Today’s Register has a front page story on how New Haven has drastically cut energy expenditures even as energy costs rise all over the state. The savings result from a combination of common-sense measures, such as dimming lights during off-peak hours, and more high-tech solutions, such as using boilers that can use either oil or natural gas depending on which is cheaper. Total savings to the city last year were $5 million. Check out the whole Register article.

New Haven’s innovative and successful energy conservation program is just one example of how, under Mayor DeStefano’s leadership, the size and cost of government has shrunk, while the scope of services provided has actually expanded. It is also the kind of creative problem-solving this state needs its governor to be able to lead.

Other highlights of how the city’s energy conservation program and environmental policies have saved taxpayer money: by 2010, savings from energy-efficient lighting are expected to reach $40 million; cutting pollution has saved the city an approximated $4 million in health costs; shifting the city fleet to renewable energy and fuel cell cars saves taxpayer money on gas.

Today, Mayor DeStefano will enter into a friendly wager with West Hartford Mayor Scott Slifka.  New Haven and West Hartford currently lead the state in the number of the residents who have signed up for the Clean Energy Option on their electric bill. As the leaders on Clean Energy New Haven (192 residents enrolled) & West Hartford (275 residents enrolled) want to encourage municipalities from throughout the state to promote the use of Clean Energy . 

The goal of the challenge: be the municipality that signs up the most people for the CTCleanEnergyOptions by Earth Day, April 22nd, 2006.  The terms: the looser must wear the tee-shirt of the other’s city next Earth Day – the winner, gets lunch. 

Every 1,000 residences signing up for clean energy is the equivalent of saving 861,826 gallons of gasoline per year. With rising gas costs and consumers unwilling to alter driving habits we need to be conservation conscious. Energy costs affect everything – from the cost of driving to the cost of doing business. We all need to be mindful – the question is what are you willing to do?

Tomorrow Mayor DeStefano will give brief remarks at the Mutual Housing Groundbreaking event at Ferry Street. This will be an exciting event because this affordable housing being built will incorporate green technology. By insulating the roofs with grass the houses will benefit with cooler temperatures in the summers, added warmth in the winters and will help with drainage. Similar green technologies are being incorporated in the construction of Barnard School in New Haven where earlier this spring the Mayor unveiled Connecticut’s largest solar project. Where have you seen green technology be put to use? How could the state make it easier to incorporate green technology into your life?

Sometimes a good idea takes a while to catch on. Sometimes people and companies suffer for taking to long to pick up a good idea and run with it. Take hybrids as an example. Toyota lost money on every hybrid it sold for the first couple years. Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors suggested that hybrids made more sense in Tokyo than they do in the United States. Selling hybrids was one way to raise a company’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standard. Yet the large American car companies fought increases in the CAFE standard.

The CAFE Standard was passed back in the early 70s in response to the Arab Oil embargo. In 1987, the total fleet fuel economy peaked at 26.2 miles per gallon. Light trucks, which adhere to a lower standard, only made up 28% of the market. By 2001 light trucks had become 47% of the market and the total fleet fuel economy had dropped back to 24.4 miles per gallon.

I would like to thank everyone for their warm welcome and wise comments. In particular, I want to pick up on “JGA”’s comments about organizing, morality, and new ideas. I hope this blog can really help people across Connecticut with this, and I plan on coming back to these themes.

Earth Day provides a good focus for this. From a morality perspective, the religious amongst us will recognize that we are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. Yet unfortunately, too often public policy doesn’t reflect this. So, we need to organize as concerned citizens. Thirty-Five years ago, twenty million people across America participated in the first Earth Day. Now, it is an annual event. The EPA has a website about Earth Day. You can follow the links to local activities, but unfortunately, none are listed for Connecticut.

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection has a website dedicated to Earth Day with a lot of great ideas. I hope everyone goes out and does something special for Earth Day.

Mayor DeStefano has already shown great commitment to the environment. After I had breakfast with him to discuss the website, we chatted briefly beside my 2001 hybrid car. He has a newer hybrid and we compared mileage. It is great to be working with a person that takes a personal interest in cleaner and more efficient transportation.

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One of the moments that made me realize how much I like Mayor DeStefano was last spring when he traded his Lincoln Navigator for a hybrid Toyota Prius. It would have been easy for him to keep his SUV: lots of politicians drive big cars, and the Mayor liked his for its size and style. But he made the switch to set an example.

Attaching the “1:NH” license plate that's reserved for the Mayor to a hybrid made visible Mayor DeStefano's commitment to the environment and to a wide range of renewable energy programs that are making New Haven's air safer to breathe. Even more than that, making the switch showed me that the Mayor could change, and that he had a sense of humor about himself—2 things that are probably even harder to find in a politician than a commitment to the environment.

I also liked that Mayor DeStefano didn't think setting an example was enough. New Haven started offering free parking to hybrid cars that registered with the city. Unlike the federal government, which shows no sign of regulating the destructive impact inefficient cars have on America's environment, New Haven decided to offer clear, reasonable, and just plain useful incentives to drivers who decided to do the right thing.