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32 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | APRIL 21, 2025 Opinion & Commentary EDITOR'S TAKE Regulatory reform must be a priority for CT Democrats of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and promised to expand broadband access to millions of Americans. However, by the end of 2024, the initiative had connected zero individuals to broadband services due to myriad procedural and other delays. It's a remarkable failure of governance. Cutting red tape In Connecticut, there are similar examples of regulatory malaise, including efforts to reform the state's cumbersome law governing the sale of potentially contaminated properties. The Transfer Act, first adopted in 1985, has long been a thorn in the side of the development community and has been blamed for costing the state thousands of manufacturer jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenues over the years. The biggest complaint against the Transfer Act is the wide net it casts, dragging in all properties in which more than 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) of hazardous waste was processed or generated in any one month from Nov. 19, 1980 onward. Under the law, those proper- ties — even ones where there was never any known discharge or spill — have to undergo environmental testing and review before a sale can be completed. At a minimum, a property owner typically spends about $50,000 for an environmental review, which has had a roughly 50% chance of being audited by the state, meaning further cost and delay, experts have said. Commercial real estate brokers have often referred to the Transfer Act, which is only used by one other state (New Jersey), as a deal killer. State lawmakers finally saw the light in 2020 and passed a law to phase out the Transfer Act and replace it with a new, less burden- some release-based system. It's now five years later and that new system is still not in place. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) in January released its final version of the new release-based regulations, with the goal of having them go into effect next spring. In the meantime, think of all the lost development opportunities Connecticut has faced in the last few years, never mind the last four decades. To be fair to DEEP, the agency has D uring a news conference earlier this month at a union headquarters in New Haven, Gov. Ned Lamont urged state lawmakers to support a bill that creates new regulations on the state's warehouse industry. The Democratic governor's proposal, which has already passed out of the Labor and Public Employees Committee, sets rules around workplace production quotas to ensure, according to Lamont, that workers know how their performance is measured. Under the legisla- tion, workers must be given the opportunity to review current and historical work speed data, and be informed of changes in quotas. The bill also creates record-keeping mandates for warehouse employers. A handful of other states — Cali- fornia, Minnesota, New York and Wash- ington — have similar laws in place. The legislation has the support of labor unions. Opponents — including the Connecticut Business & Industry Association and a retail industry lobbying group — say the bill could deter businesses from locating facilities in the state because it creates a one-size-fits-all regulatory approach that doesn't take into account the regularly changing duties of warehouse workers. Are the new protections necessary? I'll let those more familiar with the issue argue that point. What can't be denied is that Lamont's proposal will create new regulatory burdens for companies operating in the state. That will make Connecticut less competitive, and it speaks to a broader issue of the state's regu- latory environment, which many private-sector interests have long complained is overburdensome. There's data to back up that claim. For example, CNBC's 2024 Top States for Business assessment ranked Connecticut 39th in the country for business friendliness. Many clear-minded thinkers, including myself, believe President Trump's on-again, off-again trade war has created self-inflicted harm to the economy. The same can be said for Connecticut Democrats' penchant to overregulate. I'm not arguing lawmakers should repeal the state's Clean Water Act and allow companies to freely dump toxins into our waterways. But there are burdensome and unnecessary barriers to investment that can be lifted or reformed, espe- cially around local and state permitting. I'm not the only one to recently make this point. There's an interesting new book out — titled "Abundance" — that discusses how overregulation, particularly in blue cities and states, has stymied development, including ambitious public-private projects related to housing, infrastructure and climate change. It's a must-read for Connecticut Democratic policymakers. And the authors aren't your run-of- the-mill, anti-regulation conserva- tives. They are liberal thinkers: New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Their book takes a critical look at government-backed and private- sector initiatives — like California's long-stalled efforts to build high- speed rail and new housing and clean energy projects — that have been stymied by complex regulations, extensive environmental reviews, stringent zoning regulations and other procedural red tape. The authors also discuss how certain labor mandates, such as the adherence to prevailing wage require- ments, can increase the costs and even deter large-scale development projects that are supposed to achieve a public good. In one particularly intriguing example, Klein, in a recent podcast interview, described how complex regulations and procedural delays stalled the Biden administration's $42.5 billion investment in rural broadband deployment. The funding was approved as part *Note: The rankings were part of CNBC's 2024 annual "Top States for Business" report. CNBC based business friendliness rankings on each state's lawsuit and liability climates, regulatory regimes covering areas such as trade and labor, as well as overall bureaucracy. RANK STATE 1 North Dakota 2 North Carolina 3 South Dakota 4 Indiana 5 Virginia 6 Kansas 7 Nebraska 8 Michigan 9 New Hampshire 10 Iowa 10 Wyoming 39 Connecticut MOST BUSINESS-FRIENDLY STATES IN THE U.S. * IMAGE CREATED BY CHATGPT Greg Bordonaro