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Capital Concerns
DOL Has Web Appeal
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Business New Haven
11/17/1997
By: BNH
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Connecticut's Department of Labor has become the first agency in the country to offer workers and employers the option of filing appeals to unemployment claims via the Internet. The DOL amended its regulations in late October, allowing it to offer electronic filing and fax filing of appeals beginning on Halloween Day. Previously, the appeals could be filed only in person or by mail.
“We wanted to take advantage of the technology that's now available,” says Bennett Pudlin, chairman of the Employment Security Board of Review, a quasi-judicial agency within the DOL. “Our goal has been to make the process as accessible as possible for the benefit of both claimants and employers.”
The department's home page provides easy instructions for filing the electronic appeals, including some handy FAQs (frequently asked questions). Later this month, it also plans to begin offering a searchable online database of decisions handed down by the Board of Review going back to 1990. You can visit the Web site at http://www.ctdol.state.ct.us. Look for phone appeals next year, Pudlin says.
Agricultural Technology Blossoms
Connecticut's agricultural biotechnology industry can play an important role in revitalizing the state's economy, a new study concludes.
A task force of the Connecticut Academy of Science & Engineering found that agriculture was the only industry besides tourism that showed steady expansion right through the recession of the early 1990s. While the industry has continued to grow, the study made seven specific recommendations to improve the environment for starting new businesses in agricultural biotechnology, including creating an Internet clearinghouse; establishing more low-cost incubator space, which critics have said is sorely lacking in Connecticut; and establishing funding programs.
Industry experts say Connecticut could capitalize on plant biotechnology, aquaculture, vaccine and diagnostics development, agricultural waste technology and, simply, prettier plants.
You can see a summary of the report at CASE's Web site at http://www.ctcase.org/agbiosum.html.
Blowin' in the Wind
We've all heard about the potential dangers of second-hand smoke. But what about second-hand pollution? Emissions from plants as far away as Ohio and other Midwestern states are polluting the skies over Connecticut. Because these imported emissions are making it harder, and in some cases impossible, for Connecticut to meet federal clean-air standards, state officials have appealed to the Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on out-of-state polluters.
Connecticut was among a handful of states that recently filed petitions with the EPA demanding that it require emission-reduction controls at power plants and major industrial sources to the south and west of Connecticut.
As Attorney General Richard Blumenthal noted, Connecticut companies can meet the standards, but the second-hand pollution floating in on prevailing winds means the air is still considered polluted. The EPA is expected to act on the petition within a few months.
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