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The state’s Planning and Development Committee voted today to approve the expansion of the Department of Environmental Protection. The bill, which was first proposed by the Governor, calls for the D.E.P. to absorb theDepartment of Public Utility Control and other energy programs. As the D.E.P. gets ready to take on energy pricing, research and development the new Commissioner is asking staff to think strategically about how to transform the agency. WNPR’s Nancy Cohen reports.
Like the Yale Professor he once was, D.E.P. Commissioner Dan Esty is, in a sense, calling his class to order
“Good Morning, Good Morning”
One day last week Esty celebrated the anniversary of the creation of the environmental agency by hosting a lecture.
“Welcome Ladies and Gentleman to the 40th Anniversary Department of Environmental Protection Lecture Series. I’m Dan Esty, the Commissioner here in the department.”
Esty urged his staff not to just sit back and listen to the lecture, but to debate the speakers
“I very much hope you will push them as we begin to think about how we’re going to need to change our department both to integrate energy and then to be even more effective in the world going forward.”
This invitation to question is part of Esty’s strategy to transform an agency that could add reducing electric rates and increasing the use of clean energy to an already massive mission that includes enforcing pollution laws, protecting wildlife and running the state’s parks.
“I am trying to make sure that everyone in this department understands their role as thinking big and as an owner of the process of transforming this into the leading Department of Environmental Protection and Energy Policy in the country.”
That’s a tall order. But Esty says energy and environment can go hand in hand; that energy is a critical driver of environmental outcomes.
“By bringing the energy component into the new department, we’ll have a mechanism to, in advance, think through the energy strategy and to try to shape the kind of electric generation that we’re going to have in future of the state. But it will also have a profound effect on the level of air pollution and water pollution that we have to address.”
For instance in the future the agency might be making decisions about nuclear power. Some environmentalists support nuclear because it doesn’t increase greenhouse gas emissions. But others raise questions about the safety of spent nuclear fuel at the Millstone Nuclear Power Station. Some want the plant shut down, but not Dan Esty.
“I think nuclear power plays an important role in Connecticut’s electric generating set. I cannot imagine any circumstances under which it would make economic sense for Dominion to shut those facilities. “
At the same time Esty is not calling for more nuclear power.
“I would think we’re going to have to really be very careful about nuclear power expansion until safety questions are addressed.”
Esty says there are risks with every energy generating source. In the case of wind, he says. rules in Connecticut are needed about how close a turbine can be to a house.
“We do need a set of siting regulations that allow some predictability for these kind of projects and some guarantees to homeowners. There are regulations that have been put together in other places. I’d like to look at those and make sure we get something like that adopted in Connecticut.”
But the Connecticut Siting Council is in the midst of making decisions on proposed wind farms without these kinds of regulations
As the Department of Environmental Protection takes on the complex world of energy issues Esty says he doesn’t expect to have to eliminate existing environmental programs, if employees work quicker.
“If you do everything 20% faster and more efficiently than you don’t have to jettison items off the agenda.”
Esty points to one other action that could keep the agency intact.
The Governor is asking state employee unions for $2 billion in concessions over the next two years
“I am hopeful we’ll get the kind of commitment from the state unions that the governor has asked for so that the pinch on our budgets will be modest and not severe.”
Although some employees may not support that part of Esty’s agenda many are responding to his call to think big. As one staffer said, after listening to the recent lecture, it’s energizing and it boosts morale.
For WNPR I’m Nancy Cohen.
