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The recent two-day shutdown of parts of Stamford due to Connecticut's
woefully inadequate electric supply and transmission system should
serve as a wake-up call to our state. Changes are already underway
thanks to landmark legislation passed and now being acted upon.
However, more needs to be done in ways that allow us to be charter our
own destiny.
Perhaps there's no better place to start than with the
Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. The purpose of the Clean Energy Fund is,
as its name implies, to promote the development and commercialization
of clean energy technologies and to stimulate markets for electricity
from clean, renewable sources.
The Clean Energy Fund is important
for several reasons. First, Connecticut is energy-starved.
We don't have enough energy producers in the state and, as a result,
consumers pay hefty fees when heat waves strike and electricity
providers like CL&P have to search far and wide for extra power. We
also see the adverse effects of our energy deficit on businesses and
residents.
The Clean Energy Fund is also important because it seeks to develop
non-polluting and renewable sources of energy, such as solar, wind,
waves, hydroelectric, fuel cells, photovoltaic cells, biomass, landfill
gas and other such technologies. There's a double benefit of less
pollution and less reliance on fossil fuels such as crude oil and
natural gas fuels we don't always have easy access to, and whose prices
are currently skyrocketing.
But the $117 million fund could work better. How? By removing it from
the oversight of Connecticut Innovations, Inc., the quasi-public state
agency created by the legislature in 1989 to kick-start and nurture
various high-tech companies around the state.
The problem, as I see it, is that the relationship
between Connecticut Innovations and the Clean Energy
Fund has cast adverse and unnecessary doubt on the fund's
operations and, in the process, is hindering the fund's goal
of providing adequate, clean power for the state.
For example, in 2004 a top Clean Energy Fund official filed a
whistleblower complaint with the attorney general's office alleging
that a $500,000 loan was approved for a biomass project that involved a
CI board member who has since resigned his post. CI conducted its own
internal investigation into the matter, but has since refused to share
its results with legislators or the public.
That is unacceptable, and it casts doubt on CI's ability to review and
approve Clean Energy Fund projects in a manner consistent with
legislative intent and more importantly the proper investment of the
ratepayer's money.
Then there was former state Department of Economic and Community
Development Commissioner Peter Ellef, who as a co-chief of staff for
former Gov. John Rowland tried to steer a Massachusetts fuel cell
company to Connecticut with the help of CI, but only if that company
paid an inflated rent to a friend of Rowland's, and paid that friend
$200,000 in cash (CI is an associated agency of the DECD).
Ellef and that friend of Rowland William Tomasso are now serving time
in federal prison for that and other schemes to defraud the state.
Again, a potentially valuable initiative was derailed due to politics
infecting the selection and oversight of a Clean Energy Fund project.
The Clean Energy Fund has the staff and the budget to operate
independently. Over the years it has repeatedly demonstrated its
commitment to rewarding ratepayer investments with more energy and
cleaner energy. Now it's time for the state legislature to consider
cutting the strings that tie the Clean Energy Fund to Connecticut
Innovations. The result could only benefit us all.
Bob Duff, a Democrat, represents the 25th state Senate District in
Darien and Norwalk. He can be reached at (800) 842-1420 or at
duff@senatedems.ct.gov.
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