Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has proposed a four-year, $500 million energy plan for Connecticut, The Advocate reports.
The proposal calls for the use of bio-fuels and renewable forms of energy, cutting costs for businesses and families, and reducing fossil fuel consumption.
Rell also called for a set of new energy goals for the state by 2020, including that 20 percent of all energy used and sold in the state to come from clean or renewable energy sources.
Rell called for banning so-called zone pricing of gasoline for two years, capping the state gross receipts tax on petroleum products when the wholesale price of gas hits $1.75 per gallon, and extending the state sales tax exemption on weatherization products and eliminating local property taxes on the first three years of a hybrid car ownership.
Other parts of the plan would create a loan program to help small businesses meet their energy needs, provide low interest loans to state farmers to grow biofuel-related crops, require state and school construction projects to include energy efficiency technology and replace more state cars with hybrid vehicles, and create a new sales tax exemption for purchases of EnergyStar air conditioners, among other initiatives.