For a question as big, complicated and important as what role new imports of Canadian hydropower should play in New England’s energy future, it takes more than two lines in a press release to answer it. Indeed, we at CLF have been working on this issue for years. So, it’s worth explaining in a little more depth how a new initiative announced this week could help the region come up with a sound answer that serves the public interest. The “could” is crucial, because the initiative follows in the wake of a series of poorly conceived transmission (Northern Pass) and subsidy (Connecticut and Rhode Island energy legislation) proposals that ignored key questions and advanced narrow interests.

What we know: the major Canadian utilities want to sell more power into our markets and have been executing plans to build massive new hydropower facilities and to develop new transmission corridors into and through New England.

What we don’t know: are new large-scale hydropower imports the right move for New England? In particular:

• Will new imports supply cost-effective power to the region – i.e., with economic benefits that exceed impacts?
• Will new imports actually help reduce the region’s greenhouse gas emissions?
• Will new imports diminish the impetus for renewable energy projects that are based in New England?
• Will new imports displace the dirtiest power on the regional grid?
• Will new imports drive more and more development of costly and environmentally damaging hydropower projects in Canada?
• How many and what kind of new transmission projects do we need (if any), and are the community and environmental burdens and benefits of those projects shared equitably?
• What are the energy alternatives to new imports and are they a better solution to the region’s energy needs?

On Monday, five New England states announced that they would be initiating a process that could lead to a large procurement of Canadian hydropower. Almost all the details remain to be worked out, with the New England States Committee on Electricity (NESCOE) – an organization that represents the shared interests of New England state governments in electric energy policy – managing the effort. NESCOE also is implementing the New England states’ initiative to procure renewable energy from qualifying sources, to satisfy the goals of the states’ Renewable Portfolio Standard programs.

As I indicated in the press release on the initiative, CLF is optimistic that NESCOE’s procurement process could help New England define the right role for new hydropower imports. In fact, if done well, the procurement process could provide a version of the regional assessment and strategic plan for hydropower imports that CLF and others have been advocating for more than two years. What would “done well” mean?

• The process must include, up front, a sound, technical analysis of the region’s long-term need for new hydropower imports in the context of the many alternatives, including renewable energy, distributed generation, and energy efficiency efforts that exist here in New England.
• The process must be carefully structured to assure a level playing field that properly values the most intelligent strategies to meet the states’ climate and economic goals, with no special preferences for particular companies and no ratepayer-financed windfalls.
• The process must honestly, rigorously, and credibly analyze the potential climate benefits of new imports, in light of the unequivocal science that large-scale hydropower projects and especially new facilities result in significant greenhouse gas emissions and that most net reductions will likely be over the long term, not the short term.
• The process must fairly and equitably allocate properly-accounted greenhouse gas emissions impacts among the participating states, as states like Massachusetts and Connecticut look to make good on their legal obligations under their Global Warming Solutions Acts to reduce emissions.
• The process must acknowledge and avoid rewarding the considerable environmental damage associated with large-scale hydropower development in Canada, especially the additional dam projects that new imports may facilitate.
• The process must disavow the early, troubling signs that it could be used as a vehicle specifically to promote Northeast Utilities’ current, fatally flawed Northern Pass proposal through New Hampshire.
• The process needs to bring New Hampshire to the table, as a willing and empowered participant.
• The process must assure that new imports complement, not undermine, renewable energy development in New England, in order to assist in the beneficial development of wind and other renewable projects and to help the states in meeting their existing renewable energy goals and mandates.
• If new transmission solutions are needed, it is essential that the process ensure that developers pursue the lowest-impact technologies and routing options.

As I said, it’s complicated. But there’s a real opportunity to get it right, and CLF is committed to ensuring we make that happen.

Earth Day, which coincides with the blossoming of Spring across New England, is an opportunity for us to heal.  Image: timsackton @ flickr

In the Boston area we are grieving, and we are rattled. The shocking events of last week have taken their toll on all of us. They have been devastating for the families and friends of those killed and injured.  We are relieved and grateful, but underneath we are in some pain. We all need to heal.

Today is Earth Day – a day to appreciate the marvelous planet that sustains us. In some years, my attention on Earth Day has focused on what our planet needs from us – in the form of activism, problem-solving, and protection. In fact, that’s my focus almost every day.

But this Earth Day, this year, I for one will focus on what the Earth does for us – emotionally – because we in the Boston area need it badly. In New England, Earth Day coincides with the full blossoming of Spring – the extraordinary annual resurgence of the irrepressible and wonderful life force embedded in our world. Trees, shrubs and plants come into full bloom, songbirds trill magically, and animals of many species respond to the call. If we stop and look, it amazes and rejuvenates us. If we pause and touch, breathe in the wonderful earthy smells of Spring, and deeply appreciate our planet, it heals us.

Today, in the greater Boston area – and across New England – I highly recommend we all stop, look, touch, smell and appreciate the remarkable planet that is our home. It’s a very natural and easy thing to do. It will help us heal.

And we all need to be healed, and to be strong, to meet the challenges – all of the challenges – that we face. And we shall meet them. Count on it. Just like Spring.

It’s a pleasure to report that on Wednesday, at the Charles River Watershed Association’s annual meeting, CLF was awarded The Anne M. Blackburn Award – CRWA’s premier honor.  As Executive Director Bob Zimmerman put it, they were intending to recognize a person and an organization.

That deserving person is CLF Senior Attorney Anthony Iarrapino.

Anthony was recognized for his terrific work in our case against the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, which settled last summer after years of preparation, litigation and negotiation, on extremely favorable terms. Those terms will catapult Boston (finally!) into the forefront of U. S. cities taking a creative approach to controlling stormwater runoff in ways that restore our environment, foster healthy communities, save money and create jobs.

Like all of our work, the BWSC case was a team effort, but every major project is driven by a person who owns it. He or she is supervised from above, influenced from many directions and supported by a team of colleagues, but that person is the captain, if you will. The buck stops with him and he deserves the lion’s share of the credit for success.

We had that person on the BWSC case. He immersed himself in the case, took on one of Boston’s largest and most powerful law firms, dealt gracefully with the Boston politics, held the line when necessary and negotiated very effectively. It has given all of us great professional and personal pride to see Anthony grow in stature and experience in this case, and this was part of the reason that we recently promoted him to the position of Senior Attorney, a well-deserved honor that he has earned through very hard work.

CLF was also recognized for the decades of work we have done alongside the CRWA – and other partners on the Charles, the Mystic and other rivers in Eastern Massachusetts – to begin to make real the lofty promises of the Clean Water Act.  Peter Shelley was rightly called out for his career of work on these issues, as well as Chris Kilian (who personally received the Blackburn Award two years ago) for directing (and performing) this work for so many years.

But as creative, persistent and effective as we’ve been for almost 50 years in making the admirable progress we’ve made, we’ll need to be far more creative, persistent and effective to meet the challenges that our changing climate will throw at us.

We’ve spent 50 years keeping pollution from our communities out of Boston Harbor; in the future, we also have to keep Boston Harbor out of our communities – like the North End and Chelsea, Everett and Back Bay. How do we do that?

We’ve spent 50 years to get to the point of beginning to grapple with runoff from storms as we have known them;  how do we do that while coping with 30-50% more precipitation, more extreme storm events, and increased unpredictability?

These challenges are big and systemic. They require us to make technical, strategic and cultural changes.  And we have to make them, in order to continue our collective legacy of excellent work that addresses our most pressing needs with great effectiveness.

Everyone in the room on Wednesday night seemed to “get” this, and also to agree that the community of groups that have worked together so effectively on these issues in Eastern Massachusetts (including Charles River Watershed Association, the Mystic River Watershed Association, and our partners at Alternatives for Community and Environment, La Comunidad Inc., Neighborhood of Affordable Housing, Tri_City Community Action Program, and Groundwork Somerville) forged by the trials of the past, has the stuff it will take to meet the challenges of the future.  Of all the regions in this country, we in New England are most likely to get it right.  We have the track record of success, we have the creativity and persistence, and most importantly we have a strong community committed to the cause.

As we in New England grapple with these important challenges, I am confident that CLF will continue to be in the middle of it all. And I hope that you will stand with us in this work.

A few weeks ago my colleague Peter Shelley stood in front of fishermen and policymakers and spoke about the startling decline of New England’s cod fishery. Did you know that, since 1982, it’s estimated we have lost more than 80% of the cod in New England’s ocean? That surely should be a wake up call to us all.

That day, Peter’s argument was simple, and backed by sound science. We must act quickly, he argued, to prevent the Atlantic cod – New England’s most iconic fish — from complete and utter collapse.

The response? Hisses and boos. Hisses and boos.

Peter is no fool – he knew what was coming. A fisheries expert who filed the first lawsuit that led to the cleanup of Boston Harbor, Peter has heard this same response too often. But still, this response is as startling as it is unhelpful.

The science is clear. Atlantic cod populations are at an all-time historic low. The cod fishery, which for generations has supported a way of life in New England’s coastal communities, may be in complete collapse. Don’t believe me? Watch this video of Peter explaining the science behind this critical issue.

Over the coming 14 days, NOAA – the agency in charge of setting limits on how much cod commercial fisherman can catch – is deciding how much to allow commercial fisherman to catch this year. We at CLF believe that the managers of this public resource have a responsibility to revive and rebuild cod stocks.

Instead, they are continuing a decades-long pattern of risky decision-making that has run this fishery and its communities into the ground.

We have an opportunity to urge NOAA to save the Atlantic cod from complete collapse. But we have to act now. The longer we wait, the more we risk losing this iconic fishery.

We at CLF are working to urge NOAA to do three things:

1. Shut down the commercial cod fishery, so as to save it for future generations
2. Protect cod populations, especially the adult females that produce as many as 8 million eggs a year
3. And, protect the ocean refuges that will allow cod to recover, not bow to industry pressure by opening them to more commercial fishing.

If you believe, as we at CLF believe, that the cod fishery is worth saving, please stand with thousands of New Englanders and take action today.

Now is not the time to push the limits of the law and set dangerously high catch levels. Now is not the time to bow to industry pressure. Now is not the time to risk this species for short-term gain.

Now is the time to show strength, and real leadership. Now is the time to try to save New England’s cod fishery for future generations to enjoy.

Please stand with us, and thousands of others, in calling on NOAA to protect this species before it’s too late.

Cambridge, MA, in snow. From this photo, I ask: Who ranks? Cars or walkers?

This is a scene in Cambridge, MA, last Friday morning during the nor’easter that passed through late last week. From this photo I ask you: Who ranks in Cambridge, drivers or pedestrians?

In fairness to the hardworking snowplow drivers, municipal employees and property owners – this was in the middle of a storm, we’re all just trying to do the best we can, access for emergency vehicles is essential, and budgets are tight so we can’t do everything.  I understand that and have great respect for our public servants. This isn’t about their job performance.

It’s about our priorities. Who ranks? Cars rank. The sidewalks never get plowed by our elected, tax-supported city government. Clearly it’s not our priority to make it easy to walk. Even though walking is better for our bodies and our planet, and in cities when coupled with public transit it’s the easiest, cheapest, healthiest and overall best way to get around.

Ironically, a few blocks from the scene above, a conference on Public Spaces at the Harvard Graduate School of Design was treating topics such as “Public Space, Democracy and Equality:  For the People, By the People, of the People?”  The attendees were a crowd that understands the importance of public space to public health and the environment – and thriving cities – if there ever was one.  However, emerging on the snowy sidewalk a group of them, lamenting the snow and stepping in ankle-deep slush, scoffed at the idea that the city might actually clear the sidewalks of snow so that people can walk on this vital public space.

Which goes to show how deeply engrained our cars-over-walkers priority scheme really is.

This will change. The world is urbanizing. Young people in the US are buying cars at a much lower rate than their parents’ generation, and many are not even getting drivers’ licenses. They are much more willing to use public transit, and share a car if/when they need one. They walk. And they will replace us, as a matter of mathematical inevitability.

So our priorities have to change. And the sooner the better – because we cannot afford to keep driving everywhere, and maintaining (let alone expanding) a transportation system that prioritizes cars.

This is not a purist view. Cars are a good and necessary thing. We all use them at times, and will continue to need to, so we’re not about to get rid of them altogether. Our collective fleet needs to go electric, in a big way, for similar reasons.  And that’s going to happen too – but that’s another subject.

This is about our priorities. Decreased use of cars in urban areas (large, medium and small), and increased use of walking, biking and transit, is both good for us and the way of the future in any event.

The sooner we align our public spending with that set of priorities the healthier, wealthier and wiser we will be.

New England, I'm pleased to say, was well represented at the climate rally in DC this weekend.

“People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’.”  Curtis Mayfield.

Before 50,000 committed supporters, from many states and nations and braving frigid wind-chill temps, Bill McKibben announced on Sunday that all of the work he has done for the last 25 years has been in hopeful anticipation of that moment. The moment when the Climate Movement actually took off.

It certainly felt like a fully loaded train with a big head of steam, on a long journey. It was full of people who have gotten more than ready for the trip, and it was a wide-open, broad and inclusive group. Emcee’d by the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President of the Hip Hop Caucus, speakers ranged from Van Jones (author, former Obama aide and Pres. of Rebuild the Dream) to Chief Jacqueline Thomas (a First Nation Chief in British Columbia) to Maria Cardona (Founder, Latinovations) to Michael Brune (Sierra Club Exec. Director) and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI). The crowd was the same – young and old, people of all colors, people of faith and non-believers, northerners, southerners, mid-westerners and westerners, people walking and in chairs.

New England, I’m very pleased to say, was well represented, including large delegations from VT, NH and MA (and I’m sure from RI, ME and CT, but I didn’t find them in the large crowd), and topped off by a rousing address from Senator Whitehouse.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivering a rousing address to the crowd.

As Rev. Yearwood put it, “we’re fighting for existence.”

That is not an understatement. Climate models (increasingly showing their accuracy over time, if not underestimation of warming effects) show that unchecked, increasing warming will render large parts of the planet uninhabitable by mammalian life within the next few centuries. If the greater good of humanity (and other species) is not our polar star now, we are failing in our jobs as human beings: to paraphrase Curtis Mayfield again, there is no room among us “for those who would hurt all mankind, just to save [their] own.”

To address a problem that large, it takes a movement. Kudos to Bill McKibben and 350.org, Michael Brune and the Sierra Club, and all of the other groups that have organized, coalesced and launched this train. History will remember them well.

This movement needs to support savvy, well-planned and strategic actions. Sunday’s rally was wisely focused on the Keystone XL pipeline, over which President Obama has unique discretion, under applicable law. While the facts are clear on this one (James Hansen: “game over” for climate if KXL gets built), it is a hugely political game. Circling the White House, calling the President out on his recent commitments to act on climate, playing the political game as it is played, is needed for this vital decision.

But not all vital actions on climate change are like that. We certainly need people in the streets, in villages and barrios, on college campuses and in cornfields and in automobile assembly plants. This is the lifeblood of the movement. But we also need lobbyists and lawyers, economists and highly focused activists, scientists and doctors and investment analysts and progressive regulators – all working the system that shapes our economy.

Shutting down New England’s coal plants, for example, will not happen by marching alone. There is nobody who can do that with the stroke of a pen, as the President can on KXL. Rather, there are many skirmishes and battles to be fought, against extremely entrenched interests who will only succumb when faced with final, non-appealable orders, or when it’s clear they’ll lose more money than their shareholders will accept. The same is true for many fights in the climate campaign: ensuring that any transmission for clean energy is built on the right terms, guarding against overbuilding natural gas infrastructure, fully and properly regulating any fracking activity that is deemed acceptable, adjusting energy markets so that clean energy is favored and dirty energy is disfavored, rebuilding our communities so people don’t need cars as much and can live healthier lives, and many, many more.

“Forward on Climate” is the charge. All the rest is commentary, so to speak. But the commentary – as the Talmudic story goes – is where the work is. We actually move forward by studying and sweating the details, and it takes a long, sustained effort. We’ve been here before. Equal Protection of the laws – what does it really mean? For almost 150 years we’ve been working that out, and paying for it with blood and hopes, dreams and treasure. And lifetimes of effort. Restoring our planet’s climate to some sort of balance – equitable, healthy and just – is another, long-term struggle.

Please join us for this historic journey. Join Conservation Law Foundation. Join other organizations committed to this pivotal fight. We all need your help. And we’ll need it for generations to come. And for their benefit and very survival. “There’s no hiding place” against what we have wrought.

A few weeks ago, Springfield, MA, was rocked by a natural gas explosion that destroyed a building, ruined a city block, and was hailed as a miracle because no lives were lost.

The pipelines that lie below our communities, always out of sight, came suddenly came into focus. The explosion reminded us of the sobering reality that our streets are not always safe. Despite smart investments in energy efficiency and new energy technologies in New England, when it comes to natural gas, whose infrastructure is among the oldest in the nation, we have been reluctant to prioritize investment in replacing and repairing the pipes and valves that we rely upon not only to heat and power our homes, but to keep us safe.  When it comes to natural gas efficiency and investment, there is much more we can do – so much more.

We need to improve safety, increase efficiency, and reduce the risk to communities and to our planet. It is my belief, as well as that of my colleagues here at CLF, that we can and should make our communities healthy and safe from the unnecessary risk of explosions from old and leaky pipelines. This is vital, for two reasons.

It’s vital because methane, the major component of natural gas, is 25 times more potent as a global-warming causing gas than CO2. In a year that has broken so many temperature records, and in an age when climate is showing the signs of human distortion, we are constantly reminded of the strain we are placing on our global ecosystem. It is a strain we need to urgently reduce.

It is also vital to replace and fix pipes leaking natural gas because it is so combustible. Springfield reminded us of this fact. So too did the explosions that that rocked San Bruno, California in 2010, Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 2011, and Gloucester, MA in 2009, and most recently, Sissonville, West Virginia, to name only a few. These explosions are reminders of the serious care and attention that our natural gas infrastructure needs. If we fail to provide them with that care, we gamble with our safety, and with our lives, as this image from the San Bruno explosion vividly shows.

As my colleague Shanna Cleveland recently said, “The need for action is particularly acute in Massachusetts where over one-third of the system is considered ‘leak-prone’—made up of cast iron or unprotected steel pipe.” The leaks in Massachusetts are so significant that the gains by efficiency programs put in place by Massachusetts regulators are disappearing into thin air. A report released by CLF by that name (Into Thin Air, available to download for free here) documents how these leaks, known as “fugitive emissions,” are being borne not by the utilities, or by the regulators, but by consumers. Utilities pass the cost of lost gas onto ratepayers to the tune of $38.8 million a year. Here’s an infographic from that report:

Another report by Nathan Phillips of Boston University combines Google Earth and research into a compelling visualization of just how prevalent these leaks are.

Like the explosion in Springfield, Nathan’s map documenting the 3,356 separate natural gas leaks under the streets of Boston reminds us that, as we walk or drive down the street, we are often driving through an invisible cloud of natural gas leaking from aging pipes. If you are like me, to accept the avoidable risk of a predictably volatile gas is deeply unsettling.

With the exuberance for cheap, domestic natural gas on the rise, proposals for new massive interstate pipelines are in the works. Houston-based Spectra, a natural gas pipeline company, is proposing a $500 million expansion for Massachusetts alone. Before we go down that route, I would like to make three simple suggestions.

1) Whether the natural gas industry ever delivers on its claim of being more environmentally friendly than coal or oil depends on how well natural gas infrastructure addresses leaks. We develop more accurate tools for assessing the greenhouse gas emissions from pipelines.

2) Not only is investment in new pipelines and power plants expensive, but it comes with serious and lasting environmental consequences whose costs are too often discounted or ignored.  Before we blindly rush ahead with investments to expand, we need to look closely at the full range of costs.

3) Finally, we would do well to remember the lessons we have learned so well about the environmental and financial benefits of looking to efficiency first. Efficiency, both in the traditional sense of reducing our use of natural gas, and in the sense of maximizing the efficiency of our existing natural gas infrastructure by replacing outdated infrastructure and repairing leaks will reduce risk, reduce costs, reduce environmental impacts and put people to work throughout the region.

As the explosions in San Bruno, Gloucester, Allentown, and Springfield have reminded us, this is about the safety of our communities. We should not let promises of short-term profit in new projects trump both the near-term risk of thousands of leaks and the long-term sustainability of this region and stability of our climate.

Ignoring leaky natural gas infrastructure is risky business. Let’s fix what we have, and maximize our efficiency gains, before aggressively expanding. We’ll be more sustainable, and safer, that way.

This is a family time of year, when many families come together and enjoy love, comfort and tradition. But we cannot embrace the joy of family this year without feeling a small portion of the immeasurable pain of the families in Newtown, CT – or the enormous agony that is felt on a regular, tragically recurring basis by many families in our own neighborhoods in Boston, Worcester, Springfield and Providence whose loved ones are killed in gun-related violence.

Which leads me to conclude: It is time for gun control.

Which in turn leads to the logical question: why would this environmentalist take such a position? Here’s why I think environmentalists should:

Traditional environmentalists are not in the business of understanding the complexities of gun control and violence in America, although many of our environmental justice partners have long recognized this issue.

However, we are in the business of promoting healthy, vibrant and safe communities; it is a core principle of Conservation Law Foundation’s mission to protect New England’s environment for the benefit all people. And we certainly are part of a larger family of mission-driven organizations that are not afraid to say what is wrong and to stand up for what is right.

Just as it is wrong to have too much carbon in our air, too much nitrogen and phosphorus in our waters, too few fish in our oceans, and too many miles between where our food is grown and where we eat it, it is wrong to have too many guns on the streets and in our homes. These wrongs we can help to make right. And we must speak in favor of those who strive to make right other wrongs, such as gun violence.

30,000 Americans die from firearms each year. The uncontrolled burning of coal kills about the same number every year. And traffic-related deaths claim that number again, while we continue to drive too many miles and public transit ekes by on fewer public dollars than it needs.

What is wrong with this picture? One thing is that powerful, vested interests have distorted the public discussion about each of these issues, making it impossible even to have a rational conversation about what is truly in the public good.

Just as gun control advocates struggle with the gun lobby to have a rational conversation about gun violence, environmentalists struggle with the fossil fuel lobby to have a rational conversation about national energy policy.

That our collective craving to protect our children may actually break through the pathological gridlock in Washington in pursuit of the greater public good – especially for the benefit of those least able to defend themselves – is a great reason for environmentalists – and all who desire to “bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice,” to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – to support gun control, right now.

On Tuesday, Americans across New England joined their countrymen in casting their votes. As the results have become clear, one thing has become clear with it: It was a good night for science and for clean energy.

Maine, for instance, elected former wind developer Angus King as its new Senator, who ran with an ad dedicated to the need to address climate change and support sustainable energy. (Watch that ad here.) Meanwhile changes in both houses of Maine’s legislature are likely to dampen Governor LePage’s unpredictable but largely obstructionist posture. The same is true in Massachusetts, which elected Elizabeth Warren, a strong supporter for renewable energy and climate change mitigation. New Hampshire and Vermont also saw the pendulum swung strongly in a way that is likely to advance much needed efforts to protect the health of their environment and communities. Rhode Island seems to be the only state that has kept its status quo. (For full perspectives on each state, click here.)

In the end, New Englanders voted for a strong environmental agenda, and for candidates who shared that support. These local trends also broadly echo national voting trends. Obama, for instance, was strongly supported by Latino voters. A landmark 2012 study showed that 92% of Latino voters believe we have a responsibility to take care of the earth. The pro-environment agenda endorsed by Obama no doubt contributed to his support.

In reelecting Barack Obama, Americans also voted for an administration that has made science-friendly appointments to science positions, that has a high degree of scientific accomplishment, and that has been very supportive of science education and research.  And while the President was disappointingly silent about climate change and clean energy policy during the campaign, his administration’s pro-health and pro-environment actions to reduce toxic air pollution and to improve automobile  fuel economy standards no doubt resonated with voters nationally.

While there were many issues on the ballot, here in New England and across the country, there are also some very simple lessons from this election. The voters said a few things:

Yes, we believe in science.

Yes, we believe climate change is happening.

Yes, we need more sources of sustainable energy.

Yes, we want candidates who move us away from the dirty energy of the past to a more prosperous future.

And no, dirty energy, you cannot buy my vote.

Despite historic spending, the money spent by the dirty energy industry to try to buy this election didn’t seem to have much effect. In the end, clean energy and science were big winners.

New England cemented its reputation on Tuesday as a bastion of progressive environmental politics. Voters across our region want action on climate change, they want to advance clean energy, and they want to strengthen their communities.

It is my sincere hope that the elected officials in each state listen to their voters and make progress on these issues. It is also my sincere belief that we will be stronger as a movement if we work together across our New England: while some of our issues are local and some cry out for national leadership, many are regional in nature and can most effectively be addressed at the regional scale.

And then there’s the pragmatic reality that visionary leadership from Washington is very unlikely at this politically fractious time. But with New England’s leaders – of all political stripes – largely sharing a common vision for an economically, socially and environmentally thriving region, we can and must chart our own course right here. To succeed, we need to work together. When New England works together, we have shown that we can.