The first decades of the 21st century are expected to decide the quality of life, locally and globally, far into the future. As 2010 approaches, understanding the pace of progress toward sustainable practices—whether efforts to manage environmental risks are catching up or falling behind—takes on new urgency.

This web site reviews outcomes of the 2009 Connecticut legislative session for environmental management issues using a relational data application developed by CT EarthNet. It explores metrics that advocates and the public may use to evaluate the progress of local environmental management, measure the responsiveness of lawmakers and participate in government. It introduces prototypical visualizations aimed at making information more useful for setting priorities, informing decision-making and speeding responses.


Discussion

In Connecticut, longstanding environmental problems, involving land, water, air, biodiversity, energy, climate change, environmental justice and more, reached critical points even before the financial crisis of 2008-09 impacted budgets.

In its report for 2008, the State Council on Environmental Quality found that Connecticut "is lagging anywhere large sums of public investment are required."

As 2009 comes to a close, questions remain about whether the efforts of environmental policy makers, advocacy organizations and grassroots initiatives are progressing at a pace equal to the task of achieving local goals for sustainable resource management.

This report proposes and visualizes metrics that can be useful for answering such questions—with the aim of advancing a dialogue about the real pace of progress in Connecticut and indicated actions.


Approach

The fact that records about legislators, advocacy, lobbying, legislation and legislator voting are publicly available makes it possible and practical to conduct analyses and develop metrics about such data.

Analyses can be conducted to benchmark and evaluate the progress of lawmaking as it relates to certain interests and concerns. CT EarthNet developed a relational data application to do so for environmental issues beginning in 2007. It reports its experience and findings for the first time here.


Investments In Environmental Management Advocacy

Today there are over 1,200 organizations actively engaged with environmental management and advocacy in Connecticut. The number of directors and staff associated with these groups ranges between 3,500 and 4,000 individuals—while the number of volunteers, members and donors contributing to such groups is far greater still.

(Source: CT EarthNet InfoTree database.)

These groups are typically engaged with public education, resource conservation and management initiatives, and to varying extents, lobbying state officials and lawmakers.

Estimates of annual lobbying and operating expenditures for those groups that work at the state capitol can be made based on lobbying records kept by the Connecticut Office of State Ethics (OSE) for 2008 and 2009, and federal tax records, i.e. Form 990s, filed for 2007 and 2008. (State law requires lobbying groups and lobbyists to register with OSE and report expenses when their lobbying expenditures reach a threshold of $2,000 or more).

Records filed with the OSE showed activity by 305 client lobbyist entities listing environmental issues among those they expected to lobby on during the 2009 legislative season.

OSE lobbying issues related to environmental management included in this report were agriculture/farming, conservation/zoning/land & water use, energy, environment, chemicals/pharmaceuticals, housing, marine/fisheries, economic & community development, public lands/parks/recreation, real estate development and transportation.

Taken together, the 305 client lobbyists spent about $9.4 million on these issues (all figures are as of September, 2009). To break this spend down further, lobbyists were assigned to one of three sub-categories: environmental, pro-business, and those with overlapping environmental and commercial objectives.

Spending by the 29 environmental client lobbyists was found to be about $388,300, an estimated 50% reduction from expenditures in 2008. This amounted to just 4% of the total spent for lobbying on related issues—and just 2% of total expenditures by all client lobbyists across all issues this year.

By comparison, nearly 100 pro-business entities lobbying on environmental and related issues spent a total of nearly $1.6 million in 2009, outspending environmental groups by 4 to 1.

(Source: Connecticut Office of State Ethics)

Operating expenditures for the 29 environmental lobbyists groups were in excess of $24 million, including wages, benefits, etc. for about 150 employees at a cost of about $3 million.

(Sources: Foundation Center; Guidestar.)


2009 Legislative Returns

With time short and environmental problems more urgent, the need to know the pace of progress toward sustainable resource management accomplished by current approaches to lawmaking is greater.

Fundamental questions remain to be answered, e.g. What return are advocates realizing on investments of time and money they make to communicate with legislators and the public? Is the response of lawmakers adequate to sustaining environmental and economic interests and the quality of life in Connecticut? If not, what improvements are indicated?

To the extent that lawmaking related to environmental issues provides a measure of progress, insights may be gained by analyzing related outcomes of a legislative session.

Click here to see how the 2009 state session started out and where it ended up

Results show the 2009 Connecticut state session started out differently from how it ended up. Being odd-numbered, it was a year when legislators (each serving two-year terms) could introduce bills about those issues of greatest importance to their constituents. (In even years, e.g. 2010, bills are introduced only by committee).

Many state lawmakers took the opportunity to introduce bills about a broad range of environmental hot-button issues, such as recycling, energy, electric cars, green building, green jobs health and toxics, neighborhood revitalization, economic development, resource conservation transportation and more. In all, bills relating to 43 environmental issues were introduced.

After the votes, vetoes and overrides were counted, less than 10% of the bills introduced about environmental management (369 bills) became law (32 bills).

(Source: Connecticut General Assembly (CGA); All analyses, reports and graphics about legislation, legislators and voting are generated using CGA data.)

Where many of the introduced bills embraced new approaches and suggested a willingness by lawmakers to work on a range of fronts, few of the session's early aspirations are well represented in the bills that ultimately became law.

Click here to see "heat maps" about consideration lawmakers gave environmental issues

More bills were introduced about renewable, clean energy, for example, than any other environmental management issue (36 bills). None became law. (A bill to facilitate a controversial hydroelectric generating facility at the Collinsville Dam was passed by the state house and senate then vetoed by the governor).

A bill about green architecture standards for new construction was passed, but a second bill, to provide green building tax credits that advocates saw as much needed, was also vetoed by the governor.

Another 32 bills were introduced about energy efficiency, energy rehabilitation incentives, efficient appliances and electric products, weatherization, policy and coordination. None became law. (Advocates point to a lack of progress on comprehensive energy policy in recent years as a significant failure of the legislature).

The state's public transportation needs were addressed initially by 32 bills introduced about a range of issues from from light rail, to transit hubs, alternative and low emission vehicles, VMT reduction and traffic congestion.

Of these, 3 bills made it out of committee and only 1 bill, about bicycle and pedestrian paths, became law.

Many advocacy groups expressed their support for the act, which carves out a small fraction of total transportation spending for pedestrians and bicyclists. Others saw it as an example of largely symbolic lawmaking—that gave legislators and advocates something to show for their efforts on public transportation issues.

24 bills were introduced about Recycling & Waste, including many about plastic and paper shopping bags, single stream recycling and expansion of the bottle bill. 2 were passed: a bill to prohibit use of certain lands for ash disposal and a second about collection of recyclables and solid waste.

(Expansion of the current bottle bill to include water bottles was passed as part of a budget-reduction act passed early in the session.)

Two issues seen by many as central to sustaining environmental and economic interests had to do with regional planning and smart growth. A current lack of regional planning and problems attributed to municipal "home rule" in the state are held up by many as contrary to best practices of sustainable environmental management.

This session, bills were passed about both regional planning and "smart growth," principles, but both fell short of early expectations. Advocates were critical of the bills even before they came up in chamber voting.

Regional planning bills were criticized for failing to provide incentives to municipalities or assign new resources and responsibilities to agencies. The smart growth bill was criticized as too weak for relying on municipal-level plans to the detriment of state and regional planning.

16 bills about watershed and wetland management were considered; none became law.

Several were notable for advocating science-based solutions to known problems. A bill to improve vegetative buffers near watercourses, for example, failed to make it out of committee. A second bill, aimed at reiterating and strengthening wetlands protections, failed in the House.

Other bills had also been introduced to provide technical training for inland wetlands commissioners and new controls on pollution of waterways from pesticides and medication disposal.

7 bills about brownfield remediation and redevelopment were introduced. A single bill, about brownfield development projects, was passed. It was criticized by advocates for failing to provide resources for remediation or reuse of brownfield sites.

By contrast, laws passed this year and last, such as bans on toxic chemicals and new requirements for the siting of polluting facilities, continue to break new ground in the state and for the nation. Of the 17 bills introduced about health and toxics in 2009, 3 bills went on to become law, achieving one the highest success rates of the 43 issue areas tracked.

The 3 bills passed this session are notable not only for their provisions, but also for demonstrating a willingness by lawmakers to act on threats to public health, especially when it involves children at home or at school.

Among them is a new ban on products containing Bisphenol-A, a chemical in many plastics linked to a number of health impacts, from food and children's products. Two other bills were passed to protect schoolchildren from the use of hazardous cleaning products and pesticides at schools.

Another 25 bills related to land use, economic development, greenways, Long Island Sound, lake management, stormwater & non-point pollution, recycling & waste, community facilities & services, environmental protections, water quality, equestrian access, tax policy, wastewater, invasive species, significant sites, green jobs and farm preservation were passed by the state house and senate.

The governor vetoed 5 bills. The veto of a bill about reorganizing a Long Island Sound Commission was overridden by the house and senate.

Click here to see voting for bills/actions


Observations
Engaging & Informing The Public

The fact that the scope and provisions of many of the bills passed at the end of the 2009 session fell short of initial exuberance raises questions about what can be expected if advocates and lawmakers continue to take similar approaches to environmental problems in 2010—or beyond.

It's hard to reconcile the relatively little progress made this year in a number of vital issue areas with the great number of organizations and individuals involved with environmental management in the state. Advocates were often heard to say that even a few calls from constituents can sway elected officials' votes. In '09, mustering such support proved more problematic.

This points to a critical need—and opportunity—for advocates to engage members, donors and the public more effectively. It begs the question: What do advocates need to do differently to see that more key issues are taken up by the legislature and more environmentally progressive bills become law?

In a 2008 speech about progressing toward sustainability, The Birth of BLUE, Adam Werbach wrote "we need to unleash the creativity and imagination of the public." A former Sierra Club leader who aims to get a billion people to create personal sustainability practices, Werbach argued for environmentalism to broaden its platform, "put people at the center" and "move beyond politics to the personal." He advocated a consumer-led movement with the goal of "moving beyond just ameliorating harm toward creating the future they want to share."

In Connecticut, advocates did expand their use of new media in 2009 to include web apps such as blogs and sites such as Facebook, and made greater use of email services such as Constant Contact. It remains to be seen if such tactics, as deployed, work to build mass or add clutter.

Messages are commonly sent out singly, as one-offs, without the strategic underpinnings of communication plans or designs to build meaning, relevance, mass, impact, involvement and urgency over the course of the legislative session.

Few identify commonality across multiple issues beyond the environment, or get into what can be done to begin drawing such connections. Many are sent to colleagues and staff at other advocacy groups, fewer to member or supporter email lists. Member communications typically include monthly, semi-annual or annual printed/snail mailed newsletters. Use of broad reach vehicles and messages targeted to the general public are limited.

Overall, groups' use of the web is typically a step behind. Content is not standardized or related in ways that support greater insight, as can be had through the use of relational data applications.

In the constantly accelerating game of catch-up that is the internet, advocates must look further downrange—to the fringes of environmentalism and frontiers of the web—and move nimbly to embrace emerging ideas and opportunities to engage and inform support. As powerful as email was or social networking has been, the web forces a question: "Now what?"

Lobbying Practices

The session's outcomes also raise questions about client lobbyist practices. Viewing advocates spending in the contexts of total spending, opponents' spending, the number of competing issues—and final outcomes of the session—is reason to consider whether advocates investments are or can come within range of a minimum required for client lobbying spends to be effective.

It may be that advocacy groups in Connecticut don't have the means or resources to lobby effectively. Even if groups had access to additional funding, it's estimated they would need to spend at least ten times as much as was spent in 2009 in order to make progress on environmental and related issues.

Lobbying may be seen by many as a cost of doing business—a sort of supermarket "loss-leader" necessary to bring legislators in to shop groups' concerns—but an economy in financial crisis also demands that alternative opportunities to increase effectiveness and cut costs be developed.

Similar to the way any financial investment is reallocated to address changing circumstances, the current economic environment provides client lobbyists with an opportunity to diversify expenditures to mix-in technological solutions integrating data design, management and visualization.

This report sees considerable potential for technological innovation to level the playing field—particularly a relational data application—and little reason to expect current practices to fare much better in coming years than in the past. Returns on technological applications such as those developed by CT EarthNet remain to be quantified, but the bar has not been set very high.

A Sense Of Urgency

Finally, there is a need for advocacy to communicate and act with a greater sense of urgency.


Tapping Opportunity

Important opportunities to engage the public and encourage participation in government stem from from popular trends toward social networking and the accelerating adoption of mobile electronic devices.

In a time demanding greater efficiency, such trends point at potential for innovation:

  • Advocacy groups are rich in content. Many have data, experience, insights about local issues and legislative action not available elsewhere.
  • Key to social networking, now and for the future, is to provide content, real time, that others will want to subscribe to and follow.
  • The most important opportunity for local advocates may be to provide and distribute relevant content in new and compelling ways.
Strategic Considerations

The challenge is to gain insight about how things that matter most to people in Connecticut today relate to and are served by progress toward sustainable environmental management.

Strategies to put people at the center of advocacy in Connecticut, integrate broader lifestyle considerations and speak to commonalities across issues other than environment are within reach for local groups. Considerations include:

  • Developing insights about the things people value most about life here and their expectations of a fulfilling lifestyle
  • Integrating insights in ways that can optimize content, organize communication campaigns, craft and schedule messaging;
  • Powering and relating content using technological applications and experience such as CT EarthNet has developed and made available;
  • Visualizing issues, connectivity between issues, and consequences for quality of life with graphics that reveal meaning and compel responses;
  • Distributing insights and content via new and evolving digital ecosystems—such as cloud computing, mash-up sites, news aggregators, and more—to broaden reach and optimize relevance .

To the extent that the legislative process follows a systematic progression of events and dates, there is an opportunity to develop communication strategies, for example, to engage, ramp-up, inform and call on public support—in parallel.

Messaging could be designed to develop a related progression of public outreach and information to convey a greater sense of urgency—focused on specific events and dates, with deadlines in mind. When the time comes to call for their help, supporters may be more informed, attentive and motivated to act.

Communication strategies can be developed to manage supporter messaging from start to finish over the course of a session. Prior to a session, for example, messages might be planned to recap historical challenges, lessons learned or key milestones and timelines. At the opening gavel, additional messages might give the line ups and offer insights about key committees, upcoming hearings and the records of key decision-makers.

Click here to see a "Leadership Index" for legislators.

Dynamic information that begins to flow once a session begins can be posted, related and visualized in real time and on an ongoing basis, to give people opportunities to "opt-in" and follow those issues with greatest relevance. For example (as referenced above):

Click here to see "heat maps" about consideration lawmakers gave environmental issues

The value of relational data design is in its ability to relate dynamic information in ways that build relevance. Different people come to the political process from their own directions and with their own interests. Relational data applications can display the information of greatest relevance, interest and immediacy to a person—and continually refresh and update content and visuals as events occur or a legislative session progresses.


Relational data application: Among the many advantages of relational data applications, such as those CT EarthNet has developed and made available, a few are particularly relevant:

  • First, a relational data application can make it quick and easy for a person to get acquainted with environmental issues affecting them based on their needs and interests;
  • Second, a person's interests can be related to issues and groups, making it easy for them to explore an issue, find expertise and resources and choose to get involved;
  • Third, it can relate information about government based on a person's interests and lifestyle—and give advocates new means for engaging supporters;
  • Fourth, it can manage, relate and visualize content to reveal meaning, compel action and track progress.

Experience CT EarthNet has gained in developing such an application has the benefit of providing this functionality. For example, its InfoTree database indexes over 1,200 groups, their issue focus, related resources, and over 4,500 individuals. Its social networking features include blogs, a calendar, forums and groups.

The Legi/Slate application relates data about legislators, committees, bills, including nearly 370 environmental bills introduced in 2009. Functionality enables groups to create online legislative agendas, post updates about progress of legislation, manage testimony at hearings and more.

As a result, new development of more powerful capabilities, i.e. analytics that recognize patterns and relationships, is already underway. Development aims to understand formal and informal dynamic connections between issues, advocates and legislators as will further empower strategic planning, tactical modeling and predicting potential outcomes.

Click here to see legislators voting by issue

Click here to see legislators' absence rates

Data visualization: "Looking at something ordinary—in a new way—makes it extraordinary"—Aaron Koblin, Google Creative Lab, on data visualization.

Following the progress of legislation can be practically impossible for members of the public. Information is available from the state on its general assembly site, but it can be difficult to make sense of much of it given the amount of data and the ways it is presented.

Data visualization reveals meaning. It represents an important opportunity to show issues, bills, voting records, etc. graphically—and a picture truly is worth a thousand words. Visualizations convey understanding quickly and make otherwise complex information accessible.

The benefits for advocacy are many. The greater understanding can serve purposes of engaging and informing the public as well as communicating with and persuading lawmakers.

Visuals can be powerful in conveying a sense of urgency, making the need to take real action plain to see.

Click here to see cross-over votes by bill/action

Click here to see legislators' cross-over voting rates

Click here to see range of similarity of legislators' records

Distributing content: New opportunities to collaborate and share and that make content available both from individual groups and aas part of an integrated standard viewer can be identified and developed.

Examples include news aggregators and mash-up sites. Displayed via custom visualizations, such functionality would serve numerous needs identified in this report.


Conclusion

"...Since endlessness needs us to take its pulse."

—from Who Needs It, a poem by Heather McHugh


This report takes an initial step toward measuring the progress of environmental management in Connecticut and in making such information more readily available.

Based on this information and future tracking, new conversations need to be developed about deadlines—exchanges that can provide supporters and the public with personally compelling reasons to become involved with setting and meeting goals and seeing to it that certain actions are taken—by certain dates.

Copyright © CT EarthNet 2009. All Rights Reserved. This report may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, electronic file transfer, or by any information storage and or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, CT EarthNet, Georgetown, Connecticut, USA.