CLF staff writing on this blog, smart commentators and allied climate advocates have taken issue with Verizon Wireless appearing on the sponsor list for a Labor Day rally and concert that includes gathering of signatures for petitions against, and statements opposing, climate legislation.

A telephone conversation with Verizon Wireless Vice President Corporate Communications Jim Gerace led to him sending the following email giving his side of the story:

I appreciate you taking the time to reach out to me.  You can use any of this email for your site if you’d like.

As we discussed, our involvement in the Labor Day event was initiated by some local sales people to do what we pay them to do — sell wireless phones.  When they were presented with the opportunity to spend $1,000 to have access to 50,000 (the estimate at the time) members of the community they sell in, they jumped at the chance.  The underlying purpose of the event was not made obvious to them.  They saw it as a Labor Day concert.  Our involvement is not a statement of our policy on these issues.  Many media and interested people have chosen to not believe that, but they need only look at our record to see how serious we are about protecting the environment we live and work in.  We didn’t wake up one day last week and change our minds.  The following link will bring you to some of our key initiatives in this area: http://aboutus.vzw.com/Green_Initiative/overview.html .  The first one called Hopeline is a program I created way back in 1995 and continue to direct today.  Our commitment to the environment is unwavering, that some want to believe otherwise is disappointing.

What do folks think?  They are saying this is an innocent mistake by a company that is generally trying to do the right thing. Do you buy it?  Comment below . . .

Personally, I am waiting to see Verizon and/or Verizon Wireless step forward and take affirmative steps to show leadership as some of the true leaders in all sectors of American business have already done. Perhaps they will.

(BOSTON, MA) AUGUST 26, 2009 — “Today, we mourn the loss of Ted Kennedy, an incomparable leader for our region and country, and a decades-long champion of forward-thinking environmental policy,” said CLF President John Kassel.  “He was a powerful voice and vote in the Senate during the development, debate and passage of every major piece of environmental legislation since the early 1960’s, and he was instrumental in advocating for clean air, healthy waterways, public transit and environmental justice in low-income Boston neighborhoods – policies that CLF strives to uphold and protect.”

“His leadership helped provide the essential foundation to pass everything from the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act,” noted CLF Vice President Seth Kaplan. “One key legacy that Senator Kennedy has left us is the generations of leaders he fostered and brought forward. Leaders like Rep. Ed Markey who first articulated a powerful message of environmental protection and clean energy development on a national prime-time stage at the 1980 Democratic National Convention – a speaking role that he had because of his close involvement in Senator Kennedy’s presidential campaign. While CLF and others may have disagreed with the Senator on a particular issue, the Cape Wind project, we always knew his values and goals were solid and good.”

Please share your thoughts and memories in the comments below.

Well the advent of serious heat and humidity means that all of us up here in the tailpipe of America (the Northeast generally and New England in particular) must face the seasonal reality of dangerously bad air.

During the summer we face “ground level ozone“  which is created when substances like nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds are created by cars, power plants and the burning of gasoline, diesel fuel, coal and other fossil fuels interact with sunlight and heat.   Many states, like Massachusetts, New York and Maine are happy (in addition to the Feds) to give you the gory details – but the bottom line is that ground level ozone harms the lungs of just about everyone but can cause the most trouble, increasing asthma attacks, heart attacks and even death in very vulnerable folks – like the elderly, the very young and people with various health problems.

A different problem is the dangerous haze of “particulate matter” that can be trapped in our air, particularly on a hot and muggy day.  The potentially dangerous microscopic solids and liquid droplets less than 2.5 microns in size are known as “fine particles”.  Like ground level ozone this pollution can be traced back to the burning of fossil fuel in cars, trucks, power plants and industrial furnaces. In cities around the world particulate matter is a major threat to the health of residents of inner city neighborhoods.

The states and the federal government continue to debate and consider new rules about the amount of this kind of pollution that is safe.  The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has proposed new standards regarding these pollutants – and CLF filed a comment urging adoption of tougher standards than what has been proposed.

If you want to see how bad your air is today and how bad it is predicted to be tomorrow then check out this handy government website full of national and regional maps with links to state-by-state information.   And don’t let the “moderate” label fool you – since some real harm is possible at those levels of pollution it is worth paying attention before the pollution crosses over the line into “unhealthy for sensitive groups” let alone “unhealthy”, “very unhealthy” and the (fortunately unusual but terrifying) “hazardous”.

And of course as average temperatures rise due to global warming we will see more of this kind of bad air quality – as the pollution combines with hotter air.  This is just one of the many health effects anticipated as global warming unfolds.

All the more reason to look towards cleaner energy sources for our electricity and our transportation needs.

In a blog post that follows up on a New York Times newspaper story about the groundbreaking McKinsey report on the enormous opportunity for energy efficiency as a resource for tackling global warming there is a nice discussion of the statewide energy efficiency utility in Vermont.

A few key points about the McKinsey report:

• The report shows that a comprehensive approach to making the United States more energy efficient could save consumers $1.2 trillion by 2020.
• The report finds that this approach could also cut overall energy consumption in the U.S. by 23% in the next decade, eliminating the need for expensive new coal plants and dramatically reducing our carbon emissions by up to 1.1 gigatons.
• The study cites research suggesting that energy efficiency could create 600,000 to 900,000 sustainable green jobs in twelve years.

The Efficiency Vermont model, that CLF helped build and grow, as well as other successful models like the programs administered by conventional utilities in Massachusetts, and efforts on the regional level, have made New England a national leader in this critical area – but there is so much more that can be done . . .

Environmentalists tend to be the kind of people who hang on to things.  Keenly aware of the impact of constantly buying new things – whether it be cars, appliances or other “hard goods” – the kind of folks who are CLF members (and are likely reading this) tend to avoid buying new things.  This is especially true where buying something new, like a new car, simply means shifting the use of the old item to someone else.  Driving a new efficient hybrid car is not a satisfying experience if you are aware that your older, less efficient car, will end up back on the road.

However, if you own an older car and want to move to a newer more efficient model while being sure that your old car will be scrapped and taken off the road the Federal Government has a deal for you.

Here are the basic rules for the program, as presented by the Feds:

• Your vehicle must be less than 25 years old on the trade-in date
• Only purchase or lease of new vehicles qualify
• Generally, trade-in vehicles must get 18 or less MPG (some very large pick-up trucks and cargo vans have different requirements)
• Trade-in vehicles must be registered and insured continuously for the full year preceding the trade-in
• You don’t need a voucher, dealers will apply a credit at purchase
• Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
• The program requires the scrapping of your eligible trade-in vehicle, and that the dealer disclose to you an estimate of the scrap value of your trade-in. The scrap value, however minimal, will be in addition to the rebate, and not in place of the rebate.

Fortunately, the supply of cleaner and more efficient cars available for sale continues to expand, thanks in large part to the rules requiring a shift in the new car fleet mandated by the rules adopted by the Northeastern states (following the lead of California).   We are proud to note that CLF played a key role in defending those rules in court.

Update (August 6, 2009):

Unless you have been living in a cave you will have heard that the program is on the verge of running out of money and efforts are being made to “refuel it”.

Attempts at looking at the potential environmental benefits of the program range from the skeptical to the mildly positive to the fiercely negative.  A good middle ground was the comment of a leading environmental lawyer reported by CNET News:

“It’s not that it’s a bad idea; just don’t sell it as a cost-effective energy savings method,” Michael Gerrard, director of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University said in an academic journal. “From an economic standpoint it seems to be a roaring success. From an environment and energy perspective, it’s not where you would put your first dollar.”

The critiques of the program have some serious validity.  Would it be better for this money to be spent on public transit operations ?  Would a fundamental change in the funding paradigm that would shift money from roads to transit (as CLF has called for in our Five Steps for the Next Five Years climate vision document) be much better? Absolutely yes.

But my pragmatic bottom line is that this program has far more environmental benefit than so many other things the Federal government does and pays for that it is hard to get worked up about this one.

Once upon a time Conservation Law Foundation and our allies in Maine waged a long and ardous battle to prevent the development of Sears Island, the largest undeveloped island in Maine, as a bulk cargo facility.   Many local citizens supported this effort both because of the environmental impact of the project but also because of the fact that such ports rapaciously consume land while generating very little high quality economic activity.

The nearby historic port city of Searsport is now experiencing a much more positive kind of shipping boom – the importation of wind turbines to build the new clean energy infrastructure needed to tackle global warming and build a safe and stable economy for Maine, New England and the nation.  A recent New York Times article detail the difficulty of moving these large structures on land from the port to wind farm sites and a followup blog entry describes the ironic problem of handling these structures when it is windy.

These are the kind of practical problems that need to be overcome if we are to build a new economy based on clean energy.   They are good problems to have – because as we overcome them we are really building for the future and moving beyond short sighted “economic development” that sacrificed the environment and the future for a project only of immediate and dubious benefit.

In her post here Lesley Bunnell, CLF’s Rhode Island office manager, persuasively deflates and rebuts an attack in the Washington Post by Sarah Palin on the cap-and-trade mechanism.   One important evolution in the idea of cap-and-trade that Lesley did not have a chance to get into is the key reform of auctioning the allowances and using the money generated by the auction for good purposes that reduce emissions and save money for all our citizens.

CLF, as part of a broad coalition, successfully fought for this model in the design and creation of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative regulating carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.   The states of New England have repeatedly pushed in Congress for this model to be recreated on the federal level.

The reason for embracing allowance auctions and using the money from the auction for energy efficiency is crystal clear – it will reduce the cost of the program and reduce emissions even further.  The cost reduction argument is quite powerful – analyses of the bill passed by the House by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the US EPA estimate the cost of the program for an average household at between $111 and $175 per year by 2030.  Independent analysis of the bill shows that even modest gains in energy efficiency, like those that can be financed by allowance auction revenue can result in savings for citizens that dwarf these costs.

Indeed, during the presidential campaign this was precisely the position taken by President Obama:

• 100 Percent Allowance Auction: Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all large corporate polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away for free to coal and oil companies
• Invest Revenue for a Clean Energy Future: Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development and deployment of clean energy, invest in energy efficiency improvements to help families reduce their energy prices, and to address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition and helping lower-income Americans with their energy costs.

In a recent Op-Ed in the Boston Globe CLF President John Kassel reflected on our concern that the federal bill had drifted away from 100% auction, giving out a significant number of allowances for free – but at least the bill that passed the House accepts the importance of cap and trade, auctioning the allowances from that system and moves towards the RGGI model of  “auction and invest.”

The bottom line is clear.  Cap and Trade is a tool that can work to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing global warming.  It can work even better, and be implemented at even lower cost, if we do it right by auctioning the allowances at the heart of the program and using the money raised by the auction for clean energy projects like energy efficiency.