Climate Change and Health Seminar Series: “Addressing the climate crisis through carbon emissions reduction policy and implementation in the Governor’s Council on Climate Change”

November 15, 2022

Dr. Rebecca French joined the Center on Climate Change and Health to discuss her work with the newly formed Office of Climate Planning and state-level policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions in Connecticut.

Speaker:

Rebecca French, Director of the Office of Climate Planning, Office of the Commissioner, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection

November 7, 2022

Information

ID: 9111
To Cite: DCA Citation Guide

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00:01<v Male Speaker>Thanks for coming to today's seminar.</v>
00:05Today I'm very, very excited
00:06to have Dr. Rebecca French come here.
00:10Dr. French is the director of
00:13the Office of Climate Planning.
00:14This is new office from the Commissioner.
00:19She also was the commissioner of the
00:22Management
00:23Department for Energy and Demand production,
00:26for short, DEP.
00:28and her first charge is to administer the "Governor's
00:33Council on Climate Change"
00:36and crucially Dr. French has served as
00:38as the Director of Resilience for the CT Department
00:42of Housing and the the Director of Community Engagement
00:46for the
00:48Institute of
00:51Resilience and Climate Adaptation
00:54(audio cuts in and out) 2018
00:58and Dr. French to also spends a year in in Congress as a
01:01Congressional Science Fellow
01:03in the office of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders.
01:05Then, starting out as Policy Advisor to the Senator
01:08in the areas of energy, environment and agricultural.
01:13(audio cuts in and out)
01:16Here today to talk about climate policy
01:19especially for climate change mitigation policy.
01:22(audio cuts out)
01:27<v ->[Dr. Rebecca French] Hi everybody.</v>
01:29The mask on. Can everyone hear me?
01:31Good.
01:32What other Letting.
01:34<v ->Yeah, the.</v>
01:35<v ->Hold's.</v>
01:36<v ->Yeahs aligned to have. Oh, okay.</v>
01:39<v ->Great.</v>
01:40(beeping from notification sound)
01:44Oh that So,
01:50So good afternoon.
01:52Very happy to be here.
01:55I'll be talking about
01:59policy that have been adopted basically going out of
02:06the Governor's Council on Climate Change.
02:08I'm gonna talk a little bit about what that council is.
02:11I'm definitely gonna talk about mitigation.
02:12I'm also gonna talk a little bit about
02:14adaptation and resilience.
02:16Counsel covers both areas and then the brief presentation
02:20I'm also then happy to answer questions about this or about
02:24really anything to my background or curiosity you have
02:28about anything else.
02:32All right.
02:33There we go.
02:35Okay.
02:36So the Governor's Council on Climate Change is created
02:39through executive order
02:43from Governor Lamont.
02:45There was a Governor's Council On Climate Change under the
02:49previous governor, but it focused only on mitigation.
02:52Governor Lamont expanded it for the first time to include
02:55both carbon emissions reduction or patient and adaptation
02:59resilience.
03:00The left is Governor Ned Lamont.
03:02The right is Commissioner Katie Ducks, she is my boss,
03:06The head of Department of Energy and Protection.
03:11So again,
03:12had two objectives for this council from the governor.
03:16Monitor report and the state's implementation
03:18of greenhouse gas
03:19emissions reduction strategies.
03:20We've been working on that in Connecticut
03:22for quite a while and we
03:24haven't done as much on implementation and adaptation
03:27strategies.
03:28So we're developing a new plan in that area and assessing
03:31and preparing for the impacts of climate change.
03:33And I come more from the resilience space.
03:35So when someone says mitigation to me, someone is like,
03:37are you talking about hazard mitigation?
03:38Which is resilience?
03:40Or are you talking about mitigation meaning reducing public
03:42emissions. So,
03:43saying mitigation today, reducing emissions,
03:46stabilizing levels of heat, track house gases.
03:55This is the quick snapshot slide of the Governor's Council
04:00on Climate change process where buzzy was very much involved
04:04in this as a member of the Public Health and Safety working
04:07group,
04:08which was one of seven working groups that did the lion's
04:12share of the work of the Governor's Council.
04:14There are 23 appointed members.
04:16So it's are appointed either because they are commissioners,
04:19so the head of their agencies.
04:20So there's 10 different agencies serving on the Governor's
04:24Council.
04:25The other half of the council is organization,
04:31non-governmental organizations, industry representatives,
04:36a municipality and a council of government,
04:38which is Connecticut's equivalent kind of, of county
04:41government.
04:42We don't have county government technically we have regional
04:45planning bodies called councils of governments and,
04:49but again,
04:50the working groups are really where we develop policy
04:53concepts.
04:54Met, learned about all these different topic areas of
04:56mitigation, working natural land science, technology equity,
04:59environmental justice infrastructure and land use,
05:02public health and safety and financing options for
05:04adaptation.
05:06Together, those working groups had about 231 people.
05:11They represented over a hundred organizations and they held
05:14186 meetings,
05:18which is a little much,
05:20(Dr. French laughing)
05:20but this is in 2020.
05:23So they had just started meeting before the governor
05:27declared the stay at home emergency public health emergency.
05:31That sent everybody home from state government and we went
05:34entirely online.
05:36And so I think that was kind of one of the interesting
05:38outgrowths of doing work in the pandemic.
05:40A lot of other people's jobs had kind of paused and
05:44we actually had a lot of participation
05:46in these zoom meetings
05:48from folks who were just working from home or not working at
05:51all, not able to work at all.
05:57The result of that huge effort was this
06:04HH working group produced an individual report with
06:07recommendations overview, of sort of issues but also a list
06:11of recommendations for policies.
06:14And those policies were submitted to 22 members of the
06:17council and together
06:18they made up this report with 61 actions,
06:21each of which have multiple cards,
06:23So it's really more about 200 recommendations.
06:26And we put this out in January, 2021,
06:29presented to the governor and it's up to him to take action
06:33on, wanted to implement those recommendation.
06:38And so I'm gonna talk about what happened as a result of
06:42those recommendations and things that were very closely
06:44related.
06:47Skipping around a little bit out of order,
06:48I'm gonna talk about legislative passage,
06:50but I'm gonna start kind at the end of 2021
06:53Governor decided to sign executive order 21-3.
06:59These are 23 actions to implement
07:02about 30 plus
07:04actions
07:05recommended by the Governor's Council on Climate Change.
07:08They used the equity lens that we incorporated into all
07:12recommendations were meant to be viewed through an equity
07:14lens.
07:15And we had training on equity,
07:17environmental justice to help all the working groups make
07:21sure that was a key part of anything that they did or at
07:23least evaluate that issue and how a policy might impact it.
07:28It was informed by the best available climate science.
07:30The report includes a summary of sort of key climate
07:33impacts
07:34Connecticut expects to phase between now and 2050 and it
07:38took a whole new government approach.
07:39So often in Connecticut people think the DEP does
07:42everything. Climate not so.
07:44We do a lot, we do a lot.
07:46We're the energy and environmental. We're in the few,
07:49not the only,
07:50maybe one of the few states that combines their energy and
07:53environmental agencies into one single agency.
07:57And the main reason we did that in 2011 was to was because
08:02of climate, cause climate branch, both areas.
08:06But
08:06like I said,
08:07there's like 10 agencies involved in Governor's Council on
08:09Climate Change. Assurance, Emergency Management,
08:12Department of Public Health, Department of Transportation,
08:16not gonna name anymore but you have lots of,
08:18lots of agencies in there.
08:20Each of them had a recommendation that related to what they
08:22do.
08:26So here's some examples from transportation from this
08:30executive order 21-3 we get called for a statewide battery
08:35electric bus fleet by 2035.
08:38Basically immediately directing DOT to cease purchasing
08:43anymore diesel buses,
08:45which is what a lot of our buses were on today.
08:48So we're stopping that right now.
08:51And then the fleet will transition over the next
08:5512 years
08:56to
08:57entirely electric.
09:01And also looking at our vehicle miles, travel vehicle miles,
09:05travel reduction target and setting one.
09:09So this little graph over here is showing transportation is
09:14our largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in
09:17Connecticut.
09:19There consequently,
09:20it's also a major source of public health hazards.
09:24The city, city of Hartford,
09:26I just drove down from
09:27has the highest asthma capitals in the country
09:30and they're on major transportation corridors.
09:32What's in the intersection of haven? Anyone in 95,
09:36everyone's driving gas fired gas power vehicle,
09:39and releasing a lot of particulate matter.
09:41Knox ozone, not to mention carbon dioxide.
09:44So anyways, I know you know all that,
09:48but this is what's interesting.
09:49Even as transportation has become more fuel efficient,
09:53you'd expect emissions to go down.
09:55What's also been happening however,
09:56is that our vehicle miles travel is going up that has offset
10:00and even exceeded the efficiency gains that we've made and
10:04our cars being able to drive longer on less fuel.
10:08So basically, unless you go a hundred percent electric,
10:13in which case your vehicle
10:13miles traveled doesn't matter,
10:16guess for other reasons they matter,
10:18but in terms of congestion,
10:19but they won't matter in terms of emissions.
10:21so while you're still driving gas,
10:23you need to reduce those vehicle miles
10:24traveled to keep offsetting your efficiency
10:28of having better transportations.
10:31We did see a drop of the pandemic in these numbers,
10:33but it's actually come back and then some.
10:36So.
10:38You think maybe with more
10:39people working from home.
10:40It doesn't really happened.
10:41Some of habits changed, but we have actually not seen a
10:44major reduction in vehicle mile travels.
10:48Still wrapping my head around that.
10:50But that, that's what the data says.
10:52Don't know exactly the why.
10:54That's how that's worked.
10:57This is then some snippets.
10:58This is another one from Department of Administrative
11:01Services.
11:02So our Department of Administrative and Services
11:03in Connecticut,
11:04is the one who leases all of our state buildings,
11:07they do our state vehicles that I just drove down in.
11:10(clears throat)
11:11So they really control all the governments most,
11:15most of the governments emissions and the decisions that
11:20they make for purchasing and construction,
11:23they do all of that.
11:26So we are looking at how we can adopt in our state or state
11:31buildings,
11:33a retrofit plan, for existing fossil fueled emitting
11:36heating/cooling systems
11:38to be able to transition them to systems without
11:41emitting
11:42carbon emitting fuels.
11:44And then we're also going to look at all new construction
11:48and major renovations targeting fiscal year 2024 and
11:53after this is a major,
11:54major shift,
11:56in state buildings
11:58and how we do those.
11:59The retrofit is gonna be quite challenging.
12:02I think that's why we,
12:03we had this down to develop a plan because it's such a
12:07monumental task that DS is like,
12:09I can't really tell you what kind of a policy we should
12:11develop onto that because we haven't
12:12really looked at this very closely.
12:15So they're in the planning stage and that plan should yield
12:19a, this is what we can actually do,
12:21these are targets that we can actually set for transitioning
12:24our existing building stock,
12:28to be operating without carbon emitting fumes.
12:31New construction should be a little easier to do than
12:36retrofit.
12:40So again, you know, our buildings are not, you know,
12:42this is how much of a dent is going to make in overall
12:44greenhouse gas initiative in the state.
12:48But probably somebody else knows the answer to that from the
12:51"GreenerGov" project,
12:52But the main thing is it's leading by example.
12:54So the state is a big purchaser who spent a lot of money
12:57because we can move the needle, we can advance technologies,
13:01can bring down prices for other people by our purchasing
13:04power. That's what lead by example can do.
13:06The federal government is doing similar things like this
13:08similar to my administration.
13:13So another thing we did was establish the first Connecticut
13:17Equity and Environmental Justice Advisory Council,
13:20"CEEJAC", we love acronyms.
13:23This is to advise the commissioner of DEP.
13:26They have started meeting and they're again just looking at
13:30issues within DEP but this was related to some legislation
13:36that didn't pass
13:37but there was a recommendations that call for a greater role
13:42for a more formalized role for equity environmental justice
13:46work within our agency,
13:48which Commissioner Dykes has really been a champion of since
13:50she became the commissioner.
13:53And looking at this more closely.
13:54So you can find more information about who is serving on
13:58the "CEEJAC" and all their meetings are open to the public.
14:03So if anybody's interested in attending a meeting and
14:05listening in, we're always welcome to do that.
14:12Okay.
14:13The executive order also called for,
14:17well this is in statute we have to do a comprehensive energy
14:19strategy.
14:20But it said that the comprehensive energy strategy should
14:23address these issues, identify strategy,
14:25drive more affordable heating and cooling for Connecticut,
14:28reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and improve
14:32the resilience of the state's energy sector to
14:34extreme weather events.
14:35Fuel commodity price spikes and other disruptions.
14:38Remember we wrote this in December 20,
14:41December, 2021 before the Ukraine War,
14:44it's before everything going on with that.
14:45so this last part's becoming more important.
14:49But affordable heating and cooling is a big issue that's
14:52also being impacted by global events and,
14:56and also just overall grid resilience, so,
14:59This is a very high level strategy report being led by a
15:03new policy advisor, Becca Triech,
15:05who joined us few months ago.
15:07This is ongoing right now.
15:09We had two technical sessions last week, I'll actually
15:12show those technical sessions.
15:15So they're,
15:15they're doing these sessions really to educate largely in
15:18part DEP staff, but the general public as well.
15:22Though these are very,
15:23very technical sessions with like experts for Department
15:26of Energy, industry experts,
15:28academic experts, talking about all these different areas in
15:31a very,
15:33technical way.
15:36But it's also going to lead into broader sort of policy,
15:39concept development and listening sessions.
15:41Sort of the impacts of energy issues.
15:44But we're,
15:45we're looking very much at de-carbonization
15:48spending a lot of time on heat pumps,
15:50thermal, meaning heating and cooling, de-carbonization,
15:55electric demand response,
15:57alternative fuels, natural gas planning policies,
15:59which is a big deal and carbon pricing and low carbon
16:04incentives. So it's a very tall order,
16:08broad high level report but this should yield quite a
16:11few new recommendations.
16:17Onto some,
16:20this is another action from the executive order that we've
16:23implemented. This is more adaptation,
16:25resilience side of things.
16:26My office is actually taking the lead on this personally.
16:30This is the creation of a DEP Climate Resilience Fund,
16:33which is basically we have with the,
16:37especially with the passage,
16:38although we were going to do this before the,
16:41that bill passed in Congress.
16:43Now it's especially important that the bipartisan
16:46infrastructure law that was passed last
16:50spring,
16:51spring?
16:52it's getting mixed up because
16:53the Inflation Reduction Act also passed,
16:54so, getting confused last year
16:56and that had actually a huge amount of funding for
17:00resilience in that infrastructure law.
17:02Very strong bipartisan support for resilience actually
17:06because storms do not discriminate at all on where they hit.
17:10And there's broad agreement that who wanna address that
17:12issue even if they do not believe that it's caused by
17:15climate change or it's by climate change.
17:18So in Connecticut,
17:19again we're seeing the very broad based support for
17:21resilience funding and this is going to help municipalities,
17:26community organizations do,
17:30do planning and also project development to make sure that
17:34we can actually help get more of that federal funding into
17:38Connecticut to do more projects.
17:41Things like some of the images you see here,
17:43this is Meridan Connecticut. It's called the Meridan Green.
17:48It's actually rail station over here.
17:52This area used to be an old mall and flooded all the time
17:55because the river broke,
17:56you see here, it was buried underground in a cement box,
18:02and every time there was a heavy rainstorm
18:04that box would back
18:05up and the flooding would back up cause there wasn't enough
18:07space for the river to do what rivers need to do,
18:11which is actually flood.
18:12They're supposed to go over their banks,
18:13they have flood planes, have anywhere to go
18:15so it would back up the sewer system comes all kinds of back
18:18up into the mall it's a brownfield site, anyways,
18:22had all kinds of problems.
18:23So they took the river out of the cement box,
18:27made it a park, gave it a space to flood,
18:29So this is park that floods and when there's a storm.
18:34But by doing that it changed the flood plain and allowed for
18:38additional economic development and redeveloping area that
18:42would've been flooding but now does not flood anymore as a
18:44result of creation of this park.
18:46And here's another solution just called the living
18:50shoreline,
18:51It's about basically using natural systems or hint at
18:55natural systems.
18:57There's some rocks breaking up wave energy that can reduce
19:00over open and which is exacerbated by sea level rise.
19:06And here's just some examples of problems.
19:08These are houses that were damaged at Sandy that are right
19:10along the shoreline and hear the very typical situation in
19:14Connecticut.
19:16Underpasses under our rail line.
19:19They inherently go lower so you can get the clearance.
19:22It's the first place that floods, this
19:23can actually cut off entire neighborhoods from evacuation
19:25routes.
19:26Very, very common
19:29to the point where they actually,
19:30like there's places in Branford that flood,
19:33like people time their commutes by it because they know they
19:35can't get under the bridge and stuff that day.
19:39That's happening today.
19:42Hey, we're also working to develop an environmental justice
19:46mapping tool.
19:48It's very exciting project we have,
19:50we have a definition of environmental justice communities in
19:52Connecticut,
19:53which again is actually really unique to Connecticut.
19:55Most states do not have any statutory definitions of what is
19:58an environmental justice community.
20:00It's making it very difficult for them to like figure out
20:03who to prioritize and why that kind of debate within their
20:07legislatures.
20:08But our definition is largely about economics.
20:13And so we wanted to have a more comprehensive approach to
20:16this. This was a recommendation of the Equity Environmental
20:18Justice Working Group and consequently led by former Yale
20:23Professor Marianne Engleman Oto,
20:24who's now the head of the new
20:25Office of Environmental Justice at
20:27EPA.
20:28Did not realize how big a deal she was until she was working
20:30with us.
20:31So it's been really exciting to be like, wow,
20:33our "Equity Environmental Justice Recommendations" were
20:35written by the new head of the EPA
20:36Office of Environmental Justice!
20:38That's really great.
20:39Feel really confident that we're doing some good stuff here.
20:42So this environmental justice mapping tool will incorporate
20:46health data. We'll come up with an environmental burden.
20:49A lot more factors
20:52that in addition to incomes,
20:55which could influence a community's vulnerability to things
20:59like climate change. But to any, any issues.
21:05(clears throat)
21:06This is another closer to home program for you.
21:08The Urban Forestry Climate Equity Grant program.
21:11These are pictures from the Urban Resources Initiative in
21:13New Haven.
21:14The Tree Planting Initiative, which is I think in
21:18partnership with Yale School of Forestry. Excuse me,
21:21it's not called the Yale School of Forestry.
21:22Yale School of the Environment
21:23formerly the Yale School of Forestry,
21:26And
21:28we have,
21:29we launched a pilot program that I hope will continue very
21:34confident
21:34it will continue, to fund water tree planting and capacity
21:39building activities around
21:42the health
21:43and
21:45use of trees,
21:45which is really a growing solution for some of the impacts
21:48of climate change has had, particularly related to heat,
21:51but trees do all kinds of good things.
21:52They increase property values,
21:54they mitigate storm water flooding,
21:57So
21:59we're really
22:00pushing into this a lot more deeply
22:02as DEP.
22:04We just have one urban forester,
22:05but she's doing a lot of great work.
22:07She's a Yale grad.
22:12I didn't go to Yale, but,
22:14the equity,
22:16we're also looking at equitable energy efficiency.
22:19So we do a lot of work in energy efficiency at DEP.
22:22The best way to reduce emissions is to not use energy
22:24at all.
22:25So we have had energy efficiency funds.
22:29You pay utility bill in Connecticut,
22:31you are paying in towards the energy efficiency fund for
22:34Connecticut.
22:35Those resources are used to subsidize,
22:39subsidize technologies, subsidize home equity audits,
22:44home energy, excuse me,
22:45home energy audits that go into people's homes and rental
22:49spaces and look at how they can reduce their energy use.
22:54But oftentimes those home energy audits can't result in
22:59actual putting in more energy efficient actions.
23:04Because if there is any issue related to,
23:08say there's asbestos in the home or there's mold or there's
23:12lead,
23:14any of those issues make the,
23:16the utilities will not do anything to that home to install
23:21energy efficiency improvements.
23:23So we launched a program using our our some of our recovery
23:27dollars, the Weatherization Barrier Remediation Program,
23:32and that's trying to address some of those issues which are
23:35public health issues in themselves for air quality,
23:39but they also mean that you can't work on energy efficiency
23:42until those are addressed.
23:48Okay.
23:50Put this one out here,
23:51because we're also very happy that the Connecticut
23:54Department of Health received the first,
23:56its first CDC BRACE Grant, building resilience against
24:01climate effects.
24:03This is a small program that CDC runs,
24:08but it's the only one focused exclusively on public health.
24:10I hope that the federal government continues to invest in
24:12this area. I think it's important.
24:15I think public health,
24:16the intersection of climate is a really cutting edge area.
24:17So I really applaud all of you for being part of this
24:20program.
24:22And particularly in Connecticut.
24:23I think we've took used public health as a major lens
24:26through which we see all of our work,
24:30which is unique as I've talked to other states.
24:33But this is basically a planning,
24:37a planning process of how you might look at public health
24:39issues of the intersection of climate.
24:42And it's gonna provide some funding for director of this
24:45office to part researchers. Again, Dr.
24:47Bos, one of the partners on this.
24:49So is the Connecticut Institute Resilience and Climate
24:51Adaptation.
24:53And so where to come on this,
24:58ore on mitigation.
24:59Okay, so switching back to more on mitigation stuff,
25:03we're also looking,
25:04we're also investing a lot energy storage.
25:07So we're,
25:07we've covered a lot of different kinds of ways you can lower
25:09emissions, building retrofits, de-carbonization.
25:13Doing battery storage is actually also really important to
25:15our overall grid resilience and being able to balance this
25:18as we transition to more and more renewables,
25:21especially
25:23rooftop solar.
25:25We're trying to get people who have that to also put in
25:27battery storage so that we have a place for energy to go
25:32when it's not by them or a way for the grid to,
25:35to store energy in a distributed way so that it can then be
25:39used to replace, for example,
25:42we have peaker plants in Connecticut.
25:44These peaker plants are, when we have really high demands,
25:46really cold day, it's really hot day,
25:49really high demand for energy.
25:51That's when we actually turn on our dirtiest fuel sources,
25:54unfortunately.
25:55These tend to be diesel burning gas plants
25:58I think one of them is located in New Haven.
26:01So we wanna get away from using those peaker plants as much
26:04as possible. Those are very expensive.
26:06So if we can do more and more energy storage that will help
26:10reduce the need for those peaker plants because it'll allow
26:13us to just manage that grid energy,
26:15put it in a place where we want it,
26:16and then just release it when we need it on those peak,
26:19peak storage days.
26:20And it can also be a resilience strategy because these
26:23battery storage, if you're homeowner or rental,
26:26it can be a backup power source for you building for at
26:30least a
26:31short amount of time.
26:33Shorter amount of time.
26:36So this is like the incentive program that's ongoing.
26:39I think this has been very popular.
26:39I actually think it might be sold out at this point.
26:42So giving residential customers a 200 per kilowatt hour
26:46premium maximum project incentive is $7,500. Very generous.
26:52We'll do the same for commercial industrial partners who are
26:56doing this, who have performance incentive payments.
27:00Again contributing that grid during critical periods.
27:03So we're trying to incentivize people to help us and be
27:05partners with us on building more resilient grid and,
27:10and we're gonna have,
27:11and we have additional incentives in for low-income
27:14customers.
27:15So that's that equity lens built to our programs, of not
27:18having this just be the same across the more progressive
27:22programs.
27:27So this is a really long list. We did a lot.
27:28So the presentation is like, we did this, and we did this,
27:31and we did this.
27:33This climate change adaptation,
27:35this was a one of the recommendations.
27:38So now we're going to legislative wins.
27:40This passed
27:40in the
27:422021
27:42year.
27:43This was the only major climate legislation that passed in
27:462021.
27:49So like I said,
27:50adaptation and resilience tends to be a little easier to
27:53pass.
27:55And this one allowed all municipalities in Connecticut to
27:59set up something called the "Storm Water Authority",
28:01which basically allows them to set up a fee structure for,
28:07for dealing with the pollution and flooding related to storm
28:10limit.
28:13And examples of things you can do is put in bio swells
28:17and municipalities are exploring this. We're seeing, we saw,
28:20we've seen another one pass. We have one in New London,
28:23we passed another one in New Britain, Connecticut.
28:26And in this DEP Climate Resilience Fund I'm working on,
28:28we se many municipalities tell us if they're interested
28:29in that, so we expect to fund some more
28:31planning projects around
28:33starting up storm water authorities.
28:36It also expanded the Connecticut Green Bank,
28:38which is very famous for leveraging private dollars with a
28:42small amount of public dollars to get investment into the
28:47clean energy space. There now can establish an environmental
28:51infrastructure fund and work in the environmental space.
28:53I'm most interested in their work in adaptation science and
28:55I'm working with them on that.
28:58And this also does something much more esoteric than several
29:02municipalities,
29:03but only if you're really in the weeds it gives you
29:05additional authority to do
29:08all municipalities had this thing called
29:11(forgets word) oh words,
29:12they now can have prevention,
29:14climate resilience and erosion control courts.
29:16And it basically gives them kinda authority they need to
29:20build,
29:21fund,
29:22finance,
29:23maintain,
29:24operate, any kind of climate resilience project.
29:29Which I'm not gonna go into why that's important,
29:31but it's important to have those authorities.
29:34It's kinda like all the getting
29:36all the ducks in a row for this kind of stuff does get into
29:39like what can a municipality do? What can a state do?
29:41What can a COG do? How do we figure out who can do what,
29:43and how they work together?
29:46This is some additional outreach work that was done by,
29:51it's been done by partner organizations to try to get more
29:53interested authorities it does appear to be working,
29:56which is great.
29:59Okay, now into the year 2022.
30:01So like I said,
30:02we basically just had a climate adaptation win in 2021 but
30:09going into 2022, one of the reasons the Governor
30:12went through
30:13executive word 21-3 was he was trying to set a
30:15standard for the legislature, which was like, look,
30:18this is everything I can do as a Governor.
30:20This is like maxes out
30:21my executive authority on pretty much everything related to
30:25climate.
30:27I can't do more than this without you telling me that I can
30:30do more than this to my agencies that I oversee can
30:34do more than this.
30:35So you have to put some things in the statute so you're able
30:40to pass what was has been an executive order was in the
30:43executive with created the Governor's Council On Climate
30:45Change, it's now a statute,
30:47so whoever's the next Governor of Connecticut,
30:49which be decided tomorrow will still be subject to this,
30:54that we have to have all of our electricity supplied to our
30:59electric customers in Connecticut has to be from zero
31:04carbon emissions. That has to be done by the year 2040.
31:07We are already 65%
31:10of the way there
31:12with a mix of nuclear
31:13and renewable
31:15solar.
31:16By the time we bring on some major wind procurement,
31:18we've already done a state would be 91% carbon free in
31:24Connecticut, which is just amazing.
31:25So this 2040 goal, it's very much reachable.
31:32So, this is very doable.
31:33People say like you can't do this. It's really,
31:34I mean we're really very close to getting
31:36there already within a few years.
31:39So,
31:40this is really excellent news and was very pleased to see
31:45and very huge bipartisan support for this,
31:48personal suspicion,
31:49is because does include nuclear and a very powerful member
31:53of the state legislature lives in Waterford,
31:56Connecticut where the nuclear power station is located.
31:59I used to live there.
32:04So, public, we also passed Public Act 22-14
32:08that concerning clean energy tariff program.
32:11One of the things this did is it,
32:13it supported distributed energy generation that allows
32:17people who can't put solar on the roofs to buy into a
32:20centralized solar array like this one in Bloomfield,
32:23Connecticut.
32:25And this one is 1.62 megawatts a solar panel and it provides
32:31energy savings to 50 customers who have bought into this.
32:33So particularly people can't put on their house,
32:36have too much shade, she's not compatible.
32:39Whatever reason they can buy into a,
32:42an offsite solar installation and get the same benefits as
32:45someone who mounted on their own roof.
32:51This was the big one. Okay, so there's,
32:55I'm not gonna go into it too much, a long story,
32:57but we tried to pass it 2021
32:59something called the "Transportation And Climate Initiative"
33:02which was supported by Governor Lamont.
33:06So it was about basically trying to do what we do.
33:09We're part of something called the "Regional Greenhouse Gas
33:12Initiative",
33:13that trades carbon credits from our power sector.
33:17Trying to do something very similar to that in the
33:18transportation sector.
33:21Did not pass, was a quite a well organized opposition to it,
33:25particularly from fossil fuel industry.
33:31So there was a lot of conservation about that,
33:35not passing both for the executive brand and from
33:38legislative champions of it.
33:40And so this act kind of grew out of that.
33:44The Transportation And Climate Initiative would've provided
33:46a sustainable source of funding to do a lot of good things
33:50like have electric school buses,
33:53electric public transportation, more charging for electric
33:56vehicles.
33:58And so we decided to push that as much or they,
34:01the legislative champion decided to push that as much as
34:04possible.
34:05And they did actually also look at Executive Order 21-3
34:08for ideas from this.
34:09So some things I'm gonna tell you we're in Executive Order
34:1121-3 and now they're in law as a result of this passing.
34:16That's some ways that executive orders and legislative
34:18things can work together.
34:19Sometimes the executive branch can use an executive order
34:21tee up policies
34:23and the legislature will actually look at those.
34:25Oh I like that too. Putting you in law now,
34:27so everybody has to do it no matter who the governor is.
34:31This is a very short summary of everything this bill does.
34:33I think it was on your assigned read list so you can look
34:35more into everything this bill does.
34:38But
34:39a bill
34:41that was a bill introduced by the Governor
34:44was incorporated into this
34:46bill that was championed by the chairs of the Environment
34:49Committee and the Transportation Committee that Connecticut
34:52can adopt
34:53California's emission standards for medium and heavy duty
34:56vehicles. This is an efficiency standard.
34:58It's not zero carbon but it's an efficiency standard that
35:01will really move the needle on some our most heavily
35:04emitting journey vehicles that being trucks, buses,
35:11it establishes grant programs for sigma modernization,
35:13zero emission school buses, zero emission,
35:15medium heavy duty trucks.
35:17So basically we're doing subsidies using state dollars,
35:24giving some property tax exemptions for zero emission buses
35:28and EV charging.
35:29We have an existing program for the acronym is CHEAPR
35:34it's a rebate program.
35:35It's like on the hood rebates for electric vehicles or low
35:39emission vehicles.
35:40And so now it's gonna incorporate incentives for people with
35:43low incomes, our justice residents.
35:45It's also going to include micro mobility like electric
35:48bicycles for people who want to use those.
35:53It may not carve out a high percentage of residences
35:56leasing hardware to not own a car,
35:59and so realizing our program really wasn't serving them,
36:02at all
36:03so, this is one of the ways we're helping it serve
36:06those communities as well.
36:07If you're not using cars.
36:09Establishes right to charge for
36:11renters and unit owners and condominiums,
36:13common interest communities.
36:14I have people on my team who live
36:17in a condo with, they're like, I'd really like to buy an EV.
36:19There's no place for me to charge it cause I don't have a
36:21garage that I can plug it right in.
36:22I'm a single family homeowner. I can use my own garage.
36:26It's very easy for me to get an EV and have a way to charge
36:29it.
36:30And I, yeah,
36:32my research analyst can't do that right now.
36:35There's no, there's no EV charging in her building.
36:38So it's trying to fix that and and also just prohibiting
36:43like you can't say no we'll never allow EV chargers.
36:48So this is lot and and there's even like things in here that
36:51are not in here the, I didn't even do this,
36:53but like we have to convert all of our,
36:55our state fleet all to electric.
36:59That was codified into this law as well.
37:01So there's a few more things that we have that I didn't have
37:03on this list
37:05and that was one of the,
37:07the Executive Order that was codified.
37:11It also expanded our
37:12"Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy Program"
37:14This is a little bit on the adaptation side but also EVs
37:18this program which has been incredibly powerful in
37:21Connecticut that allows commercial businesses to have a way
37:26to pay back investments they might make in putting
37:29renewables.
37:30So the raise for example on their businesses,
37:34they now can use some of that payback money that results
37:37from bill savings from the energy side to also pay for
37:41resilience improvements.
37:42They can also use it to pay for EV charging.
37:48We got a bunch of state bond money and general foreign money
37:53to support climate smart agriculture.
37:55It's a brand new grant program that'll be rolling out in
37:57about a week.
37:59On this that's going to help our states'
38:01farmers adopt climate smart practices that improve soil
38:05health to water retention.
38:07So it's really important in Connecticut, we,
38:09it's a smaller agricultural industry but we've been very
38:12heavily impacted by the climate impacts in Connecticut.
38:15Last summer they were all flooded because we had all those
38:18big storms this summer,
38:20their crop's stale because they were, had drought.
38:23So they've had,
38:23we've had disaster declarations last summer and this summer
38:26for our crops.
38:27Flooding and then drought. So it's really,
38:29really been heavily impacted no matter what the weather is.
38:33Definitely becoming a problem in a state that
38:34wasn't really for being that much of a heavy swing in issues
38:38related to agriculture.
38:39And we're also,
38:40this is maybe going to scratch the beginning of the surface,
38:43it's a little more focused on the resilience side of things,
38:46but looking at the potential for agriculture and forestry
38:51to,
38:54to do carbon sequestration and storage and how that might
38:58play into our greenhouse gas inventory overall.
39:03And finally highlighting that Connecticut has received a lot
39:07of attention from federal government.
39:10One way I know this is because we've been getting visits
39:12from a few agency heads.
39:14This is the head of the Department of Energy visiting a
39:18Yukon campus talking about clean energy.
39:21This is the head of the Department of the Interior with
39:25Commissioner Dykes and Governor Lamont
39:27touring
39:29of our reserves
39:31along our coast that are owned by the Department of the
39:33Interior.
39:34And this is the head of the National Oceanic And Atmospheres
39:38Administration coming down to visit us and talk about,
39:42we just established a research reserve that is focused on
39:47climate resilience at the, (audio cut out)
39:51I think that is the end of my presentation,
39:54but there's a lot more that I didn't cover that that's been
39:58done. Basically just some massive, massive effort.
40:02Really inclusive,
40:04all aspects of things we do in climate in Connecticut is
40:09very interesting to listen to all the stakeholders and try
40:13to balance a lot of different needs both for and against
40:17climate issues.
40:18And so I really encourage you to get involved in that.
40:22We have had students serve all those working groups or just
40:27even listen in it's great learning opportunity.
40:30It's really an excellent example of say this is part of your
40:33government made this process very open
40:37and particularly under Commissioner Dykes,
40:39so I think to kind of changed from
40:41it was a little more tight
40:42and small under Malloy and Commissioner Dykes
40:47has viewed it more
40:48as a much broader stakeholder engagement effort
40:53and getting
40:54more voices to the table on concept development.
40:58And I think that has also resulted in this really progress
41:01that you see there because not all these bills were things
41:04that the Governor put forward or state agencies who also do
41:08legislative proposals.
41:10Many of these things like the "Climate Smart Agriculture"
41:11that was picked up by someone who was part
41:13of the working group.
41:15They brought it to a legislator and said,
41:17Hey the Governor's Council on Climate Change report
41:19recommended this.
41:20I think you should back it if we came out of the stakeholder
41:22process, I can point to all these people who support it.
41:25Governor supports it,
41:27all these agencies said they support it.
41:28And that made it really easy for the legislator,
41:30easier for the legislator to say this is something that I
41:33should do more too.
41:35When you have these kinds of reports and this kind of open
41:37process,
41:38it lowers the barrier for a legislator to know if this is
41:41something that they're going to get support for if they,
41:43you know, take the political risk
41:44of bringing it to the floor and introducing it as policy.
41:48This is also I think something that I didn't appreciate in
41:52(audio cut out) federal government
41:54at the state level government in terms of passing laws,
41:58There's a lot more access and involvement and there's a very
42:00close relationship between agencies and the committees.
42:05It's really different than when I worked in Congress.
42:08So it, it represents an opportunity to get much more closely
42:12involved then you might initially
42:15think if you're working the state level.
42:21So that's it. I'm happy to take any questions.
42:23I think we have the room like for another 15? 15 minutes?
42:26<v Male Speaker>Yeah, 15.</v>
42:28<v Dr. French>Yeah.</v>
42:33(muffled noise)
42:34<v Male Speaker>The students had summand their questions.</v>
42:36<v Dr. French>It's the commission.</v>
42:38(Dr. French laughs)
42:40<v Male Speaker>Yeah.</v> <v Dr. French>Yeah.</v>
42:42<v Male Speaker>So all the students are already</v>
42:44some of their questions and I
42:45think you can ask for your selves. Right?
42:48Okay.
42:50<v Female>Yeah. Thanks for coming us and speak with us,</v>
42:53I'm (unclear name)
42:54I'm a student at Yale School For The Environment,
42:57I did the planting trees thing with you guys.
43:00<v Dr. French>Oh, great, great!</v>
43:01<v Female>Yeah. So, I see the mention about the</v>
43:04waste management aspect,
43:07So I know there is like huge waste prices in Connecticut,
43:11especially like the waste to energy plan. They're closing,
43:15they're very old.
43:18So especially the Harvard one has just closed like two
43:21months ago behind Mirror
43:23So
43:25I wonder and,
43:27just for,
43:28for you know,
43:29for information, the ways are now,
43:31instead of burning them and turning into energy,
43:34they're now sent to out state landfills in Ohio.
43:39So that costs a lot of taxpayer money but also cause a lot
43:44of like huge environmental impacts.
43:47And then also the "NIMBAY" thing, like not in my backyard,
43:52they're sending all the ways to out of state,
43:55which is huge burdens to other state.
43:57So I feel like why does a rich state like Connecticut
44:01have the
44:02right to throw trash to states that are less affluent and is
44:07Connecticut planning to do anything about this?
44:11And I actually worked on turning
44:13municipal solid waste to sustainable
44:16aviation fuel in the past year.
44:19So to SEF, also talked a little bit about SEF,
44:23So have you thought about this option?
44:26Cause this could be potentially the solution to both
44:30problems, they way we get SEF problems,
44:33and just curious if you know, Connecticut is doing
44:38anything on waste part?
44:42<v Dr. French>Yes.</v>
44:43So
44:45the Office of Climate Planning definitely we had a lot of
44:47recommendations about waste and then mirror conversation
44:50definitely came up in the
44:512020 Governor's Council On Climate Change
44:53process.
44:55Another process that grew that kind of started in late 2020
45:01was called the "Sustainable Materials Management Council."
45:04And that brought together municipalities to talk about just
45:06these issues because the
45:07municipalities were gonna be impacted by the
45:09closing of the mirror plant. Which meant that they all,
45:12all these municipalities had to find a plan where they were
45:15gonna send their, their waste.
45:18It's not only an environmental issue,
45:20it's also a huge expense issue for municipalities.
45:24So
45:26one of the things that we have done and there we do have
45:30a director who's looking at these policy issues and manages
45:32this, his name is James Albis,
45:34he's excellent, he's also a former legislator.
45:37So I'm speaking to things that James has talked about and
45:39I'm to refer to James, question James as well, but
45:44you know,
45:45one thing I do know that we just announced Awardees for our,
45:50our pilot program to try to get more of our organic waste
45:54diverted out of,
45:57out of the garbage pail and into
46:01digestion
46:03facilities,
46:04composting because organic waste food scraps
46:09is the
46:10heaviest and it's of course very wet.
46:13So,
46:15our cost to municipalities
46:16is based on the weight of whatever they
46:20throw. So if you get your organics out of there,
46:21you can make a huge impact on the overall weight of what
46:24you're throwing out. Of course regular recycling.
46:28So one of the approaches that we're taking is to try to
46:32divert as much out of that waste stream that goes,
46:37that unfortunately you,
46:39you are correct that these are going to landfills outside of
46:41the states, we don't have landfills.
46:44The states, (audio cut out)
46:46although I'm speaking a little bit outside of my area here.
46:48So that's what I'm referring to James to talk more
46:50about that.
46:51Correct?
46:53But that's my understanding.
46:54We don't have a landfill in Connecticut to send it to.
46:57So that's why it would be shipped outta state.
47:00But the responsibility we're trying to take is get as much
47:02out of that's being shipped as possible,
47:07does not look like,
47:08you know, we'll be doing more for waste of energy.
47:11That doesn't seem very popular.
47:13Obviously the Mirror plant is closed and that was a,
47:18a huge environmental justice issue that was highlighted by
47:21the communities there. I'm very happy to see it closed.
47:24They felt like it's quite evidence to show this,
47:28that Hartford been overburdened by,
47:31by multiple
47:33plants and sources
47:36of pollution. So that why,
47:38why are they gonna continue to be a host community?
47:40That's not going in that direction.
47:42So
47:43that's one of the things that we're doing right now
47:45getting some pilot scale, a
47:46lot more needs to be done to really take this on.
47:49But there's a lot of interested parties. Cause like I said,
47:51it's environmental issue
47:52and it's a huge bottom line issue for towns
47:56that are always very concerned about raising costs on their,
48:01residences.
48:02With property taxes and state tax.
48:05Speaking from personal experience (Dr. French whispers)
48:08(Dr. French laughs)
48:09So, um. Yeah.
48:11<v Male Speaker>Next question.</v>
48:12Any other questions?
48:15So yeah, Carol.
48:17<v Carol>I was wondering if you could speak a</v>
48:19little bit about the
48:20Clean Air Act and the right to charge portion of that act
48:25and if there's any thoughts about revisions to it to make it
48:29more accessible for renters.
48:32Cause right now there's a lot of burden cost
48:33put on renters to go
48:35through that process.
48:37It's.
48:37<v Dr. French>Sorry, say the last part.</v>
48:39<v Carol>It seemed like there's a</v>
48:39lot of burden on renters to fund
48:41that whole <v Dr. French>Yeah.</v>
48:43<v Carol>Aspect of it.</v>
48:46<v Dr. French>I don't know right now of any</v>
48:49efforts to sort of open back up
48:50the law.
48:54I think there were,
48:55there were definitely concerns raised during the debate on
48:59the bill about how this could impact affordability for,
49:05for affordable housing, you know, with that drive up cost.
49:10So I think there's,
49:13probably more on the programmatic side of the
49:15rollout is where we'll fix, fix a lot of those issues.
49:22Sorry, I can't speak more to that,
49:24again, there's,
49:24folks who I can refer who are working on sort of the
49:27rollout of that program and how it might actually
49:29play out in
49:30in real time.
49:31But a lot of times when these bills get passed and then it
49:34goes to the executive branch to implement them,
49:37there's a lot that we can do once we get down to the program
49:40side.
49:40Cause usually the language and the legislation is fairly
49:42broad.
49:43It gives the executive agency latitude to design the program
49:49where it's needed and address, and we have stakeholder,
49:54you know,
49:55we have stakeholder public comment processes to try to get,
49:57get at what is not working and what is working and where do
50:01we need to just tweak, tweak things here and there.
50:05Very rarely does the legislature tell us very specifically,
50:07how do you do how to do something.
50:10Usually they give broad guidelines and then you,
50:12you figure it out
50:13to some level.
50:17I think I saw your hand first, and yours second.
50:20I'm trying to get to as many as I can.
50:21<v Female 2>I'm really inspired by the work</v>
50:23that you're doing.
50:24So thank you and thank you for being here.
50:26I was wondering you could tell us a bit more about
50:28your career path?
50:30<v Dr. French>Sure.</v>
50:31My bio talked about where I went.
50:35I decided for my education that I wanted to,
50:40I wanted to do hard core science.
50:43I was asked this the other day, like what,
50:45what did you study? Was it related to climate change?
50:48Not really.
50:50I was chemist and very still love chemistry
50:55and I wanted to
50:56do bench top chemistry.
50:57So I have PhD in environmental chemistry and I study crystal
51:01growth and how contaminants move around systems and,
51:06but I still use some of that.
51:07It's actually very useful for carbon storage and
51:09sequestration,
51:10which is about how carbon moves around the soils.
51:13So as we dig into that question, I'm like, ah, haha,
51:14I can finally use my chemistry degree.
51:19But I, I knew I also wanted to go into policy.
51:22So that's there.
51:23The fellowships called the AAA Science Technology Policy
51:25Fellowships. That's how I worked in Congress.
51:28I also worked for EPA for two years and that helps
51:31transition me from very academic training to understanding
51:38how policy works, understanding the science intersection.
51:41A big part of my work, we're science agency now,
51:44I always worked where science is important in all that we do
51:47and we have to bring science to bare on all decisions every
51:50day at DEP.
51:53So, that's kind of where it was
51:54and I,
51:55I was more drawn to climate adaptation than the energy side
51:58in terms of my specialty in climate because that was
52:03really out of being a kind earth scientist that basically,
52:07like we've known for a long time that greenhouse gases warm
52:12up the planet.
52:13So that question's been answered for a while.
52:17The, it's,
52:18it's been in the policy realm for decades and we just build
52:21more and more evidence. Yes, this happens, yes,
52:24this happens, this happens.
52:26But on climate adaptation and resilience,
52:27it's a much more downscale issue.
52:29And so I got very interested in like what kinds of data do
52:33we need from climate science perspective to build things
52:36more, to be more resilient.
52:37And that gets into things like how much rain are we going to
52:40get?
52:41So how big should we build this covert or this drain or this
52:45bio swale?
52:46It's a,
52:47that question from a science perspective has not been well
52:49answered.
52:50We're still on the cutting edge of the as production climate
52:53work.
52:56All right, question? <v Female 3>Yeah.</v>
52:57<v Dr. French>I'm trying to get everybody.</v>
52:58So 1, 2, 3. I'll try to get, I'll try to get everybody's.
53:01<v Female 3>So I know that there's</v>
53:02been a lot of information presented here.
53:05I'm curious how this is being translated to like citizens
53:08within Connecticut so that they're aware of these
53:11initiatives and is it primarily through like advertising or
53:15are there more like community level engagement or
53:20like outside of the working groups and like participation in
53:23those?
53:24<v Dr. French>Yeah, I mean</v>
53:25the process that I've been most involved in is the working
53:27groups.
53:28The good thing is that many of those working group members
53:31are part of larger organizations that have members and they
53:35are talking about it with their members,
53:37which I find very helpful because I feel like a lot of times
53:40people turn to me and say, Can you tell everybody?
53:42They're like, do you want me to,
53:43to tell everybody or should I do something?
53:45So I'm constantly like in that push and pull
53:48of like working and also telling.
53:51So it's really helpful to have other organizations say,
53:53you know what? We'll do some of the telling for you.
53:55We'll also communicate that to people,
53:57to people that we have plugged to us.
53:59Sometimes it's their followers on social media,
54:02sometimes it's their mailing list.
54:04And so that is one of the ways that we get things out.
54:06But we do,
54:07we rely a lot on stakeholder groups and informing them and
54:10having those people inform others.
54:13And we also do some local engagement. Like for instance,
54:17last summer my office partnered with some local community
54:21organizations in New London and Gartman
54:22held a workshop and we were
54:24directly there doing the communicating about things that
54:27were going on around climate change.
54:29It was excellent and the best part about it is
54:30we made some really long term relationships with the
54:32people that were our planning committee,
54:35but you know, about 30 people showed up.
54:36So its,
54:37it was a lot of effort workshop for a very small number of
54:40people.
54:41But the planning process led to a lot of trust built between
54:45myself and my team and some local leaders in both those
54:48communities.
54:49And now they're serving on our council on "Equity and
54:51Environmental Justice."
54:52So they wouldn't have been serving in there if I hadn't got
54:54know them through that workshop. So it's,
54:56this is an interesting balance and something I wrestle with
54:58every day in terms of what I should be spending my time on
55:02and allocating my resource.
55:06<v Male>Hi.</v>
55:08I'm wondering how you or how Connecticut settled on a
55:12definition for environmental justice community and if it's
55:16applicable to other states or if it's very
55:18Connecticut in it's style.
55:20<v Dr. French>Yeah, my understanding from this history,</v>
55:21it goes way back to the nineties when the EPA under the
55:26Clinton administration
55:29President Bill Clinton passed an executive order that was
55:32about environmental justice and public participation.
55:35And Connecticut was like one of the first states to be a
55:38part of that and passed in statue our definition of
55:43environmental justice and what constituted a public
55:48participation process for those environmental justice
55:51communities.
55:52Connecticut was a really early adopter, Edith Bastata
55:55who still works for DEP is our office of environmental
55:59justice coordinator, we have an environmental justice.
56:01We've had it since that rule passed in the nineties and,
56:07and she still works there and, and we know we're,
56:09it's kind of had a renewed focus and we're growing that.
56:12You can even except to see sort of more on that
56:14since legislation introduced year did pass,
56:17but I would not be surprised to see that sort of come back
56:20again on how we might define that and understanding
56:23environmental justice and equity issues are having a moment
56:26nationally to say the least.
56:29So
56:31yeah, so that's,
56:31it really did grow out of the big sort of introduction of
56:34that effort nationally back then.
56:38And, and it was just decided by the legislature how to,
56:41how to do that. And it was,
56:44there was a lot of uniting I think at that time it's been
56:47told,
56:48which is great to have folks who've been working at EPA
56:49since they've been working at DEP since the nineties to
56:51pass this knowledge onto me.
56:52I've been working there since 2020
56:56on, you know,
56:57this history in the state.
56:59But one of the reasons that it looked at income is a major
57:01factor is that that actually allowed us to,
57:05to look not just at sort of an overall distressed factor,
57:10but look at pockets of concentrated poverty in communities
57:14in Connecticut you wouldn't normally expect that.
57:16Like there actually,
57:17are pockets of concentrated poverty in Stanford, Greenwich,
57:22which is famously wealthy, right?
57:25So,
57:26but we actually do have some communities that just in that,
57:28in that little area are disproportionately impacted.
57:33<v ->Well we gotta get out of the room.</v>
57:37(muffled talking)
57:38<v Male Speaker>Thanks, for coming.</v>