AGENDA
Environment
Goal: Better align environmental laws, regulations, and policies with economic development goals
Cleanup and redevelopment of properties in Connecticut has been hampered for decades by overly complex, stringent and costly laws, regulations and spill-reporting policies, as well as investigations and cleanup of contaminated sites once discovered. Lawmakers must establish clear, simple and reasonable reporting requirements; the DEEP must revise its cleanup standard regulations to be consistent with nationally recognized, risk-based standards that can be efficiently administered by private-sector, licensed environmental professionals. Any proposal to broaden the range of properties subject to reporting and cleanup should be rejected by the legislature until these modifications have been put in place.
• Don’t expand the regulatory net for environmental reporting before adopting reasonable revisions to state cleanup regulations.
• Provide clear, reasonable, self-implementing cleanup standards that promote economic development.
• Continue to reform state brownfield programs to encourage private-sector investment in these and other contaminated properties.
• Improve the Connecticut Environmental Protection Act by incorporating evidentiary thresholds and procedural timelines as prescribed by the Connecticut Supreme Court.
• Continue to accelerate compliance assistance efforts and demand greater flexibility from the federal Environmental Protection Agency on methods of achieving compliance.
• Work with DEEP and the regulated community to identify and improve or eliminate inefficient, outdated, and ineffective laws and regulations, such as the stream channel encroachment program.