🔒Malloy’s symbolic electric vehicle gesture

Sometimes symbolic gestures have real-world impact.

Connecticut motorists have been driving gasoline-powered cars for more than 100 years now, so breaking that habit is going to take efforts both large and small. To this end, we applaud Gov. Dannel P. Malloy for allocating $1 million from the 2012 NStar-Northeast Utilities merger settlement to offer up to $3,000 in incentives for businesses and residents to buy and lease electric and fuel cell cars.

Doing the math, Malloy's program will support the purchase of hundreds of alternative cars. In a state of 3.6 million residents, the program isn't going to move the needle much in helping to lower carbon emissions by putting more fuel-efficient vehicles on the road. That isn't the point, though.

Connecticut's economy — and frankly, the world — can no longer be tied so closely to the rise and fall of the price for a barrel of oil. The cost of everything from food to airplane tickets is influenced by petroleum pricing, and when oil prices are high, economic growth and financial independence suffers.

Malloy's program won't come close to getting every gasoline-powered car off the road — neither will the $7,500 federal incentive — which is the goal of groups like the Sierra Club. We at the Hartford Business Journal prefer a more pragmatic approach, where cars, trucks, and airplanes are powered by a healthy variety of fuels. Even electric and fuel cell cars rely on some kind of fuel — the natural gas and uranium that powers the region's electricity plants — so having a diversity of vehicles on the road keeps the state's economy from relying too much on one commodity.

Malloy's incentive program is important because the more motorists see electric and fuel cell vehicles on the road, the greater chance they will consider buying one in the future.

The best way to change people's habits is to change the way they think.

Watered-down casino bill smart move

State lawmakers apparently aren't willing to take a gamble on adding three new casinos in Connecticut after all. We applaud them for maintaining cautious discipline in the face of frantic casino executives who have claimed, and commissioned studies to try to back it up, that adding three new gambling venues across the state is the only way for them to fend off new competition in Massachusetts and New York.

Instead, the state Senate last week passed a bill that creates a two-step process for approving one new Connecticut casino by 2016. That's a smarter approach because the economics for a major gaming expansion simply don't make sense.

We understand that the 2017 opening of the $800 million MGM casino in Springfield, Mass., will erode some of Foxwoods' and Mohegan Sun's respective market shares. One report commissioned by the casinos said they could lose as much as 9,300 jobs and $254 million in revenues between 2017 and 2019.

We're not sure if the impact will be that steep, but it's hard to fathom how adding three new casinos in an increasingly competitive market will buoy the financial health of Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun, which have experienced steady revenue declines for almost a decade.

The addition of the new casinos also raised all sorts of legal concerns from Attorney General George Jepsen, who said they could jeopardize the state's tribal compacts, which allow Connecticut to collect 25 percent of gross slot revenues from Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods.

The state Senate's approach, to draw out the approval process for another year and only recommend one new casino, is logical. There is no reason to flood the market with new competition at a time of so much uncertainty in the gaming industry. It would be a knee-jerk reaction that could result in unintended consequences.