Local: The Groton Resilience and Sustainability Task Force
February 2021 The Task Force has developed and presented to the Town Council on specific action recommendations the Town should take to become more resilient to the effects of climate change. These include how to fulfill the state’s mandate to plan for 20 inches of sea-level rise by 2050 and how Groton can meet the state mandate to have 40% of electrical energy generated from renewable sources by 2040.
The Task Force notes that the Town has already made substantial progress during the last 15 years, including: installing energy-efficient lighting in many town schools and town buildings; increasing use of energy efficient hybrid automobiles; supporting recycling activities; including climate, resilience and sustainability concepts in various community documents, i.e. the Plan of Conservation and Development; and revising Town zoning regulations to better reflect climate, resilience and sustainability concerns.
This, of course, is just the start of what needs to be done. First, GCA and the Task Force are strongly recommending that the Town hire a full-time experienced director to manage Groton’s evolution into an energy-efficient town to mitigate the impacts of climate change while making the community more resilient. Much more can be done to promote solar installation on the new schools being proposed and built. We need vehicle-fleet conversion to electric, and revised zoning in our coastal and flood-prone areas. Rising temperatures that increase tick populations and help spread infectious disease are a threat to public health and need to be addressed. Downtown Mystic needs a serious evaluation of how to cope with a 20” sea-level rise by 2050. (Click here for a 2012 NYTimes video showing the convergence of Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge + a full moon tide in Mystic.) These are issues the Task Force will be assisting the Town in addressing over the next year.
State: Environmental Legislation Update and the Governor’s Council on Climate Change
As usual, the legislature convened in early January for what is known as the “long session” during which legislators have more ability to introduce new legislation. However, given COVID-19 it is likely to be an anything-but-usual session and one that is more focused on a few big issues including addressing the state’s current solid waste system’s serious shortcomings.
GCA will monitor the progress of several bills legislators and the Governor have proposed that would expand renewable generation, efficiency, and benefit the town and its residents. In somewhat of a surprise, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) has proposed a financial construct for solar projects that enables a continuation of the existing net metering system that GCA supports as well as a new tariff construct that the utilities favor. See Jan Spiegel’s article in the CT Mirror.
Members of GCA have continued to follow the work of the Governor’s Council on Climate Change (GC3) as its subject matter working groups have regularly met through Zoom. In January of 2021, the Council issued a Phase 1 Report: Near-Term Actions that highlights near term (2021-2) strategies to mitigate climate change impacts and, to a lesser degree, actions to make Connecticut more resilient in the face of them. Those recommendations begin on page 31 in the report titled: Taking Action on Climate Change and Building a More Resilient Connecticut for All.
Specifically the Governor has proposed three bills that address climate and energy issues:
An Act Concerning Transportation-Related Carbon Emissions; An Act Concerning Climate Change Adaptation; An Act Concerning Climate Change Mitigation and Home Energy Affordability
Energy Legislation that GCA was monitoring died when the legislature adjourned due to COVID 19. To some extent the Value of Distributed Generation study is continuing at the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (DOCKET NO. 19-06-29) and although there have been no meetings since early March, a motion by advocates to ensure transparency by forbidding DEEP and PURA from engaging in ex parte communications succeeded.
On the national level, the New England Ratepayers Association (NERA) has petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to set national standards for how owners of distributed generation like solar and wind are compensated thereby preempting existing state net metering provisions in 41 states, including those in Connecticut that are under review in the PURA docket referred to above. Click here for more information.