As mentioned in my first post, I spent 12 years in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. I’m proud of my Coast Guard service, not only because I got to directly serve my country, but because my role allowed me to do what I’m most passionate about: protecting our environment. I joined while still in college and went to bootcamp in Cape May, New Jersey during a summer break. About a year after I completed my initial training I went through advanced schooling to become a Marine Science Technician. My responsibilities and duties are too numerous to list here but to sum it up, I was primarily responsible for helping to protect our coastline and waterways from marine pollution. As such, a highlight of my Coast Guard career was spending two months in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 responding to BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. I spent more than eight hours a day on a boat in the bayous of the Mississippi River Delta helping to clean up recoverable oil from the disaster. That experience, while under tragic circumstances, was definitely rewarding in many ways and has made a lasting impact on my life.

Although I have considered myself an environmentalist for as long as I can remember, my time in the Gulf of Mexico during the BP catastrophe showed me, firsthand, the devastation that fossil fuel extraction can wreak. Only one other situation, mountaintop removal in Appalachia (more on that in a future post), has, for me, been able to so clearly put a human face on the direct impacts our global fossil fuel addiction. Talking and getting to know shrimp boat operators and workers, charter boat captains, and other folks that depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods, it was glaringly obvious that we need to immediately transition from an economy based on dirty, dangerous, and destructive fossil fuels to an economy that thrives on preferred sources of energy from the wind and the sun.

Obviously, I care deeply about the environment; in fact, it’s the issue that I consider to be most important. Simply put, without clean air and water all other issues generally cease to matter- our very survival depends on these things. The good news is, taking action on the environment is also tremendously helpful for our health, our economy, and our over well being. Investing in renewable energy infrastructure creates long-term, high quality jobs and Connecticut can be a global leader in developing and manufacturing new clean energy technologies. Considering not only the need for urgent action to stop the ongoing climate crisis, but the fact that fossil fuel use is killing people around the world, including in Connecticut, the transition to clean energy needs to a priority. As state senator I would help to lead the charge toward a clean energy revolution.

My priorities are improving job growth through ramping up the state’s clean energy economy, improving education for all of our children and young people, and stabilizing taxes for low and middle income families. In the coming weeks I’ll post more specific information on each of these priorities as well on other issues relevant to this race. In the meantime, if you have questions or want to know my thoughts on an issue, feel free to email me at colinbennettforsenate@gmail.com, or just comment on this post.

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Me in the office at Sector Long Island Sound in New Haven.