Environment
Protecting our environment is one of the few areas for which I would increase state spending. Environmental protection is properly in the state's orbit because individuals can't enforce their own property rights to clean air and clean water without the state's help.
The state can also be a forceful "driver" of environmental improvements nationwide. Connecticut can commit to buying a good new product in bulk -- spurring better research and lower prices. This is improved fourfold if we are cooperating regionally with other New England states, and twelvefold if cooperating with New York and New Jersey. We share the same North Atlantic Ocean, and adjacent airspace, so regional cooperation makes great sense.
Good environmental science deserves to be strengthened. My office will try hard to budget for better testing and better remediation. We will help fund firms that show promising clean technologies. We can help draw talented young scientists and engineers to the state to work on air and water quality.
SFL - CT should NOT follow CA on gas-powered vehicles. (13 min)
SFL - Avoiding national divorce, by trying Constitutional governance.
SFL - Environment 101 Waste Disposal taxes and liberty.
SFL "Blue Energy" is the name to replace "nuclear power"
We must stay wary though. Many good organizations that are concerned about the environment get hijacked by bad science and bad politics. The environmental movement at the national level has been overrun by Marxists. These people use "the environment" as a sledgehammer against small business and small property owners. They even put a harness on food production, and their national policies make food prices unnecessarily high, especially hurting poor people. These Marxists delay construction needlessly; they derail good projects.
Our good instincts to live healthier lives cannot be subverted by those whose overarching goal is bring down established institutions. Out General Assembly and our evaluators within DEEP need to stick with good science, and to be grounded in helping humanity.