www.CTGreenGuide.com SprinG 2014 • Connecticut Green Guide 7
News Cycle
New DEEP Commissioner
To Build Upon
Predecessor's Dreams
By Brad Kane
A
s Game of Thrones fans know,
what the King dreams, the
Hand (his second in com-
mand) builds.
The common folk, apparently,
have a less flattering, more on-the-
point way to describe the relation-
ship, but the idea remains that
while the leader gets the glory for
coming up with the ideas, it is up to
those beneath him to get stuff done.
Rob Klee served as Hand to Dan
Esty, commissioner of the Depart-
ment of Energy & Environmental
Protection, for three years. As DEEP
chief of staff, Klee played a firsthand
role as Esty implemented the theo-
ries he developed as a Yale professor
about how energy policy should be
tied to environmental protection and
economic growth.
Esty's tenure as commissioner
was always on borrowed time. With
the limited three-year leave of ab-
sence from Yale and a wife serving in
U.S. Congress, Esty's term never was
going to last long enough to see all
his dreams reach their full potential.
This limited timeframe — along
with scant four-year window which
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who pushed
these policies and programs, had
before he faced re-election — might
explain why Connecticut was so
fast to push major energy reforms,
reloading with a new slate of ideas
iLLuSTRATion | C!
