Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/479407
www.CTGreenGuide.com SprinG 2014 • Connecticut Green Guide 33 Reflections of a Commissioner infrastructure upgrades must be made By Dan Esty A s many of you know, I have relinquished my role as commissioner of the Department of Energy & Environmental Protection and returned to my professorship at Yale University. It is therefore a good moment to reflect on Connecticut's progress in address- ing energy, environmental, and conservation issues over the past three years. With the leadership of Governor Malloy, a remarkable agency staff, and bipartisan back- ing in the General Assembly, Connecticut has emerged as a national leader on a number of fronts. DEEP fundamentally transformed all 26 of its permit- ting programs and dozens of other agency activities us- ing a lean strategy to become faster and more efficient, customer-focused, and compliance-oriented. Simply put, we made the regulatory framework lighter without lowering environmental standards. We ramped up investments in clean water projects and state park infrastructure, and we chartered an innovative new path by putting the state's first Com- prehensive Energy Strategy in place. In all of this, we showed that an integrated approach to energy, the envi- ronment, and the economy pays real dividends. When I look back upon all that we accomplished, I believe the most enduring achievement may be the New England Governors' commitment to expand and modern- ize our energy infrastructure. This unprecedented regional initiative addresses a decades-in-the-making infrastruc- ture deficit and will over time significantly lower the price of energy for Connecticut's residences and businesses. As all of us witnessed during this winter's cold snaps, there was competing demand for natural gas for home heating as well as power generation. While plenty of natural gas was available from nearby domestic sources, we just don't have the pipeline capacity to get enough of it into our region. This made supplies tight — driving up the cost of natural gas for our homes and leading to increased costs for electricity as older, dirtier, and less efficient oil and coal power plants had to be fired up. New England pays a very real penalty of $1.2 to $2 billion a year in increased energy costs because we lack adequate power transmission and natural gas pipeline capacity. Connecticut shoulders about a quarter of that burden. Investments in new infrastructure will more than pay for themselves as we eliminate the sort of supply shortage and price spikes we faced this winter. As the New England states work together to build the electric transmission system needed to capture power from growing numbers of decentralized renew- able power sources as well as Canadian hydropower, and the pipelines needed to bring increased supplies of natural sources of natural gas to our region, our energy options will increase and prices will drop. Governor Malloy deserves great credit for rallying his colleagues to address this long neglected issue. Dan esty is the Hillhouse Professor of environmental Law & Policy at yale university, director of the yale Center for environmental Law & Policy, and director of the Center for Business & the environment at yale. PHoTo | PABLo RoBLeS