photo courtesy of someones.life @ flickr.com

I joined with residents of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom today and fellow environmental colleagues to protect Vermont from the devastation of tar sands oil.

We filed a legal action to ensure Vermonters have a say over any proposal to move tar sands through Vermont. See press release here.

The request asks that the increasingly imminent proposal to move tar sands through an existing Northeast Kingdom pipeline be subject to state land use (Act 250) review. See request here.

Tar sands oil poses unique risks to the many natural treasures of the Northeast Kingdom and also imposes extreme climate change risks.

Tar sands oil is a gritty tar-like substance that produces far more emissions than conventional oil. The vastness of the tar sands reserves in Western Canada means that using tar sands oil delays efforts to move towards cleaner energy supplies, and sends us backwards on climate change.

As James Hansen, a leading climate scientist has said, the exploitation of tar sands on mass will be, “game over” for the climate.

Already there are requests to move tar sands east from Alberta to Montreal. The only realistic way to move it beyond Montreal to the deep ports it needs for transportation is through the Portland Montreal Pipeline which passes through Vermont.

There has already been one spill in this old pipeline in Vermont. A spill of tar sands oil – which is much harder to clean up – would be devastating.

Our filing requests that any plans to use the pipeline for tar sands oil be reviewed though Vermont’s land use development law – Act 250 – to protect our land, water and air resources threatened by this dirty fuel .

My son’s third grade class is looking for “juicy” adjectives, and I found one.  Again and again, journalists are describing the Massachusetts Governor’s 21st Century Transportation Plan, which proposes to raise revenue for our chronically underfunded transportation system, as “ambitious.” Not the kind of “ambitious” your mother admired in you when you were a college student, but the “ambitious” that implies hubris. As in asking for a lot. Maybe even too much. Insisting that the Governor’s plan is “ambitious” immediately gets people thinking about how they can cut it down to size. So before the knives come out, having carefully reviewed the plan and understanding the real needs of our transportation system well, let’s take a look at what’s really in there:

• The plan proposes to increase Chapter 90 funding for local street maintenance and associated projects from $200 to $300 million per year.  The Massachusetts Municipal Association, however, just recently estimated the actual need to be $562 million per year.
• Likewise, the Governor’s plan only dedicates 23% of the capital to strategic expansion projects, the rest is all maintenance of roads, bridges and transit infrastructure, replacement of old trains and buses, capacity upgrades, and other costs of the current system.
• More importantly, only 4% of the money set aside in the Governor’s plan for operations is related to strategic expansion projects.
• The plan also assumes that good and necessary transportation projects which have long been recommended by transportation planners and economists, such as the Red-Blue Connector and the Urban Ring, would be left unfunded over the next ten years.

I don’t know whether “reasonable” or perhaps “conservative” would be juicy enough adjectives for my son and his friends, but they would surely be a more accurate description of the Governor’s transportation plan.

When Governor Deval Patrick stood before the Legislature and the people of Massachusetts last week to offer a bold proposal to raise $1 billion per year to fund critical investments in transportation, he struck a skillful balance between the pragmatic and the visionary, appealing to us as both taxpayers and investors in a thriving Commonwealth.  The Governor asked his constituents to “Imagine if you could depend on a bus or subway that came on time, was safe and comfortable… if the Green Line ran to Medford and the commuter rail ran to Springfield,” among other improvements. He made sure to emphasize that everyone would benefit from a 21^st century transportation system, whether they drive a car or take public transit, from one end of the state to the other. And he proposed that everyone pay their share, according to their ability.

It’s a good proposal and a badly needed one. The question now is how to get the buy-in we need to make it happen. Not surprisingly, it’s not too hard to find political opponents and citizens of the Commonwealth to speak out against the proposed tax increases. Who wants a tax increase? It’s like asking someone whether they want a root canal. But if you ask a person in that special dental pain whether she would be willing to pay a fair price to make it go away – indeed to be able to enjoy biting into a delicious crunchy apple —she would almost certainly agree that her investment would be worth it.

With Massachusetts’ transportation system so woefully underfunded for many decades, we are all in that special pain. Crumbling bridges, decaying train cars, vanishing bus routes and unfinished projects are daily reminders that we’ve got a problem that needs to be fixed. And we all have our own version of that delicious apple:  our mode of transportation that gets us where we need to go, when we need to go, safely, reliably and affordably. The problem is that people want the pain to go away – indeed, they want the apple! – but, politicians fear, they don’t want to pay for it.

In fact, a MassINC poll conducted last year showed that 62% of people surveyed said that they would be willing to pay more than they are paying now to improve the transportation system – up to a point. So, maybe we should be asking people not whether they agree with the Governor’s proposal to raise taxes, but rather, whether they agree that a working transportation system is a worthwhile investment. More frequent trains. Easy connections between distant parts of the state. Fast access to the airport. And why stop there? What about cleaner air, less congested roads and more vibrant communities with thriving businesses and the jobs they bring? Let’s talk about the benefits, like the Governor started to do, and help the savvy taxpayer see how her investment will pay off – now and in the future. Our legislators need to hear from the transit champions. C’mon…we know you’re out there.

There is an epidemic of truth telling underway, globally, nationally and in Massachusetts.  And as hard as some of that truth is to hear it is a very healthy and important exercise.

On the global level the business and political leadership is finally waking up to the deep and systemic threat of a changing climate.  The 2013 Global Risks Assesment from the World Economic Forum describes how business and political leaders see climate risk as the only thing competing with “risk of financial collapse” as the biggest threat facing the world economy:

respondents also identified the failure of climate change adaptation and rising greenhouse gas emissions as among those global risks considered to be the most likely to materialize within a decade. Compared to last year’s survey, the failure to adapt to climate change replaced rising greenhouse gas emissions as the most systemically critical. This change in our data mirrors a wider shift in the conversation on the environment from the question of whether our climate is changing to the questions of “by how much” and “how quickly”.

Meanwhile back in America, the experts preparing the National Climate Impacts Assessment dropped a terrifying draft report on the government and the internet, seeking public comment. That report, summarized in a “Letter to the American People,” described how the changing climate is already visible:

Americans are noticing changes all around them. Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of  extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.

 The report then goes on to lay out in excruciating detail the impacts of global warming that have been observed and are anticipated by very solid science – laying out the facts in over a thousand pages of text (147 MB PDF) and 32 alarming charts and graphs.

So what does all this have to do with transportation infrastructure, and paying for it through taxes, in Massachusetts?

It matters because the transportation sector is the second largest (or largest depending on what definition of “sector” you use), and fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts. If the Bay State is going to meet the mandate of the Global Warming Solutions Act and live up to its Clean Energy and Climate Plan we will need to invest in a modern and effective transportation system.  The Governor and his Department of Transportation have laid out the formidable challenge of updating a chronically underfunded and neglected system to meet these challenges in a startling clear and powerful document titled, “The Way Forward: A 21st-Century Transportation Plan”.

The job of solving our transportation infrastructure crisis brings together a powerful coalition.  Citizens who just want a transportation system that will let them lives,  the business community who are shouting from the front page of the newspaper about how the weaknesses in our transportation system are undermining our economy and need to be addressed through investment and Climate Hawks who want Massachusetts to again lead the nation and the world.  Leading, as it did at the time of the American Revolution and as it did as the cradle of the movement to abolish slavery, both through our words and thoughts but also lead by example by building a better Commonwealth with the clean and climate-protective transportation system of the future.

The Farm Bill will affect many, if not most, Americans. How is it going? Not well. Photo: Chris Koerner @ flickr.

As we reported last October, the 2008 Farm Bill was set to expire in September of 2012. September came and went, but no new Farm Bill was passed. This is no small matter for those of us interested in food systems, as the bill covers the food stamps program (known as “SNAP”), subsidies for crop and dairy producers, and dozens of other programs that assist small farmers, rural development, farmland conservation, and ongoing agricultural research. As you can tell from this list, the bill is not just about farms, nor will it affect just farmers; it will affect many, if not most, Americans.

Much of the debate in Congress during 2012 centered around the $80 billion food stamp program and the billions in annual subsidies to growers of corn, soy, cotton, and rice. These subsidies have become more controversial in recent years because they encourage the growth of high calorie crops with relatively little nutritional content, discourage crop diversity, and because the majority of funds go to wealthy owners of large-scale farming operations rather than the struggling family farmers that the subsidies were meant to help. As seems to increasingly be the case in Washington, a heated debate led to an overdue, last minute compromise that appears to be the worst of both worlds.

With the “Fiscal Cliff” looming, Congress passed 112 H.R. 8, the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012” on New Year’s Day. Title VII of the Act extended the 2008 Farm Bill through September of this year. Rather than making any changes or cuts to the big ticket items, the extension opts to cut funding to a variety of smaller, less newsworthy efforts, including grant programs to support research into higher quality organics, fruits, and vegetables, an education and outreach program for new and young farmers, a grant program to fund the creation of farmers markets and other direct-to-consumer efforts, and a cost share program that helped defray the cost of organic certification.

Sadly, the new “compromise” did very little to improve either the fiscal outlook of the nation or provide any long-term security to farmers or SNAP recipients, who must sit at the edge of their seats as  a second round of debate rages in D.C. about what to include in the 2013 Farm Bill. Direct payment program to commodity crop growers will continue for at least 9 months, even though there were many proposed reforms to this outdated program.

Instead, politicians focused on entirely eliminating the funding for a variety of forward-looking, progressive efforts. These were dollars that were being spent in ways that might actually provide a future with a more balanced, safe, and healthy American food system, with more local and organic options for consumers, and with more sustainable local economies from rural to urban areas of America. Programs such as these actually have the potential to reduce health care and energy costs by increasing the consumption of healthy, local foods. Sadly, these shortsighted cuts will be difficult to reverse at a time when Congress will likely be under pressure to come up with further cuts in a 2013 Farm Bill. We can only hope that the backlash from these events provides enough pressure on politicians that these or similar efforts will continue into the future.

Transportation options in nothern tier states like Maine are a critical part of sustainable communities and a low-impact ecncomy. Photo credit: Lawrence Whittemore @ flickr

Let’s face it: population density is a critical factor in any decision to provide transit services. In CLF’s “northern tier” states, where dense populations are limited to a few metropolitan areas, transportation options like bus services  have been slow to develop, leaving people to drive. In asking for directions from one place to another, the response most often is: “You’re on your own.”

In Maine, for example, Portland and surrounding towns and cities are served by a number of independent municipal fixed-route bus systems, an inter-city commuter bus linking Portland with a few cities in southern Maine, and an outlying “on demand” provider. But there is no regular service between Portland and Maine’s second-largest metro area, Lewiston-Auburn, about 40 miles away. Maine’s L/A has a growing immigrant population and plenty of affordable housing, but greater Portland, where housing is expensive, is the locus of most employment expansion.

CLF Maine has been working with the elected leaders of these areas to promote new ways for commuters on this corridor to avoid single-occupancy vehicle commuting, and provide greater connectivity to Portland’s air, bus, and train transportation hub. Recently, at the urging of Auburn’s mayor, Jonathan Labonte and Portland’s mayor Mike Brennan, Portland’s city council voted to explore this option, as reported here.

It’s an encouraging step in the right direction and validates the work of CLF and its partners to create a unified transit authority for the entire southern Maine region. This would promote better customer service and alignment among providers as disparate as a ferry service, Amtrak, and local bus lines, and provide the potential for common investment and bonding authority.

Image courtesy of Dr. RawheaD @ flickr.

For over a decade the Federal government has allowed transit riders to use pre-tax money to pay for their ride to and from work. A benefit of greatest interest and benefit to commuter rail riders who often pay more over $100 a month for their passes.

Unfortunately, due to congressional inaction, in 2012 the tax code subsidized driving to work over transit by allowing employees to spend up to $230 per month in parking expenses tax-free but only allowing $125 per month for public transportation. Attempts to restore parity between these programs foundered in the choppy seas of Congress.

However, in one of the lesser-known elements of the fiscal cliff deal, the two benefits have now been set at equal levels again ($240/month) for 2012 (retroactively, although there are very few people who will be able to take advantage of this) and 2013.  A welcome change that should encourage employees to make the desirable shift to public transportation.

So transit riders who spend more than $125 per month on public transportation should contact their human resources department right away and hop onboard this new benefit. And it is indeed a benefit – we all gain when folks commuting to work leave their cars at home, reducing the amount of pollution traveling our roads and being emitted into the air.  Solid transit infrastructure and service driving and being driven by regular ridership allows families to live with fewer (or no) cars, saving money, reducing pollution and building cooler and better communities.

Imagine this: the Governor of Massachusetts addresses the people of the state about an important issue. From the television screen he looks us all in the eye and discusses . . . transportation infrastructure. Improbable? How about if this happened back in the days of when Boston had 5 commercial channels and one public TV station and a statewide address by a Governor was a very big deal? It may be hard to believe that a subject that wonky and technical could be the focus of that sort of hot and intense attention. But it happened.

The year was 1970 and the Governor was Frank Sargent, the strong leader who years later served as Chairman of the Board of CLF. In that dramatic 1970 speech Governor Sargent accepted a report from a special task force reviewing plans to build a massive network of highways in and around Boston and launched a planning effort that set the course of transportation planning for decades to come. Memorably, Governor Sargent, a former head of the state agency that built and operated highways (then known as the “Department of Public Works”) confessed: “Nearly everyone was sure that highways were the only answer to transportation problems for years to come. But we were wrong.”

The powerful story of that speech, the events that precipitated it and most importantly the massive planning process that followed it is told in The Roads Not Taken, the core story in Turn Signal, the Winter issue of ArchitectureBoston, the quarterly publication of the Boston Society of Architects. And the rest of the issue is well worth your time – both for the eloquent essays, like the story of the activists who fought off the highways that were threatening their community, and the photo essays that document what was saved when the highways were stopped.

The good folks at ArchitectureBoston have done something very important here. The Boston Transportation Planning Review (the “BTPR”) that grew out of that  very unique moment set a powerful precedent for the nation and charted a course that has literally shaped the face and communities of Greater Boston. CLF has had a front-row seat at the implementation process for the BTPR and dove into that process even deeper, unsurprisingly given the importance of the transportation system to our mission and the unique fact that Governor Sargent served as Chair of CLF’s Board of Trustees after leaving office.

As Stephanie Pollack, who worked here at CLF with great distinction for many years, powerfully describes the challenge going forward in an essay in Turn Signal:

Forty years on, the time has come for the Commonwealth to fulfill three of the most important unkept promises: institutionalizing open and visionary planning, healing the scars still left in neighborhoods cleared for the cancelled highway projects, and completing and funding the state’s public transportation system.

This theme of the need to finish the job of the BTPR by providing needed funding to our transportation system and institutionalizing good planning practices was picked up in a recent Boston Globe Op-Ed by former Governor Michael Dukakis and another elder statesman of Massachusetts government who began his career in the BTPR era, Stephen Crosby. Dukakis and Crosby wrote:

With transportation issues again at the top of the Commonwealth’s political agenda, we should look back at those long-ago events not out of nostalgia, but as a roadmap for the equally momentous decisions we face today. After decades of investment, Massachusetts has a vastly improved transportation system that includes an extensive network of highways, the MBTA, and regional transit systems serving virtually every part of the state. But this system and the people and businesses that depend on it are in trouble. From aging bridges in Springfield to the T’s financial woes, the state is paying the price for neglecting the basic maintenance and financial backing that any transportation system requires.

And we can’t just maintain what we’ve already built. For a first-class economic future, the Commonwealth requires a first-class transportation system. As state transportation officials have already spelled out, this future will rely heavily on public transportation and will focus highway funds on maintenance rather than expansion. Massachusetts needs to expand existing transit and build high-speed rail to serve the entire state. With so many projects awaiting action, the Commonwealth once again needs to set honest and rigorous priorities for transportation investment — and create a long-term financing plan to efficiently implement those priorities.

This is indeed the bottom line: building thriving communities will require vision, careful planning and investing in our transportation system. This is not the most fun message (folks may claim otherwise but no one really enjoys slowing down to plan or paying for investments) but it is a solid truth — if we want to keep moving forward we need to build, maintain and operate the system that literally keeps us moving.

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.