HartfordBusiness.com
April 21, 2014
By Brad Kane
Key legislative leaders and energy officials have reached a tentative agreement to lift the state’s three-year ban on wind turbine development, just in time for a northeast Connecticut project to move forward.
And the Kumbaya moment probably will fall on Earth Day.
The ban likely will be lifted Tuesday, as the General Assembly’s Regulation Review Committee is poised to approve wind turbine development regulations that have been at the heart of the three-year moratorium since 2011, according to the committee’s leadership.
“I don’t think [the regulations] will have a problem this time around,” said State Rep. Selim Noujaim (R-Waterbury), co-chair of the regulation committee. “I only speak for myself as co-chair … but now is the time, and I think the whole committee will vote to pass it.”
Even if the committee doesn’t pass the regulations on Tuesday — perhaps due to a technical revision or a last-minute objection — the measure is on the road to approval, Noujaim said. The committee leadership, the governor’s office, the Siting Council, and the Department of Energy & Environmental Protection held a meeting earlier this year to hammer out the conflicts they had in order to get the ban lifted. For full article.