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I have continued to be astounded by the behavior of Groton officials, both elected politicians and town staff members, as the debacle of trying to give away a prominent property in town to someone with a criminal history of bribing New York City officials and a spotty record of development in Connecticut, where one of his three principal projects remains unfinished after 11 years, continues to unfold.

You would think, as unsettling as it may be that both the town and the state made elaborate deals to give Jeffrey Respler the former Mystic Oral School and its 40 acres and help him overdevelop it, that the freshly revealed truth about his criminal history and development failings would at least trigger some soul-searching.

But, no, instead it's all been denial,finger-pointing orthe attempted laying of blame on others.

And it's not clear to me how the state and town are going to back out of the signed deals in which the state has agreed to sell Respler the property for $1 and the town has promised to help him at every stage of carrying out the overwrought and massive development he has proposed.

The only glimmer of good government in all this was an advisory from the town's volunteer Planning & Zoning Commission, that it would reject the ridiculous scale of the project being cultivated by the town staff and proposed by a developer with a criminal history of bribing public officials.

The people of Groton are largely represented by Democrats, both in town government and in Hartford, and, I'm sorry to say, as a Democrat, that one-party rule is proving in this instance to not work very well.

One of the few Groton Republicans in town with authority, however, hasn't done much to help, either.

State Sen. Heather Somers certainly hasn't called for accountability or an investigation of the state Department of Economic and Community Development for developing a contract with Respler that doesn't even hold him accountable to do anything with the state property after he buys it for $1.

"I've been contacted by many, many individuals, and I have encouraged them to contact their town councilors and local town leaders," Somers told The Day earlier this month.

State government is equally responsible for this mess and the state senator representing Groton should be insisting that they clean it up, not just pass the buck to the town.

Recent comments from state Rep. Joe de la Cruz, a Groton Democrat, that he's "100% for the project" are even more troubling. Could his head really be buried that deep in the sand?

I think maybe the most shocking comments about the unfolding disaster came from Town Councilor Lian Obrey, who actually sat on the committee that chose Respler in the first place.

"I don't want to be swayed by someone digging into somebody's past," Obrey told The Day this month about revelations that Respler plead guilty to crimes prosecuted by the New York attorney general's office task force againstorganized crime.

Councilor Obrey should resign immediately if she's not concerned about the town helping a developer with a criminal record of giving $40,000 in cash bribes to public officials. The implication is she believes his criminal history should have remained buried.

Conrad Heede, Democratic town chair and a town councilor who served with Obrey on the committee that selected Respler, should also resign, as he, too, has refused to acknowledge the mistake.

"I believe the project is dead," Heede wrote to Town Manager John Burt in an email in May, as he referred not to the revelations about the bad choice made by the committee he served on but to the protests by neighbors alarmed by what was being foisted on them.

"Opposition is too loud, too mean spirited and too well organized ... Better to walk away if possible than spend more political capital to make it happen," the party chairman wrote to the town manager.

The town manager also has been practicing a lot of laying of blame, including finger-pointing at the poor residents whose beloved neighborhood has been under attack.

Town Manager Burt, in a long, rambling email to town councilors in May, portrayed himself and his staff, incredibly, as victims.

"We are all getting hammered on this project and feeling the stress," Burt wrote to councilors. "The staff has to worry about this directly affecting our careers when people call for our resignations or say we're taking bribes."

"(The town attorney,) after hearing comments from the public, said they are on the verge of the legal definition of defamation against the staff. We are getting singled out by name or title regularly," he wrote.

I don't see where anyone has learned any lessons from the terrible consequences of not listening to residents and their reasonable concerns about one of the largest developments ever proposed in the town.

Maybe some lessons will be learned from what seems like a predictable political realignment in Groton.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

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Groton Democrats preside over a broken government - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

The Democrats fragile package of sweeping climate and infrastructure legislation might end up being held together by a technology known as carbon capture and storage. That is, if it doesnt pull it apart.

The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on a bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes billions in government support for carbon capture, which pulls carbon dioxide out of smokestack emissions or straight from the air and pumps it underground. But on Monday, a coalition of hundreds of progressive environmental groups sent an open letter to President Joe Biden and Democratic Congressional leaders calling on them to reject the technology.

Carbon capture is not a climate solution, the groups wrote in the letter, which was accompanied by an advertisement in the Washington Post. To the contrary, investing in carbon capture delays the needed transition away from fossil fuels and other combustible energy sources, and poses significant new environmental, health, and safety risks, particularly to Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities already overburdened by industrial pollution, dispossession, and the impacts of climate change.

The letter reflects a split that has emerged in the advocacy community and among Democrats. Many of the nations most influential, mainstream environmental groups did not sign the letter, while those organizations that did sign included more left-leaning, justice-focused and local groups.

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, has taken on an increasingly central role in climate policy discussions over the last couple of years. It is one of the few climate actions that draws bipartisan support. Most major labor unions also support CCS, arguing that its deployment could provide new jobs and help extend the life of some gas or coal-burning power plants, which often provide high-paying union jobs. And the fossil fuel industries have promoted the technology for decades.

Some environmental groups have also thrown their support behind carbon capture technology, arguing that it could prove critical to meeting ambitious climate goals. Global emissions have continued to rise, they note, and the world is already experiencing dangerous impacts of warming like the heat waves, fires and floods that hit North America and Europe in recent weeks. In particular, these organizations say, CCS could be attached to industrial sources like steel and cement manufacturing, which do not currently have good emissions-free alternatives, and might allow carbon dioxide to be pulled straight from the air to help bring atmospheric concentrations back to safer levels.

But some progressive groups, and many that are focused on environmental justice, have opposed carbon capture, saying that it only serves to extend the life of fossil fuels when those fuels should instead be phased out as rapidly as possible.

If the argument is, we should not stop burning fossil fuels, were finished with the conversation, said Natalie Mebane, policy director for 350.org, which was among the groups that signed the letter. Because we are going to stop burning fossil fuels.

As with so many national policy discussions this year, much may revolve around Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who is a moderate, a long-time supporter of the fossil fuel industry and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Last week, that committee approved legislation that will serve as language for the energy sections of a larger infrastructure package. The bill includes billions of dollars to support CCS, including measures that aim to finance and speed development of infrastructure to transport carbon dioxide from industrial capture sites to underground storage locations and money for producing hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture technology.

Thats a huge first, said Brad Crabtree, who runs the Carbon Capture Coalition, which includes companies from the coal, oil and other industrial sectors, as well as unions and some environmental groups. It would be a policy of global significance if it is adopted.

The carbon capture provisions could prove critical to maintaining Manchins support for a separate, more expansive budget deal that would address climate change and other issues, and would require the support of all 50 Senate Democrats to pass. Climate advocates have been pushing for that deal to include a clean electricity standard that would require utilities to move to carbon-free sources of energy, and a major question has been what types of energy could count as clean. Last week, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) issued a statement saying her proposed clean electricity standard, which counts fossil fuel plants with CCS as clean, had made it into the agreement.

A spokeswoman for Smith declined to comment further.

Energy companies have been lobbying for increased government support for carbon capture and storage. In June, Greenpeace UK released an interview it had conducted undercover with an ExxonMobil lobbyist, Keith McCoy, who identified the technology as one of the companys top lobbying priorities. McCoy, who believed he was speaking with a recruiter looking to hire a lobbyist, said Exxon was seeking support for the technology in the bipartisan infrastructure package.

Were entering into the carbon capture space, so now were talking about how do we get the government to support some of our activities, McCoy said, according to a transcript of the interview provided to Inside Climate News.

McCoy identified a tax credit known as 45Q, which can be claimed by companies that capture carbon dioxide from their operations, as a key component of that government support.

Lawmakers have introduced several bills this year that would extend and increase the value of that tax credit, and Crabtree said his group hopes to see elements of those bills included in the Democrats budget deal.

As Inside Climate News reported last year, Exxon has probably benefited more than any other company from the tax credit, and may have received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax benefits from it over the last decade, according to estimates based on public records. While the IRS said last year that $1 billion had been claimed under the credit, it does not disclose which companies have claimed the credit or how much any individual company has received.

ICN provides award-winning, localized climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going.

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Some advocates have pointed to Exxons use of the tax credit to argue that carbon capture and storage is an example of how the fossil fuel industry has manipulated policy in its favor. One of the only current markets for captured carbon dioxide is the oil industry, which injects the gas into depleted oil wells to squeeze more petroleum from the ground. Under the tax credit, companies are allowed to claim it even if they sell the CO2 for this use, and that is exactly what Exxon does with the carbon dioxide captured from its natural gas processing plant in Wyoming.

How in the world is that a climate-related tax credit? Mebane said. The letter sent to Biden and the Democratic leaders by the progressive groups calls for lawmakers to prohibit the use of the tax credit when carbon dioxide is used for oil production. The letter was also signed by some Canadian environmental groups and sent to leaders in that country, where the oil industry is pursuing plans to build carbon capture plants.

A spokesman for Exxon declined to comment.

As oil companies have come under pressure from investors and advocates to transition their businesses, many have turned more attention to CCS. In April, Exxon announced a proposal to create a CCS hub in Houston, where industrial plants would be fitted with the technology and linked together with pipelines to carry the gas to underground storage sites. The company said the effort could cost $100 billion, and would need government support.

The proposal highlighted another concern of some environmental groups: Even if such a CCS hub was able to eliminate all the carbon dioxide from industrial sources, it might do little about the toxic pollution emitted by the refineries, petrochemical plants and other sources that have burdened environmental justice communities with unhealthy air.

Crabtree said that because the government will play a role in financing and supporting its development, policymakers could require that carbon capture deployment be paired with other technologies to address these harmful pollutants, too. And he pointed to the technologys bipartisan support as evidence that it ought to be part of any climate bill.

Its not an either or proposition here, he said. It has to be an and.

Nicholas Kusnetz is a reporter for Inside Climate News. Before joining ICN, he worked at the Center for Public Integrity and ProPublica. His work has won numerous awards, including from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and has appeared in more than a dozen publications, including The Washington Post, Businessweek, The Nation, Fast Company and The New York Times. You can reach Nicholas at nicholas.kusnetz@insideclimatenews.org and securely at nicholas.kusnetz@protonmail.com.

More:
Will the Democrats Climate Legislation Hinge on Carbon Capture? - InsideClimate News

AUSTIN Rep. Harold Dutton returned to the House floor in Austin on Tuesday after joining breakaway Democrats in Washington last week and even launched a solo effort to wrest concessions in a GOP-backed election bill.

Dutton, the third longest-serving member of the Texas House and one whos not afraid to defy his fellow Democrats surprised Republican colleagues with his return.

Hed missed seven days of the special session, and his absence helped Democrats block action on the voting bill and all other items that Gov. Greg Abbott has placed on the agenda.

In an interview at his Capitol office, Dutton explained that he decamped from Washington, D.C., on Saturday for family reasons his sister, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz., is staying at Duttons home in Houston while she undergoes chemotherapy.

Over the weekend, after tending to domestic items such as having a broken garage-door opener repaired, Dutton said he heard about the outbreak of coronavirus infections among his Democratic colleagues in Washington.

Dutton said he decided it was unwise for him to return to the nations capital.

I thought, I cant do that because I cant expose myself [to COVID-19] and then I come back home to her because her white blood cell count is down because shes taking chemotherapy, he recounted.

So I thought, I cant go back there. So I thought, Well, OK, maybe Ill just go to Austin. Ill go to see Murr.

Dutton was referring to Junction GOP Rep. Andrew Murr, the Houses lead author of the election integrity bill for the special session, House Bill 3. Republicans say the bill is needed to prevent voter fraud, while Democrats say it would suppress the votes of minorities and give credence to former President Donald Trumps unfounded claims the 2020 election was stolen.

In Washington, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Chris Turner of Grand Prairie on Tuesday noted that Dutton stopped short of signaling early last week that hed be AWOL for the remainder of the 30-day session. It must end no later than Aug. 6.

Representative Dutton was with us for a few days in DC, Turner said. He was not, however, one of the 57 members who signed a letter last week when we left [Austin], instructing the journal clerk at the Texas House of Representatives to lock our voting machines until we returned.

Dutton suggested one reason he was free to return to Austin was that his sisters son finally arrived in Houston.

Im taking it day by day, he said when asked what he plans to do for the rest of the special session.

Although Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, and most of the 83 House Republicans who have remained in Austin have voted to ask the chambers sergeant-at-arms go find the missing Democrats, and use peace officers if necessary to compel their return, Dutton said the Texas Department of Public Safety didnt find him after he returned to Houston.

Nor did they catch him speeding as he drove to Austin early Tuesday, he quipped.

In the regular session, Dutton, 76, whos served in the chamber for 36 years, clashed with many fellow Democrats over a Senate-passed measure that would bar transgender children from competing in athletic contests with members of a sex different from the one listed on their birth certificates.

Dutton, whom Phelan this year appointed as chairman of the Public Education Committee, helped Republicans revive the bill, which was believed to be dead, in early May.

LGBTQ advocates said Dutton did so to retaliate against members of his own party whod derailed his bill to virtually guarantee replacement of Houston school trustees with a state-appointed board. Dutton disputed that accusation, telling the Texas Tribune he had been consistent in putting bills up for a vote if they had the support to pass the committee.

Recriminations continued for several days, though the transgender sports bill died because the full House didnt take it up before a bill-passing deadline in late May.

On Tuesday, Dutton said he decided to take a stab at wresting some concessions on the voting bill.

The bill constricts access, even though it does it in sort of a benign way, he said. But the reality is it has a disproportionate impact on Black and brown people.

Asked what specifically hed ask Murr to change, Dutton cited a provision that would give freedom of movement at polling places to partisan poll watchers.

It gives more authority on Election Day to a poll watcher than it does to a precinct judge, he said.

Dutton also objects, he said, to the bills prohibition on experiments to expand participation, such as Harris Countys allowance last fall of drive-through voting and 24-hour voting at a few locations.

The people who benefitted from that were more Black and brown than they were white, he said.

Link:
Breakaway Texas Democrat returns for family reasons, goes to Austin to seek voting bill changes - The Dallas Morning News

One of six Texas lawmakers who fled to Washington to stop a controversial voting bill and later tested positive for COVID-19 said he and the others are showing few symptoms and vowed to keep fighting from his hotel room.

It wasn't expected. But here we are. We'll be fine, said Rep. Ramon Romero of Fort Worth.

Romero said he tested positive on Sunday.

The latest news from around North Texas.

The only thing causing me to take notice was that I had a little runny nose, he said. Its been really tough for me.

He said its tough because he has to quarantine for two weeks in his hotel room not because of the illness itself.

Romero said he was vaccinated in January and was not sick previously.

A photo of Romero and other Democratic lawmakers flying on a private plane from Austin to Washington showed none of them wore masks. They said at the time they were safe because they were all vaccinated.

Asked if he regrets not wearing a mask on the plane, Romero said, You know, I can't say I necessarily regret it. I regret not understanding this virus fully."

Early in their trip. Romero and his colleagues met with Vice President Kamala Harris. She later tested negative.

Romero said he has no idea where any of them got the virus, adding he'll always wear a mask in public now and take other precautions.

"If you've been exposed to someone out there in public you really should really quarantine whether you've been vaccinated or not, he said.

As for the standoff with Republicans, Romero described Democrats as united like never before.

"There is work to be done and God knows we have time on our hands, he said.

Read more here:
We'll Be Fine': Fort Worth Democrat With COVID-19 in Washington Vows to Keep Up Fight - NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Political polls regarding US elections in 2020 overstated Democratic support across the board, US political scientists found, while understating support for Republicans and Donald Trump.

The finding, which will alarm Democrats aiming to hold on to their narrow control of the US House and Senate in 2022, is contained in a new study by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Josh Clinton, a Vanderbilt University professor and AAPOR taskforce member, told the Washington Post: There was a systematic error that was found in terms of the overstatement for Democratic support across the board.

It didnt matter what type of poll you were doing, whether youre interviewing by phone or internet or whatever. And it didnt matter what type of race, whether Trump was on the ballot or was not on the ballot.

Polls were better at predicting support for Joe Biden against Trump in the presidential election than for Democrats in state elections, the study said.

In 2020, polling pointed to Democratic gains in the House, only for Republicans to eat into the majority which made Nancy Pelosi speaker in 2018.

Parties which hold the White House often lose seats in midterm elections. Republicans in Washington are duly bullish about their chances of retaking the House next year, boosted by GOP-run state governments implementing laws meant to restrict voting among communities likely to vote Democratic and to make it easier to overturn results.

Speaking at a conservative conference earlier this year, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, said: Were going to get the majority back I would bet my house.

The AAPOR study found that polls were more accurate in predicting a popular-vote win for Biden, a contest he eventually won by more than 7m ballots.

The electoral college result was 306-232, the same margin by which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, when the Republican lost the popular vote by only 2.8m.

On Monday, the AAPOR website was down for maintenance. As quoted by the Post, its study said: That the polls overstated Bidens support more in whiter, more rural, and less densely populated states is suggestive (but not conclusive) that the polling error resulted from too few Trump supporters responding to polls.

A larger polling error was found in states with more Trump supporters.

Josh Clinton, the Vanderbilt professor, said: Its possible that if President Trump is no longer on the ticket or if its a midterm election where we know that the electorate differs in the presidential election, that the issue will kind of self-resolve itself.

But if the polls do well in 2022, then we dont know if the issue is solved or whether its just a phenomenon thats unique to presidential elections, with particular candidates who are making appeals about Dont trust the news, dont trust the polls that kind of results in taking polls becoming a political act.

Read more:
Polls overstated Democratic support across the board in 2020 elections, study shows - The Guardian