Gov. Lamont, Sen. Blumenthal pledge to oppose cuts to environmental protection

The Trump administration's planned elimination of various environmental and health regulations threaten the safety of Connecticut residents, Gov. Ned Lamont said recently, and vowed to work with other states to derail the efforts that took decades of bipartisan federal action to enact and develop.

Standing near the Connecticut River, Lamont was joined by environmental advocates, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Katie Dykes, commissioner of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. They charged that without federal Environmental Protection Agency rules, asthma in the state's large cities - already among the nation's worst - will continue to soar. 

"We're going to do everything we can as a state to continue to fight to protect our air and our water," Lamont said, adding that he is in regular contact with the region’s other governors. "But there's only so much we can do as a state. We have to work together as a region. We have to work together as a country."

Taking issue with EPA head Lee Zeldin, who predicted “a golden age” of success on environmental issues, Blumenthal said: "In fact, he is desecrating and destroying decades of bipartisan work to protect great rivers like this one, the air that we're breathing right now from polluters in the oil and gas industry, in waste-water contamination, in the soot that comes to us from power plants in the Midwest. In fact, it's a day that will live in environmental infamy. We're here to say that we're not going to let him do it."

Continuing, Blumenthal said: "If you prize the unique treasures that we have in Connecticut like the Sound, like this great river, like the beauty of our hills, our open space, our wetlands, you'd better get to work. We have a fight ahead. We need a movement all across the country to say no to the Trump, Elon Musk, Zeldin assault on our environment."