Issue Position: Environment

Issue Position

It was environmental advocacy that first stimulated my interest in politics. As a teenager, I volunteered to clean up our Connecticut River riverfront, thinking that it was such a shame that our government didn't do more to prevent that type of pollution. I have carried that belief into government. My first real political battle was over an environmental issue. As a 24-year-old member of my local Planning and Zoning Commission, I became involved in a local movement to oppose the placement of a giant power plant on fragile wetlands. The system, it seemed, was broken. Local residents and town governments were not being given the authority needed to ensure that their precious natural resources would be preserved.

My neighbors and I called on our State Representative to assist us in our fight, but he failed us. So, I decided to run for the General Assembly myself. I challenged that State Representative, and when I won, the first bill I introduced was legislation empowering local governments in protecting delicate wetlands against power plant development.

As a member of the Environment Committee for two of my four terms in the state legislature, I wrote and passed legislation that would protect our pristine reservoirs from development, and I was an early co-sponsor of legislation that gave Connecticut one of the strictest auto emission standards in the nation. I fought to keep our air and water clean, and to preserve open space.

When I came to Congress, I sought out and earned the Co-Chairmanship of the Congressional Land Conservation Caucus so that I could have a key role in crafting legislation to protect open space across the country. Leading the Caucus, I was proud to help pass a retroactive two-year extension of the vital land conservation income tax deduction in May 2008. This tax deduction promotes the use of conservation "easements," which allow private landowners to retain ownership, control, and management of their property while ensuring that the physical integrity of those lands will be conserved for the future. This tax incentive has helped to spur responsible land conservation in Connecticut, helping make preservation a more attractive option over development for many landowners.

I also led the passage of a bill to protect central Connecticut's Metacomet Monadnock Mattabesett (MMM) Trail. After a year of advocating for its designation as a "National Scenic Trail", the House of Representatives passed a bill naming the MMM Trail as only the ninth scenic trail designated in the 40-year history of National Trails System, providing important conservation and management resources to preserve the trail.

I have also been a leader on the fight against global warming, working with the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform to garner support for his bill, the Safe Climate Act, amongst my fellow freshmen Members of Congress. The bill would direct the federal government to help reduce U.S. emissions of the pollutants that cause global warming to 1990 levels by 2020.

I am also pushing the Right to Clean Vehicles Act, which would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) wrongheaded decision to deny California's effort to require stricter vehicle emissions standards. The bill would give Connecticut the authority to implement tailpipe emissions standards immediately and allow other states to opt-in in the future, allowing us to take a leading role in fighting global warming right here in Connecticut.

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