CONNECTICUT RESOURCES RECOVERY AUTHORITY
(CGS § 22A-261)

● The authority's board of directors consists of 11 members appointed by the governor and legislative leaders.  The governor appoints three members and the Senate president pro tempore, the House speaker, the Senate minority leader and House minority leader two each.

● Three directors must represent towns with a population of fewer than 50,000 and two must represent towns with populations greater than 50,000.

● Five members represent the public and must have extensive, high-level experience in a specified field. Three must be experienced in finance, business or industry; one in an environmental field; and one in an energy field.

● Members serve four-year terms and must be confirmed by both houses.  The governor designates one member to serve as chairman, with the advice and consent of both houses.  The chairman serves at the governor's pleasure.

● CRRA plans, designs, builds, and operates solid waste disposal, volume reduction, recycling, intermediate processing, and resources recovery facilities.  The chairman appoints the president of the authority, who supervises the authority's administrative affairs and technical activities.  The authority is a quasi-public agency.

QUESTIONS

1. You have been chairman of CRRA since 2002. What has CRRA accomplished during your tenure? Are you satisfied with what you have achieved? What are your priorities for this legislative session? What are your priorities for the long term?

2. How will the transition to private ownership of CRRA's resources recovery plants in the coming years affect the state? What role will CRRA play?

3. Late last year CRRA decided against purchasing the Wallingford Resources Recovery Facility. Please explain why, and how the facility will now operate.

4. The Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) amended Solid Waste Management Plan calls for increasing the state's recycling rate, which has held at 30 % for a number of years, to 58% by 2024.  Do you think this is a feasible goal? What can CRRA do to help achieve this rate, and what are you doing now to promote recycling?

5. Should the state require the recycling of #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) plastics? What are your views on proposals to expand the bottle bill to include plastic water bottles? Do you believe the state should increase the current nickel deposit to 10 cents? Why?

6. Inner-city residents believe they have historically been overburdened by the siting of landfills and incinerators in their neighborhoods.  Do you think these beliefs are warranted? If so, what steps should CRRA take to remedy this?

7. Please describe CRRA's policy on awarding new contracts and re-bidding expired contracts.  Under what circumstances would you renew a contract outside of the competitive bid process?

8. Do you anticipate increasing or decreasing CRRA's tipping fees? On what would that depend?

9. CRRA recently closed its ash residue landfill site in Hartford, and has announced plans to open a replacement site in Franklin. Legislation has been proposed to prohibit CRRA from establishing the site in Franklin. Why did CRRA select Franklin? What alternatives are there? What are CRRA's plans if it is barred from using the Franklin site?

10. A bill proposed in 2008 (SB 636) would have barred CRRA from charging a tipping fee exceeding a rate proposed by the Department of Public Utility Control.  What is your opinion of this type of legislation?

11. Do you believe single-stream recycling is more effective than previous recycling methods in which recyclables were sorted into different bins?

12. You were appointed to represent towns with populations of less than 50,000. How does that perspective influence your decisions?

PF:ak