Blue Governors Are Tacking Rightward on Fossil Fuels
Will Peischel
Last week, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey held a press
conference to address concerns around spiking utility bills. She touted growing wind and solar
industries as crucial solutions to the affordability crisis, but also importing
more fracked gas from out of state.
“We have gas pipeline expansion on the Algonquin—that’s
good!” she said from her podium, referencing a $300 million project to beef up natural gas
infrastructure in the state via Enbridge’s Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline.
“We need to continue to find more ways to bring energy in, and anything around
gas pipelines that works out well with the ratepayers and is consistent with
our regulations we’ll welcome.”
Not long ago, this cozying up to fossil fuel in the state
would have bewildered constituents of most political shades. After all, it was
Republican Governor Charlie Baker who signed the 2021 law directing Massachusetts to achieve net-zero
emissions by 2050, pivoting away from fossil fuels. One year later,
Healey, then the state’s attorney general, bragged about sinking proposed
pipeline expansion plans. “Remember,” she reminded her audience, “I stopped two gas pipelines
from coming into this state.” (Governor Healey’s office didn’t respond to a
list of questions sent over email.)
But in recent months, Healey’s tone has shifted. “With
Trump’s second term, we are seeing a pivot to pro-pipeline policies from
Northeast Democratic governors,” says Itai Vardi, a researcher at the Energy
Policy Institute, a group that advocates for renewable energy. Alongside
Healey, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont have
also embraced natural gas, following years of focus on renewables to secure
energy supplies and chasing zero-emissions goals set for 2050.
Healey has the Algonquin pipeline expansion in Massachusetts. Hochul recently permitted plans to expand the Williams NESE pipeline
through New York Harbor and onto Long Island—after the project twice failed to
gain required approvals from state environmental regulators. Despite local
uproar, Governor Lamont supports building a compressor in the town of Brookfield, which
would cram more gas through an existing pipeline.
One executive order Lamont signed in 2021 exemplifies the
more pro-climate stance of the Biden years. “There is overwhelming and
incontrovertible evidence that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing
climate change,” the order reads. Natural gas was not just a contributor to emissions,
it was also known to be uneconomical. “In light of recent price spikes for
heating oil, propane, and natural gas and their negative impact on Connecticut
consumers… [a new plan] is needed that identifies the best clean, affordable
and resilient heating and cooling options for buildings.”
Hochul spokesperson Ken Lovett wrote in an email that with
Trump’s second inauguration, “New York and clean energy states lost a critical
partner, having gone from the previous federal administration that … supported
the energy transition to a White House that is looking to do away with
renewables in favor of a ‘drill baby drill’ strategy that favors natural gas
and coal.”
Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut all began investing
heavily in large offshore wind farm projects years ago—each able to provide
around a gigawatt of clean, local energy to the grid. But over the last year,
the Trump administration has sought to kill them through litigation and
regulatory orders, most recently through a January work stoppage handed down by
the Interior Department. While the offshore wind farms currently under
construction have been allowed to continue after gaining injunctions in federal
court, developers have canceled future wind projects, taking billions’ worth of
energy investments with them. Questions of what will plug the gap they leave
remain unanswered.
Meanwhile, energy costs continue to increase at the national
level as the November gubernatorial and congressional midterm elections
approach. The U.S. and Israel’s entanglements across the Middle East have also
driven gas prices. As voters’ utility rates spike, all three governors have to
convince voters that they’re worth keeping around.
As a result, these governors are now adopting policies that
can coexist with Trump’s. That sometimes means co-opting them.
“Connecticut is committed to ensuring that our electric grid
is reliable, resilient and that our energy costs become more affordable,” Rob
Blanchard, director of communications for Lamont, wrote in a statement.
“Offshore wind and other renewables are central to that effort, but it must be
complemented by a diverse mix of resources, including nuclear power, natural
gas, hydropower, and other technologies.… We will continue to engage with the
federal government on shared energy priorities.”
Gas may be a political solution, but progressives don’t see
a material one. “It’s not more affordable, it’s definitely not sustainable, and
it may not even be attainable given supply chains,” says Samantha Dynowski,
director of the Sierra Club in Connecticut.
data from New York
shows that natural gas prices have risen more rapidly than inflation,
suggesting costs aren’t just following broader economic trends. In fact, those
increases come not only from the price of gas but from a mix of additional
charges, like capital investment in more gas infrastructure. According to the Future of Heat Initiative, “New
York’s gas utilities are investing billions to excavate and replace old
pipelines and install other infrastructure, often taking advantage of state
policies that encourage such spending. Over the last 10 years, the six largest
gas utilities grew their gas assets from $17B to over $37B, despite homes using
less gas.”
The costs of building out those assets, one way or another,
come from ratepayers. In 2024, about three-quarters of total gas costs for
residents in New York came from “delivery,” which includes “pipes and other
infrastructure, utility operating costs, and taxes,” rather than the gas
itself. Contrast that to 1984, when less than half of total costs came from
delivering the stuff.
The infrastructure currently being built, says Kim Fraczek,
director of the Sane Energy Project in New York, will just drive rates higher
still, since the building costs typically get passed onto the consumer. “One of
the pinnacle tragedies of all of this,” she says, “is that Hochul is claiming
to be on the side of affordability.”
But Hochul isn’t just changing gas policy in the name of
affordability. Earlier this month, she voiced concern that state climate goals
were “unrealistic.” Citing a report from NYSERA, the state utility regulator,
the governor floated plans to soften state emissions targets. According to the
report, New York families would pay thousands of dollars more per year in 2031
for the 2030 emissions target to be feasible.
But increasing gas usage will make these targets even harder
to reach. “Going backwards on our climate law will set back decades of
environmental work that’s been done leading up to this point, and decades into
the future,” says Pete Harckham, a Democratic state senator and chairman of the
New York state Senate’s Committee on Environmental Conservation. “The rub in
all of this is the Hochul administration is trying to sell this as an
affordability issue, that somehow the state’s climate law is responsible for
high utility bills. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
When I asked Harckham what alternatives were available under
the suboptimal conditions governors like Hochul were operating in, he pointed
to a bill he introduced in the New York state legislature. Under the ASAP Act, the state’s flagship environmental
bill—2019’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act—would be
amended with more ambitious solar panel development goals. In 2024, New
York accomplished the impressive feat of constructing six
gigawatts’ worth of solar infrastructure—enough energy to power more than one
million homes—one year ahead of schedule. Harckham’s bill would set sights on a
new target: 20 GW by 2035.
To reach that goal, the bill would cut some regulations and
create tighter timelines for utilities to get solar projects, which sometimes
languish in the development stage, online. Harckham has a partner bill under consideration in the state Senate
that would increase tax credits for solar, establishing consumer demand for
residential solar.
“By streamlining the permitting and interconnection process,
and strengthening programs that support solar installations, we can reduce
project costs and deliver real savings to families, businesses, schools, and
municipalities,” the state senator said in a statement last month. “That means more
predictable energy bills and less exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices.”
As the governors lurch further to the right on energy
policy, they’re also co-opting some conservative governors’ favorite energy
language. “All of the above,” Lamont said on a local NBC News program last month,
explaining the sources of energy he’s marshaling to cut electricity costs.
Earlier this month in New York, Hochul said that “an all of the above approach”
was necessary to address energy costs. Healey used this same phrase during her
press conference last week: “My strategy is all of the above.”
The phrase “all of the above” is at least 25 years old. During the Obama years, the
federal government leaned on the term as it embraced the fracking boom. Since
the 2010s, it has faded from Democratic nomenclature as climate became a
bigger-platform item.
For environmental advocates, the framing is little more than
cover for policies that plainly contradict addressing climate change. “They
call it ‘all of the above’; we call it more of the same,” says Dynowski. “We’re
already overreliant on fracked methane gas. Adding more gas locks us into
costly, polluting gas for decades to come. Truly diversifying our energy
resources with clean renewable energy is what is needed.”
Meanwhile, red governors in places like Texas and
Mississippi have made liberal use of
the phrase. “All of the above” allowed someone like Texas Governor Greg Abbott
to embrace the economic growth thousands of acres of wind
turbines or solar panels could bring without alienating the fossil fuel
industry or voters allergic to the smell of liberal-coded environmentalism.
Now liberal governors are adopting that politically
palatable framing for their own purposes, and even praising red states’
approach. “Texas has the most renewables in the country,” Healey said during her press conference. “We have an
opportunity to do that here. Especially with solar. That’s probably the
quickest way to bring more energy online. That is the quickest and most
affordable. I wanna get people’s rates down as quickly as possible.”
For now, and into the foreseeable future through new
infrastructure projects like the Algonquin expansion, gas is coming along with
it. The way a governor like Healey tells it, such investments are pragmatic
choices during difficult times caused by chaotic national leadership. But
environmental advocates, feeling sold out, see it differently. “It’s always
best to burn somebody that your state doesn’t like too much,” says Cathy
Kristofferson, co-founder of the Pipe Line Awareness Network for the North East,
“rather than say, ‘We have failed you.’”
Naugatuck secures $2.5M for pedestrian bridge, downtown improvements
NAUGATUCK — The borough will receive more than $2 million to
enhance pedestrian walkability downtown as its the
transit-oriented development continues to move forward.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3rd District, announced at a
news conference Monday morning at Naugatuck Town Hall that she secured
$2.5 million in federal Community Project Funding to support the downtown
project. She was joined by Mayor N. Warren “Pete” Hess and other local and
state officials.
The funding will support improvements for multiple modes of
transportation in the downtown area — including the construction of a
pedestrian bridge, streetscaping, and development
of a greenway along the Naugatuck River — as work continues on a
new train station.
DeLauro and Hess said they are excited about securing the
funding.
“It’s about connectivity and about vibrancy of a
community,” DeLauro said.
“It came at exactly the right time because we’re in the
process right now of designing a pedestrian bridge that connects the west side
of Naugatuck and the train station to the east side of Naugatuck, across
the river, where we have parking right off the Route 8 on/off ramp,” Hess said.
Hess said the borough is grateful for the funding, while
DeLauro praised local officials for their vision to revitalize downtown.
The proposed bridge would extend from the Hotchkiss Street
area, where school buses park, to the site of the new train station.
“It also enhances our greenway on the east side of the
river,” Hess said. “So it connects the east and the west. It gives us more
parking for downtown. It helps us with our greenway project for more
walkability, and it’s just sort of the next big piece in where we’re going.”
The pedestrian bridge is in the design phase. The borough
previously received about $500,000 for its design. The greenway is also in
the early design stages, Hess said.
“It’s about transforming the downtown area and increasing the opportunity for
quality of life,” DeLauro said. “It’s all about economic development. It
reconnects residents to one another and to the river — and the river is part of
their daily lives and the spirit of our community.”
Borough officials are aiming for 80 to 100 parking
spaces.
“It’s critical in the sense that it makes the project on the
west side better because it enables people to park closer to the train station
than some of our downtown parking lots, just by walking a straight line across
the river on a pedestrian bridge,” Hess said. “It also provides different
walking routes for people.”
The bridge will connect the east and west sides of downtown,
where transit-oriented development is actively underway.
The current train station, located just north of The Station
Restaurant at 195 Water St., is being replaced by a new $33.2 million,
two-story station under construction by the state Department of Transportation
on Old Firehouse Road. The new station will include 72 parking spaces, electric
vehicle charging stations, energy-efficient LED lighting, and upgraded safety
features.
The station will anchor a new mixed-use residential and
commercial development at Parcel B, on the corner of Maple Street and Old
Firehouse Road. Pennrose, a Philadelphia-based real estate development company,
plans to build three 60-unit apartment buildings with one- and two-bedroom
units in a three-phase project.
The first building, closest to Maple Street, is expected to
be completed in the fall, with construction of the second building — near the
Naugatuck Event Center — to follow. The train station is expected to be
finished next year, Hess said.
“We’re at the end of the beginning,” Hess said. “What I mean
by that is we finished the hard part — the disruptive work to the streets, the
remediation of the land. We’ve put the money together to make it happen. The
most difficult parts are over, and now what we’re seeing is that every year for
the next four or five years, the entire project will be enhanced."
“There’ll be more and more people downtown. It’ll become
more and more vibrant, and we’re working on facades, murals and other finishing
touches to make the project even better every year.”
DeLauro said that when she established Community Project
Funding through the appropriations process several years ago, she hoped it
would allow federal resources to support projects that are meaningful to local
communities.
The downtown revitalization will bring residential and
commercial development side by side, supporting one another and boosting
quality of life in the borough.
“Above all, it’s a driver of economic growth because it puts
people first,” DeLauro said.
Developer plans almost 1,000 apartments in Uncasville
Jack Lakowsky
Montville — A Cape Cod developer wants to build nearly 1,000
apartments in central Uncasville, and the town estimates the sewer installation
needed to support the project could cost up to $30 million.
But that estimate is too expensive for the developer, All of
Us At North LLC, according to a Tuesday memo from Land Use Director Dennis
Goderre notifying the Planning and Zoning Commission of the company's intent.
The company's registration shows an address in Hyannis, Mass., where its
principals have a property development and management firm.
So, the company is seeking state funding, Goderre said.
Right now state officials are reviewing the funding request
"and appear to be strongly considering this request for approval,"
Goderre said.
"The funding would be linked to housing, however the
precise funding source is not clear to staff," he added.
No formal plans have been submitted to the town yet.
The company is eyeing a stretch of land along Massapeag Side
Road for the bulk of the development, between 600 and 800 units, close to the
shore of the Thames River. It is bordered to the north by Teecomwas Drive and
Driscoll Drive, and to its south by Derry Hill Road. The developer plans to
build a number of affordable units, but did not say how many.
That area is not currently served by the town sewer system.
New sewers would need to stretch the length of Massapeag Side Road and Derry
Hill Road to Route 32.
Another part of the plan calls for up to 120 units split
between two parcels on Route 32, one on the corner of Thomas Avenue and another
farther north, not far from Mohegan Congregational Church. They're in an area
that already has access to public water and sewer systems.
The project would be exempt from many local zoning rules if
it has the required numbered of affordable units, per state regulations.
Goderre said the town would likely need to upgrade its Water
Pollution Control Facility to meet the new demand. Roads in the vicinity might
need to be widened, and changes might be needed for intersections and new
traffic and pedestrian signals.
"If this level of funding is to be granted, and the
increase in population occurs, other infrastructure and community services will
likely be impacted," Goderre said, adding that any funding should also
other demands intensified by the development, schools, government facilities
and services.
Goderre recommended the commission "communicate (its)
sentiment on this matter in writing."
The developer's notice of its intent to build on its
property comes as the town plans an ambitious revitalization
of areas in both Uncasville and Palmertown, which includes hundreds of new
housing units and public amenities like a town green, a band shell and a skate
park.
UConn begins $99M Gampel Pavilion renovation project, unveils new renderings
The University of Connecticut has begun a major renovation
of Gampel Pavilion, with the first phase of the project expected to be
completed by November 2026.
UConn’s athletic department said the multi-phase project
will cost $99.4 million and is being funded through non-tax revenue generated
by state-issued UConn 2000 bonds authorized by the General Assembly.
Phase 1 includes a full roof replacement and the
construction of a new basketball gameday suite. The suite will feature a
recruiting lounge, sports medicine space, locker rooms for teams and coaches, a
coaches’ lounge and conference room, an upgraded officials’ locker room, and a
postgame press and meeting area.
The university also plans to replace existing concession
stands with grab-and-go options at the four corners of the arena bowl to reduce
congestion and improve crowd flow.
Future work is planned as part of a second phase, expected
to begin in March 2027. That phase is expected to include new premium seating
areas, donor-focused spaces intended to generate additional revenue, and
expanded nutrition facilities for student-athletes.
UConn has hired DPR Construction as construction
manager, S/L/A/M Collaborative as lead designer, Legends Global
as owner’s representative, and Jack Porter to design graphics for the
basketball suite.
Gampel Pavilion, located on UConn’s Storrs campus, is the
primary home for the university’s men’s and women’s basketball programs.
State DOT plans overhaul of popular commuter road in CT town. Here’s why
The state is looking to perform a
“road diet” on a roughly 1-mile stretch of Route 44 in Manchester,
claiming it will make the popular east-west route safer without reducing travel
times.
The idea is somewhat similar to a redesign of Main Street
that local leaders want in
the heart of downtown, with goals of cutting back on speeding traffic while
making better provisions for pedestrians and cyclists. But at least a few
residents slam the Route 44 plan as wasteful and counterproductive.
Connecticut’s government along with numerous individual
towns began implementing road diets in recent years by removing some lanes for
through traffic while adding wider sidewalks, bike lanes or both. New Britain,
West Hartford, Hartford, Groton, Waterford, Bristol, Willimantic, Milford and
Fairfield have either completed such street redesigns or are planning them this
year.
In Manchester, the state Department of Transportation wants
to do a
$3.4 million overhaul of Route 44 roughly between Vernon Street and
slightly east of the Middle Turnpike intersection.
If the plan goes ahead, design work would begin this spring
and construction would be done sometime in 2027, Project Manager Jonathan
Corilla said at an informational meeting earlier this month.
The roadway currently has a posted speed limit of 35 mph,
two lanes of traffic in each direction with no center barrier or median, little
or no shoulder and — at a couple of points — no sidewalk, either. The DOT would
do away with one lane in each direction, leaving space for a left-turn lane in
the roadway’s center as well as wider shoulders along the sides.
It’s a popular east-west route for local commuters as well
as a direct link to I-384 and I-84, and motorists headed east can take it all
the way to Mansfield, Putnam and eventually Providence.
A map shows the section of Route 44 where the state wants to
implement a road diet. (Courtesy of Connecticut Department of Transportation)
The DOT has measured average daily traffic at 9,000
vehicles, which Corilla said makes it ideal for a road diet under federal
highway standards. Between 2020 and 2025, there were 51 traffic accidents along
the roughly mile-long stretch of Route 44, and Corilla said a road diet would
help.
“Typically with introduction of a road diet a 26% reduction
is crashes is expected, which would result in 13 fewer crashes at this site
specifically,” he said.
Corilla said part of the hazard of the current configuration
comes when drivers approach Route 44 from the side and want to turn left. Such
a driver, which could be from an intersecting road or a driveway, faces many
sources of potential crashes.
He used the example of northbound Dale Road motorists; at
the Route 44 intersection there is no traffic light, so left turns can be
problematic. The driver pulling out from Dale has to watch for eastbound
traffic in the nearest lane as well as eastbound cars in the second lane, while
also checking for westbound cars in the third lane or possibly even from the
fourth.
By going down to one lane each way, the number of potential
crashes is cut deeply, he said.
Several people posted on Facebook that a road diet would be
inefficient and potentially make the road more dangerous. Others posted that it
will slow traffic.
The DOT contends otherwise.
“Road diets do not typically adversely affect travel time,”
Corilla said. “They clear clogged travel lanes of left-turning traffic, they
can improve the corridor’s quality of life and the livability of the area.”