blistering under high temperatures and local farmers coping with a second month of drought, Gov. Ned Lamont made climate policy the focus of several stops Friday in which he urged both federal and state lawmakers to follow Connecticut’s example in lowering emissions.
During a ceremonial bill signing on the New Haven Green early Friday, the governor touted one of his administration’s signature achievements during the most recent legislative session in enacting stricter tailpipe emissions on large trucks, while committing to purchase thousands of new electric vehicles for the state’s fleet.
Later, however, the governor traveled to Hamden to be meet with climate activists who urged him to do more at home and questioned why the state continued to fall behind on its existing targets to reduce greenhouse gasses.
Echoing similar calls at the national level, several of those activists asked Lamont to declare an immediate state of climate emergency and stop issuing all permits for new fossil-fuel burning plants. The governor did not make any such commitments, and pointed to the difficulties his administration has faced in pushing for other, less stringent measures.
“I can tell you, nobody doubts the impact of climate change anymore,” Lamont said. “I think they feel that sense of urgency. Do they feel enough to
ask people to change habits… I’m not sure yet.”
Tenaya Taylor, the executive director of Hartford’s Nonprofit Accountability Group, pressed the governor to speak to the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority about reminding low-income residents of the availability of public assistance for heating and water bills.
“That relieves people of the economic burden of things like climate change, with the extreme heat, extreme cold,” Taylor said. “The economic burden that a lot of people are facing,
because it’s a recession or whatever, it ties into the climate too.”
Both events came a little more than a year after hopes for a multi-state coalition to lower transportation emissions — an idea championed by Lamont — fell apart in the face of pushback over higher gas prices that was led by business groups and Republicans. Since then, prices have only risen further and when he was asked about resurrecting the coalition on Friday, Lamont said it was not on his agenda.
“I think with [gas at] $4.50 a gallon, I think people are still a little hesitant,” the governor said.
Lamont earned praise from climate activists following the most recent legislative session, when he and lawmakers passed ambitious plans to reduce emissions from both vehicles and the power sector — in line with similar targets put in place by neighbors New York and Massachusetts.
“I think it was a really positive step, I don’t think that there’s any way that you can take away from that — but there’s still a lot more to do,” said Kimberly Reindl, the codirector of Sunrise Connecticut. “We need to do it now, because we’re not meeting our targets.”
Reindl and other participants in Friday’s panel pushed Lamont to place new fees on carbon emissions that can be invested in new clean-energy programs or even disbursed directly back to consumers to offset the costs of energy bills.
Similar fee structures — often referred to as cap-and-trade — have been labeled a tax by opponents, as was the case for the Transportation Climate Initiative, or TCI.
Earlier this week, President Joe Biden visited Massachusetts to deliver a speech declaring climate change a “existential threat to our nation and to the world.” However, the president stopped short of declaring a national emergency to release new funds after his larger climate plan fell apart in Congress.
When asked about the development, Lamont noted that Connecticut has already received millions of dollars from the Biden administration to help spur green entrepreneurship, repair water treatment systems and build new electric vehicle charging stations.
Still, his message to activists highlighted the governor’s desire to see the federal government take more proactive measures to reduce emissions beyond the limited jurisdiction of states like Connecticut.
“We’re leading by example, but I need help down in Washington,” Lamont said.