If you accepted a tofurkey, lettuce, and vegenaise sandwich from Colleen Higgins and Ashley Byrne of Peta Tuesday morning you received two free gallons of gas.

Why?

"Because going vegan is the single most effective action they can take," Byrne said, standing on the corner of Capitol Avenue and Broad Street in Hartford wearing nothing more than strategically placed lettuce leaves.

Robin Schafer (pictured) and other environmentalists are celebrating passage of a new state law that could give pollution-plagued neighborhoods like Fair Haven a weapon to fight back.

It took members of the New Haven Environmental Justice Network and its parent organization, the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, five years to convince the legislature to pass the state's first environmental justice law.

They and other environmentalists celebrated that and some other victories, while watching some other important bills die in the legislative session that ended last week.

Click here to continue reading Melinda's report from the Elm City.

A bill seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming was passed Monday afternoon by the House of Representatives after a more than four hour debate.

The bill was passed by a 131-16 vote and now heads to the Senate.

Proponents of the bill say it builds on the success of 2004 climate change legislation, which sets benchmarks for air pollution reduction. The bill passed Monday requires emissions to be capped at 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent emissions reductions from 2001 levels by 2050.

"It's important that we are vigilant in being prepared to deal with the expected impacts of climate change. Connecticut doesn't have the power to stop climate change, but we have the resources to diminish its impact," Rep. Patricia Widlitz, D-Guilford, said in a press release.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell shared the stage with fellow governors from New Jersey, Kansas and California, as they all took turns signing the Governors' Declaration on Climate Change. But she didn't do what these Connecticut environmental activists hoped she would.

Click here to continue reading Melinda's report and find out what these activists wanted Rell to do.

Top state officials described their plans for addressing global climate change. Meanwhile, students took the three top presidential candidates for a ride along the road to environmental justice.

It was day one Thursday of a national gathering at Yale's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a convocation of governors. California's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Connecticut's M. Jodi Rell are expected on campus Friday, marking the 100th anniversary of President Theodore Roosevelt's convening of the nation's governors to press for protection of the country's natural resources.

Click here to continue reading Melinda's report.

Under chilly, overcast April skies, two members of Connecticut's U.S. Congressional delegation, the state's attorney general and other elected officials made a united plea to New York's governor to reject the Broadwater LNG facility in Long Island Sound.

If New York Gov. David A. Paterson refuses, and his decision may be known as early as Wednesday, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal vowed at the Monday gathering at the Stony Creek dock "to straitjacket Broadwater in the courts so that a safer, saner project takes its place."

Click here to continue reading Marcia's report. And here to read a survey paid for by Broadwater.

Following more than two years of intense study, review of more than 300 documents and 16 public hearings Connecticut's top lawmakers and members of a task force created by the governor in 2005 issued their final report which concluded the Broadwater Energy Project, a floating natural gas platform, is the wrong project at the wrong time.

At a press conference Thursday, Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Sen. Len Fasano, R-North Haven, Sen. Andrea Stillman, D-Waterford, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and others who participated in the task force said they sent this eight-page
letter to the state of New York encouraging it to reject the plans.

The Coalition for a Safe and Healthy Connecticut used this 25-foot-tall inflatable yellow duck to prove there are safe alternatives to toxic chemicals in children's toys.

Sarah Uhl of Clean Water Action said "hormone disrupters are commonly added to plastics." However, "when we have safer alternatives we don't need to be using toxic ones anymore," she said holding up one set of baby bottles with Bisphenol-A and one set without.

The coalition, a group of 30 organizations, is pushing the legislature to pass this bill that would phase out the sale of toys containing Lead, Phthalates, and Bisphenol-A.

Currently, state and local health departments cannot inform the public about which retail establishments, restaurants, or schools receive tainted meat or poultry. Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, wants to change that.

Williams said he wants to pass legislation that would require distributors to tell the state where tainted meat is distributed. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who joined Williams at the Legislative Office Building Monday, said doing something at the state level is important because at the moment, there's "no mandatory recall at the federal level." She said the USDA has caved to the industry in this regard.

More recently, the USDA refused to release the names of retail outlets and schools that received some of the 143 million pounds of beef involved in the most recent recall, she said.

It's rare state lawmakers see a recycling bill that bottlers, trash haulers, grocers, and environmentalists can all agree on.

This year Rep. Linda Schofield, D-Simsbury, was able to make the impossible happen and bring them all together to support HB 5138.

When it comes to recycling "we can do better," Schofield said Friday.