The reconstituted Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection — or DEEP in acronym-speak — was officially born on Friday.
When the state government’s fiscal year started Friday, the former Department of Environmental Protection merged with the Department of Public Utility Control and an energy agency out of the Office of Policy and Management to create a department dedicated to energy policy, an agency Connecticut officials have longed for years.
“We will be a national leader in integrating energy and environmental policy,” DEEP Commissioner Dan Esty said in a press release. “We will bring down the cost of electricity to make our state more competitive. Â We will promote energy efficiency. Â And we will encourage the development and use of clean energy technologies.”
General Assembly members, particularly those on the Energy & Technology Committee, have made several attempts at starting an energy-specific agency since deregulation in 1998.
Those efforts came to fruition during this year’s legislative session when Gov. Dannel Malloy made the proposal for DEEP, and the legislature overwhelmingly approved the measure.
The new department will have three divisions: Energy, to develop short and long-term energy policy; Environmental Quality, to implement the state’s regulatory programs to protect natural resources; and Environmental Conservation, to oversee the state parks.
The former DPUC and DEP Web sites will be consolidated under the new DEEP Web site, www.ct.gov/deep.
