G. Scott Deshefy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I am running as a Green for US House of Representatives.
| Job History: | |
 | From 1982 through April 2007 (retirement), Scott Deshefy served the citizens of Connecticut as a supervisory environmental analyst in the CT Dept. of Environmental Protection. In that capacity as state official, Scott developed and supervised enforcement and environmental clean-up programs involving underground storage of petroleum and other hazardous chemicals as well as the monitoring and regulation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxic chemicals, including asbestos. Deshefy additionally served as scientific support coordinator during environmental emergencies, including chemical releases to Long Island Sound and estuarine environments.
On December 27, 2007, Scott became the first Green Party candidate in history to declare his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2nd Connecticut Congressional District. In Norwich, Connecticut, on April 12, 2008, by unanimous decision of the first 2nd CD Green Party nominating convention in history, G. Scott Deshefy became the Green Party's first nominee to run for the congressional seat of the 2nd Connecticut congressional district. A lifelong resident of eastern Connecticut and native son of Uncasville, Scott Deshefy graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in biology and minoring in literature while a recipient of state and collegiate academic scholarships and student loans. Also conducting graduate studies in biological sciences at the University of Montana, UCONN and Southern CT State University, Scott completed his MS in zoology at Clemson University in 1978 as well as four years of doctoral work with emphasis in behavioral-ecology. Under a Clemson University graduate teaching assistantship and as part-time lecturer at Middlesex Community College (Middletown, CT), Scott Deshefy has taught general biology, vertebrate zoology, human anatomy and physiology, environmental science, astronomy and geology. He was a nominee for a Dansforth Fellowship in 1982. During breaks in collegiate studies, Scott has worked at the U.S. Submarine Base in Groton, CT and as a cutter-packer for the Dow Chemical Corporation, Allyn's Point, Gales Ferry, CT. He worked at General Dynamic Electric Boat (Groton, CT) from 1973-75 as a shipfitter and radiation control monitor, receiving high security clearances for his work with reactors on nuclear submarines as part of RADCON. Scott also has worked his way through college as a landscaper, cemetery maintainer/gravedigger, and restaurant cook. He is a champion of the working class laborer and knows what it's like to earn wages in conditions so hazardous that welding fumes prevent seeing your hand in front of your face. Scott Deshefy has drafted environmental regulations and general statutes, worked closely with the CT Office of Attorneys General on dozens of environmental civil cases (including Connecticut's first type A ecological damage assessment claims) and worked with the CT State's Attorneys on major criminal cases. He has gained national reputation with the EPA for innovative, no-nonsense approaches to environmental enforcement, even when handicapped by limited allocatioon of state resources. He has prepared dozens of federal grant requests to support the state environmental programs he has supervised and devloped and, over twenty-five years, never failed to meet program goals for which those EPA grants were approved. During his tenure as head of the Underground Storage Tank (UST) Enforcement program, Deshefy's stringent enforcement of UST codes and regulations helped effect the removal of over 27,000 leaking and antiquated gasoline, heating fuel and chemical USTs, thereby preventing incalculable harm to the groundwaters of Connecticut. From 1982-1987, Scott served on the Montville Board of Education, including chairman from 1985-87. While chairman, teacher salaries were raised as an incentive to improve both the quality and frequency of individuals pursuing teaching degrees and to make starting teacher salaries in eastern CT a truly living wage. Scott received the Briarwood College environmental educator award in 2002 and, as a state official, was named by Governor Lowell Weicker as Connecticut's natural resources trustee for environmental damage assessment claims pursuant to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (R.C.R.A.). Deshefy has written and edited three books of poetry. He has been a poetry award recipient from the 'Hartford Advocate,' a nominee for CT poet laureate, and he has published articles in various scientific journals, including 'Animal Behaviour.' Scott also can be heard on Tuesday Evening Classics 'Heroic Overtures' every first and third Tuesday of the month (4pm-8pm) at 91.3 FM (WWUH, West Hartford), wwuh.org, and 89.9 FM (WAPJ, Torrington). Scott has been part of the voluntary UH (University of Hartford) radio team for ten years, helping to provide some of the best in community service/public alternative radio programming on your FM or real audio internet dials. In October 2005, Scott was awarded the medallion of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce in recognition of his role in helping prepare DEP's environmental impact statement, instrumental in deferring the proposed BRAC closure of the U.S. Submarine Base in Groton,CT. Scott and his wife, Nancy, have been married for 31 years and take great pride in their teenage daughter, Alea. |
| Important Issues: | |
| The environment (more accurately described as the ecology) is the single most important issue facing this state, this nation and the world. Global warming, pollution, depleted ozone, the politics of starvation, diminishing water resources, destruction of habitat leading to loss of species diversity, the colossal exploitation and the incomprehensible scale of killing of both indigenous and domesticated nonhuman animals all persist because of human population growth, mythological suspension of scientific reason, and a general lack of adherence to moral tenets in favor of consumerism and a society based on corporate profits without concern for harm or sustainability. Unlike my opponents, I understand and I am willing to discuss the paradigm shifts needed to reverse these destructive trends. We of the 2nd congressional district of Connecticut can lead the nation in promoting lifestyle changes, which will not only add value and quality to our lives and the lives of our loved ones, but will provide sustainable economic stability and economic justice to the region. In the interest of brevity, I can only list some of these interrelated issues on this website. Here they are:
1. We must bring an immediate end to the war in Iraq to preserve the lives and well-being of U.S. men and women in uniform as well as the Iraqi people and to redirect military spending to improving our educational system, infrastructure and health care system. Without the current ballooning scale of military spending, we can make reductions in the national budget deficit and more rapidly develop mass transit and alternative energy sources critical to our future. 2. I will support and sign House Resolution 333 to impeach President Bush and VP Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors. If someone steals a loaf of bread to feed their family, they are held accountable. Elected officials who lie to the American public to manufacture consent for war, thereby violating their oaths of office and their obligations to uphold the U.S. constitution, need to be held accountable, as well. I commend Congressman Kucinich for his initiatives in this regard, and accuse Democrats and Republicans, who have not supported H.R.333, of failing to fulfill their constitutional obligations 3. We must enact a region-based 'living' wage so all working people stay above both the poverty line and the 'lost class' category, where people fall below the poverty line after taxes. In this regard, we need to focus on major reduction of property taxes in the 2nd district of Connecticut. I will fight adamantly for those changes. 4. Perhaps 45 million Americans lack basic health care. I will work to insure publicly guaranteed, accessible, universal health care for all Americans and cap prices on prescription drugs developed with tax-payer money. 5. To reverse corporate control of family farms and the monoculture of petroleum-based, genetically-modified corn destroying our heartland AND to mitigate the epidemics of diabetes, obesity and other diseases ravaging our country, I will vote against and try to eliminate government subsidies to factory farms and the 'junk' and processed food industries, which are at the core of our nation's dietary ills. Prevention is the key to good health, and a good diet, sustained by organically and locally grown fruits, vegetables and a diversity of grains, is the key to prevention. Furthermore, the well-documented meat-eating excesses of America cause enormous pollution and (by nearly an order of magnitude) highly inefficient use of energy, water resources and land mass to produce sources of protein, which can be more directly and healthfully obtained from plant foods. I will promote a return to crop rotation and crop diversity, and a return to a more vegetarian lifestyle for the 2nd District and the nation. I will do so by example and by promoting financial incentives, which are NOT inversely proportional to dietary benefit and good health. 6. I will support full public financing of public elections to return this country to a democratic process rather than a corporate oligarchy and 'uniparty' election designed to benefit and to be controlled by the wealthy and powerful. I will work to 'unstack' the deck for independent and third party candidates. 7. I will work to end public subsidies and tax breaks for the wealthy and for industries that pollute or destroy habitat. Furthermore, I will vote and work for a frugal but compassionate government, putting an end to predatory lending practices and providing reasonable impasses and restrictions on public and private deficit spending, which have made America a debtor nation, driven prices through the roof and caused more bankruptcies than college graduations among our young. We are living in a toppling house of cards, credit cards, because American capitalism has been telling us what we need to match its products, rather than making products to meet our actual needs. Our trade deficit with China alone increases by roughly $1 billion per day because we have become the world's consumer rather than a producer, a consequence of corporate greed and the IMF/World Bank/global economy (devised in Breton Woods, NH @1948) which has methodically moved U. S. jobs overseas. I will promote the purchase of local goods and support a capitalism, which does not unnecessarily multiply our wants, but engages us intellectually to develop products that are critical to our needs, including inexpensive, pollution-free automobiles, storm and flood proof housing, mass transportation, and low-energy appliances, which are cheaper to repair than replace. That is how capitalism should work when it is not solely designed for exploitative profit margins. Adam Smith can indeed embrace Rachel Carson. We must also rethink the so-called 'drug war,' its misguided foreign policies, the criminality of possession, and why race and class are disproportionately reflected in convictions and prison sentences. At first glance, such issues seem remote from economic considerations, but the economy is at the very heart of these cultural problems. As your congressman, I will be an agent for positive change. 8. I will work to develop and promote education, which is broadly humanist and designed for the acquisition of the most knowledge, not to solely funnel young men and women into a world of work as technocrats devoid of the quality of life nurtured by multiple scholarly interests. Furthermore, I will introduce congressional legislation to provide free tuition to college students, who wish to engage in community service, similar to the VISTA program of the 60s, following graduation. I will fight to stop the 'dumbing down of America' and help promote the kind of interest and eagerness to learn, which energized America in the early 1960s. 9. I will promote programs emphasizing local community in which individuals discover their own good through discovery of the common good. I will encourage civil discourse, the purchase of local goods and a society, where our wants are not multiplied unnecessarily by Wall Street, Madison Avenue and commercialism. 10. I will encourage spiritualism and leadership without suspension of reason and the destruction of life caused by anthropocentrism. 11. I will work for the development and expansion of mass transit in eastern Connecticut and resurrect interest in developing a passenger rail/trolley system along the Thames River corridor and between Hartford and eastern Connecticut. 12. I will begin to develop nonmilitary uses of the U.S. Submarine Base in Groton with an eye to the inevitability of BRAC closure so SUBASE employees can begin a gradual retraining now and so the region's economics will benefit from a diversity of jobs and nonmilitary uses of the facility. |
| Why Vote For Me: | |
| For nearly thirty (30) years, I have been active nationally and throughout Connecticut as an advocate for ecological ethics, nonviolence, economic justice and reverence for all life. As a private citizen and state official, I have fought suppression of information and made powerful corporations accountable for pollution and violations of state and federal environmental law. I am a scientist at a time when national, state and global issues/crises demand scientific acumen from our governments and leaders, not the status quo discernment of lawyers and career politicians, which has so poorly served us in the past. My candidacy provides a new and rational vision, which my opponents in the 2nd District cannot or will not provide. I pledge to bring an immediate end to the war in Iraq and, in the interests of America and our brave soldiers abroad, to vote against further funding of the war in Iraq to accomplish that end. I believe that President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be held accountable for their deceptions of the American public, which ultimately led to our military involvement in Iraq. Moreover, I pledge to the people of the 2nd District of Connecticut that, as your congressman, I will not build the present on the status quo blueprints of the past, thereby causing our futures and the futures of our children to fall asunder. I am the only candidate, who will make such a pledge, bringing science and reason to the fore, and shifting our priorities to economic justice, living wages, respect for and preservation of all life, mitigation of global warming, and an end to factory farming and the corporate grip that has strangled family farms and American agriculture, sending us into a global spiral of petroleum-based destruction of our soils, our water resources and our dietary health. Unlike my opponents, I am not afraid to aspire to the ancient ideal of philosopher statesman. Together, with your vote in November, we can achieve great things in the 2nd District. As Walter Brennan's character said in Frank Capra's movie, 'Meet John Doe,' ......'Everyone knows the world's been shaved by a drunken barber.' The Republicans and Democrats have been strapping that razor for much too long. Please Vote Green....Vote Deshefy for Democracy. |
| http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DeshefyforCongress/
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Contact G. Scott Deshefy
| My Web Site: | G. Scott Deshefy's Official Web Site |
| Phone: | (860) 642-7066 |
| Mail: | Deshefy For Congress |
| 150 Yantic Street, Unit 232 | |
| Norwich, CT 06360-4296 |
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2008 2010
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