Nick Snow
Washington Editor
Other US Senate and House campaigns may have received more attention for their energy policy implications. But the contest in Connecticut to replace retiring US Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D) could have more impact than some 2010 election watchers suspect.
That's because Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic nominee, could bring the idea of oil product price regulation, which he has tried to promote in the state, back to the US Senate, where it has been absent for several decades.
Other members of Connecticut's congressional delegation have periodically charged price gouging at the gasoline pump, notably Reps. John B. Larson (D) and Rosa L. DeLauro (D). Blumenthal has proposed steps which Connecticut lawmakers have refused to adopt that he could bring to the US Senate.
He mentions none of this on his campaign web site. There, he talks more about "protecting Long Island Sound and our environment."
Blumenthal says that as attorney general, he fought to protect the sound from "big energy companies who threatened it with development." He opposed the Broadwater LNG project, which he describes as "a floating natural gas plant in the middle of the Long Island Sound, as an 'aesthetic monstrosity and environmental atrocity, a sitting terrorist target, security threat, and navigation danger.'"
Part of CZMA
His campaign web site describes the appeal by the project's sponsor of New York State's rejection to the US Commerce secretary as an effort to get the federal government to intervene and overturn a state's decision. It does not mention that this is authorized under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act.
Blumenthal also cites his opposition to the Islander East gas pipeline project, which would have extended beneath Long Island Sound. "From its inception, I worked with Connecticut's leaders and environmental advocates to block the project, which would have degraded water quality, endangered shellfish beds, and damaged our coastal environment," he says. "After an 8-year fight, we won that battle."
He supports giving subpoena authority to the Obama independent commission investigating the Macondo well accident and Gulf of Mexico crude oil spill; raising the offshore crude oil spill liability limit to $10 billion; increasing government regulation of oil and gas activities; and reviewing and strengthening penalties for safety violations.
Blumenthal's Republican opponent is former World Wrestling Entertainment Chief Executive Linda McMahon, who trails him 43-to-56%, according to an Oct. 24 Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of 750 likely Connecticut voters.
"Despite the ups and downs of the contest, including the New York Times' disclosure that Blumenthal has embellished his military record in public comments over the years, the Democrat has led consistently in polling since January," it added.
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