Last week, Ned Lamont secured his third term as governor of Connecticut amid a nationwide “blue wave” that swept Democrats into state office. With his defeat of Republican nominee and state senator Ryan Fazio, he will be the second governor in Connecticut history to serve for three terms since our state’s transition to four-year gubernatorial terms in 1950.
Lamont first entered the political spotlight in 2006 as an unlikely challenger and dissident to then-incumbent Senator Joseph Lieberman, a former Democrat vice-presidential nominee heavily favored to win re-election. Lamont, however, tapped into opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq and achieved a stunning primary upset, despite his later defeat in the general election.
However, the governor who marched steadily to the drumbeat of social politics has now fallen behind and off-tempo to our climate crisis. Despite Connecticut’s vulnerability to climate change, Lamont has consistently ignored the perils of the fossil fuel industry. In 2025, in collaboration with the Trump Administration, Lamont announced support for expanding fracked natural gas pipelines from Pennsylvania into New England and argued that natural gas could serve as a transitional fuel to replace “dirtier” winter oil-fired plants. Lamont later turned down a sustainable geothermal heating system for the Capitol Area System in favor of a new fossil fuel expansion system. Now, he has permitted fossil fuel monopolies Enbridge and Eversource to crisscross our state with natural gas pipeline expansions. Additionally, despite his claim that natural gas is a necessary transition fuel, he has not advanced any plans to transition out of it.
Furthermore, Lamont has ignored the dangers of natural gas. While he is correct that natural gas is, on the surface, cleaner than burning oil or coal, it is not a just or sustainable alternative. When life cycle emissions and leakage are accounted for, natural gas can match or even exceed the climate-warming impact of coal. Natural gas, which is composed of methane, is notorious for leaking from pipelines and fuel stations, and as a partial failure of government oversight, its leakage is often undervalued in impact analysis. The International Energy Agency estimates that actual energy-related methane emissions are 80% higher than the amounts reported by countries to the United Nations. Although short-lived, methane gas traps 86 times more heat in the atmosphere over a 20-year period compared to carbon dioxide, the primary pollutant of oil and gas. Methane is also a major chemical precursor to ground-level ozone — a dangerous air pollutant linked to over one million annual premature deaths, as well as respiratory illnesses like asthma and heart disease. This allowance of methane pollution is inexcusable considering Connecticut’s high asthma rate — Hartford is the eighth ranked asthma capital in the U.S. Lamont’s decision to continue to expand natural gas infrastructure, then, is ignorant of his constituent’s health.
Connecticut is no stranger to the ill-effects of our warming planet. We notice it in the early closings of our ski mountains, the slow disappearance of our marine fishing industries and the increasingly lackluster color of our prided fall foliage. We see it in more damaging ways too — our rapidly changing climate places Connecticut at higher risk of hurricanes and sudden torrential downpours each year. Increased flooding has caused our state to invest millions in stormwater prevention measures, yet overflow has become an increasing issue as torrential downpours carry raw sewage into our rivers. Wildfires — once relatively few and far between in our state — are escalating in frequency as rising temperatures and sustained droughts become a new norm. Sea level rise from glacial melt threatens to overcome our state’s beloved shoreline. Although Lamont’s administration has set aside funding to help communities adapt to the worst impacts of climate change, he has failed to trace these issues back to their root cause: our own continued reliance on fossil fuels. Lamont’s expansion of methane gas infrastructure has not weaned our state away from the worst of climate change — instead, he has deepened our dependence on the industries responsible for the many problems our communities already face.
In 2022, Lamont admonished lapses in climate policy nationwide on X: “there are more damn excuses for inaction on climate change than I care to hear. We don’t accept that here in Connecticut.” True to the point, he announced that Connecticut’s grid would be carbon neutral by 2040. Lamont’s third term will take him until 2031, just nine years short of his proposed deadline. If Lamont wants to make good on his promise, he must recognize the detriment a reliance on methane gas poses to our environment, health and climate goals.
Our re-elected governor once built his political career on challenging the status quo. Now, he risks embodying the very same inaction he once criticized. If he intends to make good on his past promises, he must reemphasize Connecticut’s commitment to the climate and reject our growing reliance on natural gas.