CLF intervened today in proceedings regarding the proposed Northern Pass electricity supply and transmission project in New Hampshire. The proposed project, which involves creating 180 miles of new transmission lines in the state and installing new transmission infrastructure in the White Mountain National Forest, is intended to import 1,200 megawatts (MW) of electricity generated in Canada by Hydro-Quebec, the Canadian public utility. If constructed, the project would have significant impacts on New Hampshire communities and the environment.

CONCORD, NH  December 16, 2010 – The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) intervened today in the Presidential Permit proceeding recently initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy, for the proposed Northern Pass electricity supply and transmission project.  The proposed project – involving 180 miles of new transmission lines in New Hampshire – is intended to import 1,200 MW of electricity generated by Hydro-Quebec, in Canada.

“This project could profoundly affect New Hampshire’s energy future,” said Jonathan Peress, director of CLF’s Clean Energy and Climate Change program.  “It remains to be seen whether it will help or hinder our efforts in New Hampshire and New England to achieve necessary greenhouse gas reductions and develop a clean energy economy.  Unfortunately, the application is more noteworthy for what it omits, rather than the sparse information it provides.”

The proposed project would include the construction of new transmission corridor in northern-most New Hampshire, as well as the installation of new transmission infrastructure through the White Mountain National Forest. Read more>>

CLF is a founding member of Renewable Energy New England (RENEW), a collaborative between the renewable energy industry and the environmental community.  After ISO-NE (the operator of the New England electricity grid) gave a press briefing about a report on “wind integration” yesterday, RENEW issued the following statement, check it out:

Renewable Energy New England (RENEW) today issued the following statement about the New England Wind Integration Study (NEWIS) currently underway by the Independent System Operator of New England (ISO-NE).  The final NEWIS report from ISO-NE is not yet available, but is expected to be released later this week.

“RENEW is encouraged by the study results released thus far and looks forward to seeing the final report soon,” said Abigail Krich, president of Boreas Renewables and a consultant to RENEW.  ”The study demonstrates that a great deal of wind power can be reliably integrated into the New England power system.  New England is well-positioned to see extensive growth in wind energy in the coming years.

“The results thus far show that wind energy located in New England will significantly reduce regional carbon dioxide emissions, in support of the New England states’ strong renewable energy and greenhouse gas policies.  The findings show that if New England were to receive twenty percent of its electricity from wind power, its carbon dioxide emissions from power plants would decrease twenty five percent.

“As recommended in the report, ISO-NE has stated they will set up a centralized wind power forecasting system. The wind forecast will use atmospheric modeling to predict minutes and days ahead of time how much wind power will be produced within the region. This forecasting will allow the system operator to effectively manage the variability inherent in wind power in the same way it is currently able to manage the variability inherent in electricity usage.

“Today wind generates approximately half a percent of the electricity used in New England. The NEWIS studied a number of scenarios between 2.5 and 24% of New England’s electricity being provided by wind. Even at the lowest level studied, this represents more than four times the amount of wind currently operating in New England.

“New England is just starting down the road toward increasing its use of renewable power, but this study is providing a helpful roadmap as we look toward growing wind power in the region.”

The Boston Globe ran an interesting essay in its Ideas section on whether we should do “randomized trials’ of new laws before applying them to our entire society and economy.

Louis Brandeis, a great Boston lawyer before ascending to the Supreme Court once eloquently and clearly presented the mechanism we have long had in place for doing something of the sort:

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” – New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 311, 52 S.Ct. 371, 386-387, (1932) (dissenting opinion of Brandeis, J.)

Back in 1932 a knuckle-dragging Supreme Court invalidated a law enacted by the State of Oklahoma that required  people who wanted to manufacture, distribute or sell ice obtain a license first.  In the dissent quoted above Justice Brandeis blazed a path that continues today – a path based on the clear recognition that states should be generally allowed to enact their own laws subject only to clear preemption by federal law.

This history has served the environment well.  Over the last 40 years the great advances in clean air, clean water and toxics reduction have come from the states – with the Federal Government following along. Sometimes these efforts have been states going it alone and sometimes it has been coordinated action by a group of states.  Two key examples of that kind of collective action are the way that automobile emissions regulations were developed by California and then adopted by a range of states, led by the New England states and the development of a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative by the states of the East Coast.

“The states as laboratories” does not have all the virtues of randomized trials like the experiments used in the pharmaceutical world but it does have the advantage of being very real.

Recommended reading:  A good piece in Slate about the folks in the Evangelical Christian community who are serious about taking on the challenge of global warming.   Because if you think a loving god gave us a wonderful world that we have a duty to preserve and protect you oppose damaging it through flooding the atmosphere and seas with pollution that will cause global warming and acidify our oceans.

Regional is the new national. Solutions to the environmental problems that threaten our economy, our security and our health are not coming from Washington. Instead, they’re being forged by energetic and creative problem-solvers like CLF who work in regions and states and strive to create models for the rest of the country. This is CLF’s moment.

But we can’t do it small.

To be truly effective in the face of the unprecedented challenges facing New England, we need a movement behind us. We need neighborhoods standing up for their right to clean air and water, cities and towns demanding better transportation options, and a whole region clamoring for clean energy.

About a year ago, we started work to ensure that our story was clear and compelling and inclusive enough to engage a whole region in our mission. We began by asking employees and board members, partners and adversaries, long-time members and new friends what draws them to CLF. Resoundingly, we heard: “CLF protects my New England.”

This notion of protection is inherent in CLF’s brand: our region’s abundant natural resources, as well as its historic cities and towns, are in peril from the impacts of climate change and other realities of modern life. CLF has a long and successful history protecting New England’s environment – from a landmark lawsuit that prevented oil and gas drilling off of our shores to developing green car insurance that rewards people for driving less. At CLF, protection is not about keeping things the way they were. It anticipates the reality of a changing environment and is on the cutting edge of planning for it, to ensure that our region will continue to thrive. This kind of protection requires pragmatic, science-based approaches, fearless creativity, and a willingness to collaborate to find solutions to our most complex challenges.

To convey the many facets of CLF’s brand, built painstakingly over 44 years, we needed to refine, not redefine, our story. We started with articulating our mission:

CLF protects New England’s environment for the benefit of all people.  We use the law, science, and the market to create solutions that preserve our natural resources, build healthy communities, and sustain a vibrant economy.

And our vision:  A healthy, thriving New England – for generations to come.

Our new logo, with the emphatic red “zing,” is the ultimate distillation of CLF’s brand. It’s at once humble and outspoken, pragmatic and creative, patient and dynamic. And yet, it’s simple. Similarly, our new marketing and communications materials – both digital and print – are designed to let our stories stand out. There is lots of white space, an antidote to our tendency to accumulate. Our new design will discipline us to be economical with our words and keep our messages crisp and clear.

Economy of words is never more important than in a tagline. Our five are the answer to every question about why we do what we do:

For a thriving New England

There is no doubt that our ability to communicate our story effectively is key to achieving our mission. It is the currency with which we develop relationships with our members, with foundations who share our vision, and with influencers in the legislature and the media who help further our cause. With a great story to tell and, now, a great way to tell it, we are ready to seize this moment for CLF and galvanize all who would join us in protecting our New England.

In the wake of Dominion’s announcement that it would not be cost effective to continue to operate and invest additional capital for pollution controls at Salem Harbor Station, the Patrick Administration has sent a message to ISO-NE calling for action.  In a letter to the President of ISO-NE, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, highlighted the need to invest in clean energy instead of propping up old, environmentally obsolete coal plants such as Salem Harbor Station.  Secretary Bowles urged ISO-NE to “quickly implement” a solution to allow Salem Harbor Station to retire.

Clean energy policy has been one of the centerpieces of the Patrick Administration, and this letter signals not only the Administration’s commitment to building clean, new energy infrastructure, but also the important role they have in hastening the retirement of the coal-fired power plants that cause significant damage to public health and the environment.

ISO-NE is responsible for finding an alternative that will remove any need for Salem Harbor Station; however, after 7 years of transmission upgrades and planning, ISO-NE rejected Dominion’s request to remove Salem Harbor Station from the market over concerns that the plant could be needed on the hottest days of the year.  CLF has been pushing ISO-NE to expedite its planning process so that ratepayers will not be forced to bear the costs of keeping this 60 year old coal and oil plant on line despite its continued struggles to meet environmental regulations. 

The Secretary’s letter is particularly timely given that ISO-NE will host meetings on December 15 and December 16 to discuss the planning process for replacing Salem Harbor Station.

A logo is a funny thing. At first, you want to compare it to everything you’ve ever seen before. Ask 10 people and they will all see something different, but will grasp for the familiar in it. But over time, a logo takes on meaning of its own. Even with no words attached to it, we can identify the organization behind it. It says something startling about us that we can process the thousands of visual impressions we take in every day, mix in the messages we hear, and bring all those to mind when we flash on an image as simple as, say, a red line.

In our new logo, we hope you will see both the CLF you’ve come to trust, and the energy we have for tackling the environmental challenges ahead. The red line, or “zing,” as we’ve started calling it around here, is our version of the exclamation point. It says, “And we mean it.”

Our new logo is just one element of a whole new look and feel for CLF’s marketing and communications. We invite you to be among the first to get a glimpse at our brand new website, launched today. We hope you will tell us what you like and what you don’t, and come back often, as we are adding more content every day about our work and ways you can get involved. Starting today, you will also see our new look on Facebook and Twitter and coming soon in our print and digital publications, online communications, advertising and more.

We have some work to do before the zing means:  those people who cleaned up Boston Harbor, or that group that saved the cod, or the ones who made our cars cleaner. We’ll continue solving New England’s toughest environmental problems, and telling you about it here on our blog, on our website, in our publications, and in the media. In time, we hope, when you see the zing, you will say, “CLF: they’re the ones who protect my New England.”

Before Lori Ehrlich was elected to the Massachusetts Legislature she was a committed local activist fighting to protect the health and environment of her family and community.  In fact, CLF’s journal, Conservation Matters, ran a profile of Lori describing her critical role in the advocacy around the Salem Harbor Power Plant back in 2003 under the title “Mother Grizzly from Marblehead” – a good five years before a similar phrase was employed on the national scene to describe a very different person.

Lori (now “Rep. Ehrlich”) continues in her role as the voice of reason and truth with regard to the Salem Harbor plant in an articulate op-ed in the Salem News in which she argues that by ignoring “unequivocal statement of closure” that the Salem News editorial voice is “‘shamefully out of sync with the plant owners and city elected officials who have begun to take important steps to accept and plan for the inevitable”.   Rep. Ehrlich notes that given Dominion’s own statements, the cost of keeping the plant limping forward and the planning for the future now underway that the time has come for collaborative problem solving, not finger pointing:

The ratepayer deserves better than the false choice of “plant or no plant.” Ratepayers have borne the burden of keeping this plant afloat for years and now are paying above-market rates to the tune of $20 million for the next two years to import and burn cheap coal here.

Dominion’s CFO made clear in his remarks at the Edison Electric Institute gathering that the company will not invest its dollars in this plant. Why should we invest ours? With a just transition, local businesses and tourism can be bolstered without ruining our health, killing workers and destroying our natural resources.

Private citizens and several brownfield developers are coming forward with creative and potentially lucrative development ideas. Any development will also enjoy the benefit of a 2002 $6-million cleanup of on-site contamination from unlined impoundment ponds. With a federally designated deepwater port, it’s not a stretch to imagine this 65-acre property hosting cruise ships or other types of maritime commerce.

There will no doubt be unique challenges transitioning this property. But it’s not the only coal plant in the country going by the wayside, just the oldest.

The Salem News and those naysayers who spend so much time and energy pointing out what cannot be done, need to change their tune and join Dominion, city and state leadership, and the air-breathing public, in imagining other possibilities.

Rep.  Ehrlich is doing what our leaders are supposed to do: she is leading. Specifically, she is leading us forward towards a cleaner and more prosperous future and is trying to do so in a manner that heals wounds, considers the values and needs of many communities and she is using honest, tough but civil language to build a real conversation about what needs to be done.

Tonight on WBZ radio’s “Nightside with Dan Rea” starting at 9 pm CLF’s Sue Reid will debate Audra Parker, Executive Director of the anti-Cape Wind “Alliance for the Protection of Nantucket Sound.”  The show will run until at least 10 PM and could go longer.  Tune in to AM 1030 or listen live online and call in at 617-254-1030.

The show is likely to focus on the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities decision approving a long term contract between Cape Wind and National Grid but is sure to be full of discussion of Cape Wind generally.