Misquoted

For the record, the Courant's Rinker Buck misquoted CTLCV Executive Director in his Thursday and Friday print and online stories about DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy going to Washington.

The FBI did interview Brown about McCarthy, but Buck misquoted Brown in reporting her as saying "McCarthy is being considered for a big role in the EPA involving global warming," Brown said, "but I don't know the title."

While that may be a logical assumption, we wish to clarify that we do not know the role, the agency, the title, or the scope of work that McCarthy is being considered for.

A McCarthy move to DC would be terrific for the country, but not so terrific for Connecticut. McCarthy's successor would have mighty big shoes to fill. (Figuratively speaking.)

Greetings

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I am the intern for the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters for the 2009 legislative session. I am a junior at Trinity College studying Environmental Science and Community Action. Currently with the League, I am working on bill tracking for our Environmental Scorecard. At Trinity, I am the chair of Green Campus. This is a student group that is active in environment and sustainability issues on campus. We are currently assembling a social space at 125 Allen Place in which the Trinity and Hartford communities will showcase and discover what it means to live sustainably. I look forward to sharing my experiences with the League and at Trinity with all our readers.

We're on Facebook

We’re on Facebook now.  Check it out. Our trusty intern from Trinity College will be updating it for us.

Check Out Wall Street Journals' Stimulus Breakdown

The Wall Street Journal has an online, interactive breakdown of the amounts included in the federal stimulus package.  Stimulus items are first classified by “aid, spending, or tax provisions,” then by topic area (e.g. science, justice, food, energy, and more).  See Getting to $787 Billion.

 

Thanks to Washington Watch for posting this.

Important Opportunity to Defend Funding for DEP and CEQ

Here's an IMPORTANT OPPORTUNITY to DEFEND FUNDING for DEP.
Please attend the evening public hearing on February 17 at 6:30 pm.

Next Tuesday evening, February 17th, the General Assembly's Appropriations Committee will hold a public hearing on the portion of the state budget that includes the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Agriculture, and other agencies. Please use the information below to attend next Tuesday's 6:30 PM public hearing.

Governor Rell released her budget proposals last week, with some good news and bad for the DEP and open space programs. The Appropriations Committee will make some of the decisions as to whether to go along with these proposals. They will make many changes to the Governor's plans, so it is critical, as the committee makes very hard decisions over the next few months, that it hears from citizens that environmental programs are important to them.

DEP FUNDING: The Governor's proposal, in Bill 6371, cuts 24 positions from DEP, all of them currently vacant, but much more importantly, it proposes to correct a very serious long-term structural defect in the manner in which the agency has been funded.

The Governor's proposal shifts all positions currently funded by dedicated special funds back to the state's General Fund. This will take away some flexibility that the agency has had to shift funds around, but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. The important message for the Appropriations Committee is that DEP performs essential services for our communities, and that it already has too few staff to do its jobs.

More Details: Since 1991, the number of DEP positions funded by the state's General Fund has been cut almost in half. DEP has tried to limit the actual staff reductions, in the face of significantly increased responsibilities, by paying for these positions with dedicated fees, under a system that was passed in 1991 to plug a budget hole that year.

There are two problems with this approach: when positions are funded by the General Fund, the Comptroller's Office, not DEP, pays for employee benefits, which now amount to 60% of salary. When positions are funded by special or dedicated fees, the benefits are paid for by the agency. Second, most general fund positions are adjusted for inflation; dedicated fees are increased only occasionally. DEP has been projecting and warning for a few years that these factors would create the need for massive layoffs in 2010 -2012, even without the state's current budget woes.

COUNCIL ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY: The Governor has proposed eliminating funding for the CEQ, a nine volunteer, two-staff council, which has provided critical research on and attention to a variety of environmental issues, and has served as a sounding board for citizens who have concerns about how their municipal commission or the DEP are fulfilling their duties. CEQ has often been able to raise issues that the DEP is not able to. Please ask the Appropriations Committee to retain funding for the CEQ.

Attending the Hearing
Bring a book, a laptop (the entire Legislative Office has free wireless access) or a friend or two and spend an evening listening to your fellow citizens express their concerns. If you can stop by the LOB earlier in the day, or see if an associate in the Hartford area can do it for you, to choose a speaker lottery number - it could make for a much earlier evening for you. If that's not possible, just sign up when you get there, but it could be quite late when you testify. Speakers are limited to three minutes each, but you don't have to speak for that long. If you can submit 35 copies of written testimony, great; if not, you can still speak.

Public speaker order for the public hearings will be determined by a lottery system. Lottery numbers will be drawn from 9: 00 A. M. until 10: 00 A. M. in the LOB Atrium and from 10: 15 A. M. until 1: 00 P. M. in Room 2700 of the LOB. The list of speakers registered through the lottery system will be posted outside the designated hearing room two hours prior to the start of the public hearing. Speakers arriving after the completion of the lottery will have their names placed at the end of the speaker list.

Parking at the Legislative Office Building
1) The Legislative Office Building Parking Lot - Parking is available on the first floor of the Legislative Office Garage. If the first floor of the is full, check to see if there is a police officer directing cars to the roof parking; or people can often park in the lower basement level of the garage around the back of the building.

2) There is a paid public parking garage in the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) Building on Oak Street. Go south (NOT the driveway which goes west onto Broad Street) out of the Legislative Office Building driveway, turn left onto Capitol Avenue, then take the first right onto Oak Street. The first building on the right across from the side of the State Library is the CEA Building. Pull into the garage driveway on the far side of the building.

3) There is often meter parking available on that first block of Oak Street, or go to the end of the block and take a left on Russ Street for more meter parking.

If you need additional information, please email us at ctlcv@ctlcv.org
or call 860.236.5442.