Since 1977, CLF has led efforts to block offshore drilling in the North Atlantic, particularly in the area of Georges Bank. CLF’s efforts were instrumental in winning drilling moratoria in Georges Bank through 2012.

This morning, President Obama announced new plans for offshore drilling. Here’s what Priscilla Brooks, Ph.D., CLF’s Ocean Conservation Program director, had to say.

“The Gulf of Maine is a national treasure and Georges Bank an economic engine for many of New England’s coastal communities.  While we are pleased that the Administration chose to spare those and other important national marine resources in the Pacific and Alaska from this new wave of offshore prospecting, we are dismayed that the Obama administration feels it politically expedient to continue the prior administration’s pursuit of the destructive and risky business of oil and gas drilling off our shores,” Brooks said. ”Not only does that pursuit threaten unique underwater habitats, fisheries and marine wildlife, but it is the wrong solution to the twin challenges of achieving energy independence and addressing climate change.  We can’t drill our way to a solution for either challenge. If we are to break our country’s addiction to fossil fuels, we need to go boldly down the path of clean energy like greater efficiency and renewable power from wind, waves and sun and not be diverted by these distractions. We reject the notion that continuing to pursue extraction and burning of fossil fuels over a long time horizon is a necessary component of a comprehensive energy and climate solution.”

If you would like to speak with Priscilla or CLF vice president Peter Shelley, please contact CLF communications director Karen Wood at (617) 850-1722, or you may contact them directly at the numbers below:

Priscilla Brooks, CLF, (617) 850-1737
Peter Shelley, CLF, (617) 850-1754

How can law and policy influence design to make the metropolitan Boston area more livable and eco-friendly?

• How many cars can the Green Line Extension to Medford take off the roads?  Would pay per-mile auto insurance help?  Would better bike maps and paths?  How about green zoning ordinances?

• Can greenspace and access to riverfronts make our communities healthier?

• What if Wal-Mart and Lowe’s new stores don’t just use renewable energy, but also design their parking lots to stop runoff from polluting our rivers and streams?

• Can Mayor Menino make the city’s public housing as environmentally sustainable as the Apple store on Boylston St the Macallen Building Condos in South Boston?

Meet, greet and exchange ideas…or just kick back…with environmentalists and urbanists working on these issues and more!  Co-hosted by Boston Urban Exchange and CLF.

Boston-area Urban Development Meet & Greet
Location: Mantra (downstairs), 52 Temple Place, Boston, MA.
Date: Wednesday, March 24, 6-8 pm
Free admission, cash bar.
More info at http://buxmarch2010.eventbrite.com/

Our co-sponsors:  Boston Urban Exchange (BUX) is a gathering of planners, architects, urban designers, developers, ethnologists, technologists, entrepreneurs, policy-makers, artists and others who care about urban development in the Boston/Cambridge region.

Vermont Yankee will be allowed to continue to leak and pollute.  On March 10, 2010, the Vermont Public Service Board held an initial hearing on CLF’s request to close the plant until the leaks are repaired.  

Unfortunately, Yankee will continue to operate at least until it shuts down for refueling in late April.  I have little doubt that when it does shut down for refueling, the leaks will be found and repaired.  The sad part is that since early January, Vermont Yankee has been allowed to continue to operate with ongoing leaks of radioactive waste from pipes Yankee told regulators never even existed.  The leaks and the lies should stop.  Entergy should not get a free pass to pollute.

If my car is leaking oil, I stop the car and fix the leak.  We should expect the same from an operator of a nuclear power plant.

Entergy — the owner of Vermont Yankee — claimed yesterday it should not be required to give regulators accurate information on the leaks, the impacts of the leaks and its efforts to stop them.  They are busy trying to fix the leaks and the requested reporting apparently would be some sort of distraction.  CLF responded that a company as large as Entergy should be able to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”  If Entergy has time to make daily public announcements about what is going on, why can’t they make those statements under oath?  And if they can’t, what are they hiding?

Join CLF in asking the VT Public Service Board, the NRC and the VT health Department to shut Vermont Yankee down until the leaks are repaired.

Learn more about CLF VT Yankee Advocacy

Providence, RI February 18, 2010 – Affirming the need for proper procedure when deciding the fate of the State’s vulnerable coastal resources, the Rhode Island Supreme Court today overturned a Superior Court ruling that would have allowed the expansion of Champlin’s Marina into Block Island’s Great Salt Pond. The decision was hailed by Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and others, who argued that the Superior Court exceeded its authority when it decided in February 2009 to circumvent the Coastal Resources Management Council’s (CRMC) permit review process and issue the Champlin’s Marina expansion permit itself.

“We are gratified that the Court agreed with our analysis and ruled in favor of good process,” said CLF staff attorney Jerry Elmer, who argued the case before the Supreme Court. “Today’s decision puts responsibility for determining what’s best for Great Salt Pond back where it belongs – in the hands of those who are charged with preserving our treasured coastal resources for future generations.”

With the Supreme Court’s decision, the case will be sent back to the Coastal Resources Management Council, which will be required to correct procedural errors that occurred in the permit review process and to vote again on the permit application.

Tricia Jedele, director of CLF’s Rhode Island Advocacy Center, stated, “Rhode Island needs cohesive, ethical and courageous management of its coastal resources if we are to adequately protect our state’s greatest assets. This decision underscores both the enormous challenge ahead of us and the mandate to get it right.”

Background

The Champlin’s Marina case dates back to 2003, when Champlin’s Marina applied to the CRMC for a permit to expand into the environmentally sensitive Great Salt Pont of Block Island. The CRMC held 23 hearings into Champlin’s application. In February 2006, by a 5-5 tie vote, the CRMC declined to approve Champlin’s permit application. Champlin’s appealed the permit denial to the Rhode Island Superior Court, which held a lengthy hearing into Champlin’s allegations of impropriety at the CRMC. In February 2009, the Superior Court issued a 91-page decision in which it ruled that there had, indeed, been improper procedures in the CRMC. At that point, the Superior Court should have sent the case back to the CRMC in order to correct the improper procedures and re-vote. Instead, the Superior Court exceeded its legal authority and itself simply granted the disputed permit to Champlin’s. That latter act – the granting of the disputed permit by the Superior Court – was reversed today by the Supreme Court.

CLF Flatbread Pizza Night
Tuesday, February 23
5-9pm
72 Commercial Street
Portland, ME

Join us at Flatbread Company in Portland, ME for a pizza night to benefit Conservation Law Foundation. Putting your money where your mouth is couldn’t be easier: $3.50 of each pizza purchased between 5 – 9 PM will go directly to CLF, benefiting New England’s environment.

So grab your family and friends, and enjoy Flatbread’s famous pizza – topped with organic produce, free-range chicken and nitrate-free meats.

We hope to see you there!

Click here to RSVP on Facebook (RSVP not required) – and please help us spread word far and wide!

Contact: Sue Reid, CLF Senior Attorney (617) 850-1740, sreid@clf.org
Karen Wood, Director of Communications (617) 850-1722, kwood@clf.org

Today marks a critical milestone for the 130-turbine Cape Wind offshore wind energy project as the project has reached an agreement with electric utility National Grid, in consultation with the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, to negotiate a long-term commitment for the purchase of the project’s power. Cape Wind is one of New England’s most promising solutions for addressing climate change and reducing the region’s dependence on polluting fossil fuels.

“By committing to ensure that Cape Wind’s emissions-free energy will be delivered to tens of thousands of Massachusetts homes and businesses, Cape Wind, National Grid and the Patrick Administration are leading the way to a clean energy future,” said CLF President John Kassel.

CLF has been working across New England for more than fifteen years to promote long-term commitments for the purchase of renewable energy, like the one that is now expected for Cape Wind. Such agreements often provide critical support for the financing of renewable energy projects while also providing stable energy prices to electric customers for years to come, taking energy bills off the fossil fuel roller coaster.

From noon until 1:30PM, Boston University is hosting a forum for the U.S. Senate Candidates to discuss the environment and a new green economy.

The forum, moderated by NECN-TV’s Jim Braude, is taking place at Meltcalf Trustee Center – and it is being streamed live online.

Click here to watch the live stream.

Is the ship of state ready to set the right course?

New England’s ocean and coastal waters have long suffered from management that only allows a single-sector approach. One agency is in charge of energy, one agency in charge of commercial fishing and another is in charge of water quality. This leads to a situation in both state and fedaral waters where no one is watching out for the overall health of the ocean ecosystem. Both the Pew Oceans Commission and the US Ocean Commission, hundreds of scientists and regional leaders from several coastal states have called for protection of ocean and coastal habitat and an ecosystem-based approach to management.

In Massachusetts we have the Massachusetts Ocean Plan, the first-ever-in-the-nation attempt at comprehensive ocean planning. There is a draft plan out now and a final due to be implemented by the end of 2009. The Commonwealth is having several public hearings over the course of September and all the info is right here.

On the federal level we have pretty well fallen behind due to a past administration that largely saw ocean management as another way to favor their friends in the oil business. Except for some truly exceptional Marine National Monuments - for which President Bush deserves sincere credit - the past administration left the recommendations of the Pew and US Ocean Commission on the shelf while they rammed through oil and gas drilling, held up or removed protections for marine mammals and seriously dragged their heels on clean, renewable energy.

That’s all set to change. On June 12 President Obama created a federal interagency task force with the charge to propose a singular national ocean policy and a framework for “marine spatial planning.” Just a mention sends a thrill down the spine doesn’t it? Well, if you are an ocean user or care about ocean wildlife it should. The problem is that our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes are managed through a jumble of 20 different agencies and about 140 not-always-coordinated laws. This management scheme creates confusion and discord among well-meaning agencies that want to cooperate with one another and fosters absolute mayhem among those agencies already inclined towards turf battles and internal politics. Even inside a single agency there may be conflicting directives that cause a stalemate between resource conservation and resource extraction. (Take a look at our own Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary where an abundance of fishing and fishing gear has altered undersea habitat, reduced overall fish and wildlife populations and still threatens the North Atlantic right whale, one of the rarest animals on the planet, but the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries still sits on its hands.)

So, the President wants an ocean policy and he will get a proposal from his task force on Sept. 10. After the 10th, the task force tackles the issue of marine spatial planning, which is really a term that means “planning various uses of a particular area.” (We’ve been doing it on land in New England for a few hundred years.) There is something else that happens after the 10th — the President’s Ocean Task Force comes to New England. They are planning a series of regional “listening sessions” for each area of the country and the east coast gets to represent on Sept. 24th in Providence at the Rhode Island Convention Center. CLF and our partners are working to highlight the necessary components of a national ocean policy, starting with a mandate to protect, maintain and restore our ocean, coastal and Great Lakes ecosystems. Without a strong environmental sustainability tenet a national ocean policy won’t be worth using. We’ll be fortunate to have the draft policy to respond to by then. The Council on Environmental Quality is heading up the ocean task force and you can read the presidential memo that started it all here. Keep a sharp eye on the CLF marine program page for alerts and news.

(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.