| State Senator Dan Debicella (R-21)
has been named to the state’s new task force to
create recommendations on how to lower the cost of the
energy and plan for long-term energy availability.
“The cost of energy is the number one issue right
now—and we need to take action to lower the price
of gas and home heating oil immediately,” said
Senator Debicella. “But we also need to take a
long-range view to make sure this energy price inflation
is solved. We cannot have our heads in the sand like
we have in the past two decades.”
The Task Force To Study Energy Scarcity and Sustainability
was created this year by HB 5724, which was passed 36-0
in the State Senate and 150-1 in the State House of
Representatives. The task force “shall conduct
scenario planning for long-term petroleum and natural
gas scarcity, steep price increases and supply disruptions.
Such study shall include, but not be limited to, examining
price and scarcity impacts of natural gas and petroleum
on the economy, food supply, transportation, education,
health and emergency response.”
“The bottom line is we need to pull every lever
we have to increase the supply of energy in Connecticut—we
need to lower taxes on energy, allow more drilling and
refining of domestic oil, and encourage widespread adoption
of cost-effective alternative energy,” said Senator
Debicella.
“We can immediately provide relief to Connecticut
families in the form of a tax cut on gas,” said
Senator Debicella. “Because our tax on oil is
a percentage of the price, it has gone up with the price
of oil—resulting in a nearly $100 million in surplus
in our transportation fund. We should give that money
back to Connecticut families through a cut in our energy
taxes.”
“More importantly—we can do that immediately.
There is no need to study anything. We should cut that
tax now,” said Senator Debicella.
“But cutting the tax will not solve the problem
in the long run, and my hope is that this task force
will develop specific policy around two core ideas:
increasing domestic production of oil and natural gas,
and developing widespread adoption of alternative energy,”
said Senator Debicella.
“While this is more a federal than a state issue,
we need to increase the supply of oil (and natural gas)
produced in the United States. Specifically, we need
to find environmentally-friendly locations to drill
for more oil and increase refinery capacity. While we
do not want to drill for oil in environmentally sensitive
areas, there are several large mid-ocean deposits of
oil in Gulf of Mexico and other areas that could be
tapped with minimal disruption to the environment,”
said Senator Debicella.
“Equally important is increasing refining capacity.
We could drill for all the raw oil we want, but we need
to refine it into useable gasoline and home heating
oil. However, we have not built a new refinery in this
country in decades—squeezing our domestic oil
supply. Our refinery capacity is so tight that when
one of them goes out, it sends prices soaring. For instance,
the current oil price explosion started when Hurricane
Katrina knocked out refineries in the Gulf of Mexico,
and gas first shot up to $3 per gallon. Again, while
we need to take environmental factors into account in
deciding where to build the refineries, the federal
government must take action to increase domestic oil
supply,” said Senator Debicella.
“Finally, in the long term Connecticut needs
to explore alternative sources of energy that are both
sustainable and environmentally friendly. While much
of this technology is five to ten years away from being
practical, we need to diversify away from oil and natural
gas. Connecticut can take a lead on this, given our
concentration of universities and educated science and
engineering workforce,” said Senator Debicella
“I believe the General Assembly needs to give
tax credits to those exploring economically feasible
options such as fuel cells, biodiesel, and tidal power.
We need two types of tax credits here. First, we need
tax credits for research and development of new technologies.
Second (and more importantly) we need to have tax credits
for consumers to adopt new technology. Often the barrier
is getting the first wave of consumers to adopt new
technology, and Connecticut should offer these incentives
once technologies are proven,” said Senator Debicella.
“My hope is that the Task Force will take these
concepts and turn them into policy,” said Senator
Debicella. “We can cut the gas tax immediately,
but we need a coherent long-term policy to increase
energy supply in Connecticut.”
| 
