The legislature will meet Thursday to assist the University of Connecticut in its partnership with Pratt & Whitney to win hundreds of millions dollars in a federal energy research grant. The university and the jet engine manufacturer have developed a proposal that they believe could turn UConn into a significant hydrogen energy research center.

UConn President Radenka Maric, according to her online biography,  “is a world leader in technologies for clean energy and sustainability. She has significantly advanced understanding of materials and catalysts and has developed innovative manufacturing processes involved in fuel cell technologies, storage materials, and electrochemical sensors for health applications, leading to higher-performance, commercially viable clean energy systems.” That deep background in energy innovation includes hydrogen research.” Maric has been issued six patents over the course of her career. She knows hydrogen.

The application has been greeted with enthusiasm as UConn representatives, old hands at knowing how to do business at the LOB, have explained the public-private partnership to legislative leaders. Research into using hydrogen for energy generation will entail decarbonizing it into “green hydrogen.” That process is explained here. Hydrogen does have persistent critics in the competitive business of energy research and development.

The Department of Energy will provide $8 billion for hydrogen research under the Bipartisan Infrastructure and Jobs Act. The UConn/Pratt & Whitney application is separate from the regional consortium of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and Connecticut that is seeking to create a “hydrogen hub” in the Northeast. New York is the lead state in that hydrogen alliance, according to UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz.

Not everyone in state government shares UConn’s excitement for the proposal. Resistance to this innovative hydrogen energy research application may cause Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Katherine Dykes’ nomination to remain on the House calendar without action.

Connecticut has served for decades as the home of public and private hydrogen research and development of hydrogen fuels cells as the industry has struggled to find a significant advance that will be make the technology affordable and widely available.

Published February 6, 2023.

Murphy omits some facts in fundraising bid. His re-election campaign began long ago. As of December 31st, Friends of Chris Murphy had $3.9 million in the bank. It spent $1.5 million on operating expenses in 2021 and 2022.

Nevertheless, he announced he has only just begun today:

Hey Kevin, Chris Murphy here. I just kicked off my re-election, and I need your support to make sure we’re ready for the challenges ahead.

The truth is that Senate campaigns, even in a state like Connecticut, are ridiculously expensive. But unlike a lot of my colleagues, I try to raise money the right way. 100% from people and not a dime of PAC money. I also limit my time at fundraising events and don’t spend all day begging billionaires for money. My job is to focus on the work you elected me to do.

I think raising money the right way is good for our democracy. But it means I count that much more on grassroots donations from people like you.

So if you are with me and agree that this is the way we should run campaigns, I am humbly asking you to contribute today:

Politicians have wrecked the common meaning of “humbly” and “humility.” A safe seat has caused Murphy to develop an aversion to PAC money. His attitude was different in the crunch. When the Democrat faced more competitive campaigns he was a longtime favorite of Northeast Utilities (NU) before it merged with Eversource.

Published February 6, 2023.

Published February 3, 2023.

The University of Connecticut School of Law has found a safe harbor from the annual ordeal of the US News ratings. It will follow the example of several top-rated schools and not participate in providing information. The school fell from 50th place to 64th in the last two years.

The announcement came Tuesday afternoon from Dean and Professor of Law Eboni S. Nelson. The message included everything but an audible sigh of relief that UConn Law administrators will be permitted a shrug if the bad news continues. “The decision not to participate derives from our long-held belief that the U.S. News rankings do not appropriately measure or adequately capture UConn Law’s strengths and values or the life-transformative education experience we offer our students.” Nelson complained in her message that “U.S. News’ overreliance on quantitative measures such as admissions test scores, GPAs, and faculty and staff expenditures, neglects qualitative attributes that create a truly rewarding law school experience and prepare students for successful and meaningful careers.”

Nelson’s long explanation repudiates common measures of a law school standards and argues instead that UConn is not like the rest and should not be measured by them.

US News has announced it will continue to publish rankings. Brace yourselves.

Published February 1, 2023.

There was a time when prosecutors would avoid the company of twice-convicted federal felons. In Connecticut, that time is a memory. Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Susan Hatfield joined in a jolly photograph Tuesday night with John G. Rowland, the three-term former governor who was convicted in 2004 and jailed in 2005 on for committing corrupt acts while governor. The Republican was convicted again in 2014 on conspiracy, obstruction and falsifying documents charges.

Hatfield is a $121,000 a year state prosecutor with 20 years of experience. She was the 2018 Republican candidate for attorney general. Hatfield was defeated by Democrat William Tong. She also served as the interim state party chairman after the abrupt resignation of J.R. Romano.

Tuesday’s Republican event featured a roast of former party chairman Chris Healy, an early and defiant critic of Rowland during the scandal that traumatized Connecticut in 2003 and 2004. Healy now lobbies for the Catholic church.

Stamford Republican Andy Wainwright stands between Healy and Hatfield.

Published February 1, 2023.

Paul Mounds, Governor Ned Lamont’s former chief of staff, remains on the state payroll. Mounds continues to receive more than $4,000 a week from taxpayers–plus the state’s generous employee benefits.

Lamont spokesman Adam Joseph tells Daily Ructions that Mounds “is still an active state employee. Paul agreed to work through the month of January to assist with the transition.” The job ends Friday, February 3rd.

It’s an unusual arrangement. The governor announced on November 15th that Mounds’s deputy, Jonathan Dach, would serve as chief of staff in the second Lamont administration. That announcement, a week after Lamont’s re-election, provided seven weeks for the transition to a deputy. It was not enough in the curious world of the governor’s office.

Rebel Dog Coffee Co. in East Hartford has served an auxiliary state office as Mounds assists with the transition to his longtime deputy.

Published February 1, 2023.

Members of the General Assembly, if the concluding pandemic will continue to cause you to do the people’s business from a distance, please mute your Zoom. This sort of moment lets too much light in on the mysteries of the sausage factory.

Published January 31, 2023.

ConnectiCare Medicare Advantage members received notice last week that the health insurer and Prospect hospitals and its medical group providers will no longer provide services to plan members beginning May 1st. ConnectiCare told its members it was not able to reach an agreement with Waterbury Hospital, Manchester Memorial Hospital, Rockville Hospital and Prospect Provider Group Connecticut.

Failure to reach an agreement, the letter announced to members, “means the health care professionals you have been seeing for treatment [at those hospitals and the provider group] may no longer be part of ConnectiCare’s network.” The Connecticut-based insurer told members they “may still be able to continue care with your doctor if they are affiliated with another participating hospital or provider group in our network.”

ConnectiCare members will be able to continue to use Prospect hospitals and doctors through April 30th. Other eligibility rules for certain treatments and conditions may extend the eligibility period.

Prospect may soon be replaced by Yale-New Haven in negotiations with ConnectiCare. Yale-New Haven’s takeover of Prospect’s Connecticut holdings awaits state regulators’ approvals. The takeover may not change the result in the brutal world of escalating hospital costs and harsh negotiating tactics.

Published January 31, 2023.

Members of the Executive and Legislative Nominations Committee will be batting for their colleagues on Tuesday. The committee takes up the renomination of Michelle Gilman to serve as Commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) at its 10 a.m. meeting.

The meeting will be streamed on the committee’s YouTube channel.

Gilman is the most elusive and nonsense-generating Lamont nominee the committee will face this term. She has shown herself heedless in refusing to respond with meaningful answers to questions posed by legislators of both parties. The confirmation hearing provides a crucial occasion for institutional integrity to overcome blind party partisanship.

Gilman parachuted into the job last year as waves from the school construction scandal continued to lap at the Governor Ned Lamont’s office after Josh Geballe resigned. Some of what appeared to be the subject of a federal criminal investigation occurred while Geballe’s agency was home to the Office of School Construction Grants & Review (OSCG&R). Gilman shutdown all inquiries by pledging an audit of the program.

When the finance committee held a meeting on the school construction grants program, Senate co-chairman John Fonfara served as Gilman’s blocker in preventing questions about specific school construction progress. Gilman pledged to commission an audit of the program that would include periodic updates for legislators. The barebones audit was released late in the day on Friday, January 21st. Gilman served the legislature one heaping helping of whitewash.

Tuesday provides legislators to remind Lamont, Gilman and themselves that they are members of an equal branch of government at a critical moment. Holding one of the governor’s nominations on the House calendar at the behest of two lobbyists makes a point, but not the one House leaders believe they did. Members will diminish themselves and the institution they serve if they allow Gilman to execute her wordy dodge in answer to reasonable inquiries about the people’s business.

Members of the nominations committee ought to ask Gilman on Tuesday why auditors spoke to no local officials in performing the audit of the school construction grant program. Who imposed that severe limitation and why? Who decided to discard Gilman’s promise and provide no updates on the progress of the audit?

The CT Mirror reported last week that DAS has terminated a contract with hazardous waste remediation company AAIS. The Mirror reported last year that the company had received most of the purchase orders under the state’s contracts for emergency services. DAS announced it terminated the AAIS contract “in the best interest of the state.” What criteria did it use to decide what was in the best interest of the state? What did DAS officials learn recently about AAIS that they did not know months ago? How was it in the best interest of the state to commission an audit of the school construction grant program by precluding auditors from speaking with local officials?

Has Gilman asked employees who work in OSCG&R if they were aware of the unusual course the no-bid construction of Tolland’s Birch Grove Primary School took? Did they raise any concerns about alleged threats to withhold project funding if Tolland officials did not hire contractors former program director Kostantinos Diamantis may have favored? If not, why were they silent? Isn’t it in the public interest to know?

Did any DAS employees know that Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP) received half a million dollars on the Tolland project while employing Diamantis’s daughter–who had a full-time state job? Did Gilman ask what did they know and when did they know it? When did they know that CAP was hired on a Hartford school construction to perform the same jobs as another owner advocate? Has Gilman asked? Isn’t it in the public’s interest to know?

The portable classrooms at Birch Grove cost $9 million. What happened to them? Isn’t it in the public interest to know?

The DAS website did not post a press release from May of last year until a week ago. Does the agency do nothing in those months that it wanted the public to know?

Is Gilman aware of any DAS employees receiving subpoenas to testify before a grand jury about any DAS program? Isn’t it in the public interest to know?

Published January 30, 2023.

Katherine Scharf Dykes is alone on the House calendar. Democrats did not act Thursday on her reappointment as Commissioner of the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP).

The delay is unrelated to Dykes’ costly bungling of energy policy. Enough House members are dismayed over the inclusion of hard cider on the 2022 expanded bottle bill. Members believed they had an agreement that hard cider would not be included in the containers subject to a ten cent deposit.

A DEEP explanation of its administration of the bill notes “that Public Act 21-58 makes explicit that spirit-based beverages labeled or marketed as hard seltzers are covered, due to the inclusion of ‘hard seltzer’ in the definition of ‘carbonated beverage.'” Enough House members feel betrayed by Dykes that they prevailed upon leaders to meet in session Thursday without taking up the resolution confirming Dykes.

The impetus for the Dykes delay was hard cider but the controversy gave House Democratic leaders an opportunity early in the session to remind the Lamont administration that Democrats in the legislature possess independent authority and may choose now and then to exercise it. They are not the hired help.

The House meets again in February on a day to be announced.

Published January 27, 2023.