This summer, New Hampshire is bracing for news of the Northern Pass project’s future and its “new route.”

It’s now been nearly a year since the federal permitting process for the Northern Pass project was put on indefinite hold. North of Groveton, New Hampshire, the developer – Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT) – is still working behind tightly closed doors to string together a new section of the project route, where there are no existing transmission corridors, by paying landowners substantial sums for property – in many cases, well above market value.

Earlier this month, the chief operating officer of NPT’s parent company, Northeast Utilities, told investors:

Where we are right now is in procuring the last 40 miles of the right-of-way, and I can tell you we are making very, very strong progress in lining up the right of way. I think we’re on track for the middle of the year, approximately August timeframe to have the right-of-way secured and then to be prepared to file with the [U.S. Department of Energy] the route….

NPT’s apparent plan (assuming it really can overcome the considerable obstacles to a new route):

• Declare that it “heard the objections” to the original route (a posture it previewed last April when it agreed to look for new routes)
• Announce a new NPT-controlled route having the “support of property owners” (as it no longer has resort to eminent domain)
• Marginalize those with legitimate objections as “special interests” and
• Seek a speedy, narrow review of the proposal from federal and state regulators (after itself having put the permit process on hold for a year).

Not so fast. Before the news arrives (if it does), it’s worth remembering that whatever new lines the developer manages to draw on the map do nothing to change the project’s DNA or to demonstrate that the project will benefit New Hampshire. A brief review is in order:

Where are the benefits for New Hampshire?

Through  costly marketing efforts, NPT has been trying to sell New Hampshire on the tremendous economic and environmental benefits of Northern Pass. But the supposed benefits just don’t hold up to scrutiny:

• Reduced emissions from “clean power”?

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, CLF’s report on the most recent science demonstrated that new hydropower projects to supply power for Northern Pass are much worse for the climate than NPT’s false advertising claims have led the region to believe and are not meaningfully better than natural gas power plants (the power NPT predicts that Northern Pass would replace) in the early years after reservoirs are developed. As a result, contrary to mistaken but widely disseminated assumptions, importing hydropower from Canada is not a short-term solution that will reduce New England’s or New Hampshire’s carbon emissions. Indeed, the current proposal would have the perverse effect of protecting – rather than hastening the transition away from – PSNH’s low-performing, high-emitting power plants, which are New Hampshire’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. (Despite marketing the project based on its “clean” source of the power, NPT also refuses to acknowledge the relevance or importance of the troubling damage to ecosystems and communities that large-scale hydropower causes in Canada.)

• Lower electric rates?

Those who would live with the new transmission lines, customers of NPT affiliate PSNH, are the least likely to benefit. Despite nearly two years of promises that PSNH would announce a plan to purchase Hydro-Québec hydropower for New Hampshire residents, there is still no agreement to do so. Any modest effects on the region’s wholesale electricity rates (which NPT’s consultant predicted based on outdated economic assumptions about energy costs) don’t translate into lower rates for PSNH customers (who instead are stuck paying the bill for PSNH’s inefficient and dirty power plants). In fact, if Northern Pass succeeds in lowering wholesale rates, it will likely worsen PSNH’s death spiral of increasing rates and fewer customers, leaving those residents and small businesses still getting power from PSNH with higher bills.

• Growing New Hampshire’s clean energy economy and jobs?

There is a substantial risk that Northern Pass would swamp the market for renewable energy projects in New England, especially if state laws are amended to qualify Hydro-Québec power as “renewable.” Furthermore, the project’s high voltage direct current technology means that its massive investment in transmission capacity will wholly bypass the potentially fertile ground for renewable energy development in northern New England. Whatever the short-term construction jobs required (and NPT’s estimates are disputed), the current Northern Pass proposal may diminish the prospects for New Hampshire’s clean energy economy, including needed permanent jobs in the renewable and energy efficiency sectors.

No regional plan addressing new imports

Québec continues to implement its ambitious plan to develop more wild Boreal rivers into a new generation of massive hydropower projects, which will increase its export capabilities. This January, Hydro-Québec commissioned the final turbine at its latest hydropower facility (Eastmain 1-A) and will commission other turbines (at Sarcelle) as part of the same overall project later this year. Construction at the $8 billion Romaine River hydropower project (the subject of the film Seeking the Current) has begun and is ongoing, with the first unit expected to come online in 2014. Northeast Utilities has affirmed that Northern Pass will tap the power from these new projects. Meanwhile, Northern Pass competitors are moving forward with new transmission projects in eastern New England and in New York, among others:

Northern Pass and competitor transmission projects (source: ISO-NE)

More than a year ago, CLF and others urged the Department of Energy to weigh the region’s energy needs and develop a strategic regional plan that would determine a well-informed role for new Canadian hydropower imports in the northeastern United States’ energy future – before moving forward with the permitting process for Northern Pass. NPT’s only response was that responsible planning – encompassing the other pending transmission projects and a full consideration of the reasonable alternatives – would unacceptably delay its project – a truly ironic claim given NPT’s own, unforced, ongoing delay. More incredibly, the Department of Energy has so far sided with NPT, without explaining why.

So as Québec builds more dams and NPT buys up land, our region has no plan of its own. With no framework to understand the nature and extent of the appropriate role for Canadian hydropower, it is difficult if not impossible to make a sound, well-informed decision on whether Northern Pass – or projects like it – should proceed.

Community and grassroots reaction throughout New Hampshire

Since Northern Pass was announced in 2010, the project has inspired a broad-based and spirited movement of people throughout New Hampshire to oppose the current proposal. Last spring, there were massive turnouts at the Department of Energy’s public hearings on the project, with literally thousands attending and providing written and verbal comments both questioning the merits of the current proposal and urging a thorough environmental review. And earlier this year, a coalition of citizens and organizations of many political stripes succeeded in persuading New Hampshire’s legislature to enact a bill preventing projects like Northern Pass from using eminent domain. In another effort, more than 1,500 donors contributed total of $850,000 to enable the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests to preserve the treasured New Hampshire landscape surrounding the historic Balsams resort, including a parcel that NPT had sought to purchase as part of Northern Pass’s transmission corridor. To date, town meeting voters in 32 local communities have passed resolutions and ordinances against the current proposal. Critically, most of these communities are located along the NPT’s “preferred route” that follows PSNH ‘s existing transmission corridor, south of any “new route” that NPT may announce.

NPT’s refusal to consider routing and technological alternatives

At every turn, NPT has rejected calls for in-depth consideration of potential alternatives to its current proposal, including use of an existing high-voltage transmission corridor that extends from Canada, through Vermont and western New Hampshire, to Massachusetts; burying transmission lines in transportation corridors, as is proposed in the New York and eastern New England projects mentioned above; or adding capacity to that same New York project, consistent with that project’s original proposal (it has since been scaled back). Indeed, Northern Pass’s response to the public’s opposition to the project was to “withdraw support” for alternative routes and double down on its “preferred route.” While this stance may be in the economic interest of NPT and PSNH, it’s grossly at odds with a fair, well-informed permitting process that would vindicate the public’s interest in a solution with minimal environmental and community impacts.

If and when NPT comes back from its year of buying up North Country land and relaunches its effort to secure approval of the Northern Pass project, with the only change to the proposal consisting of a new line on the map north of Groveton, there should be no mistake: the fundamental flaws in the current proposal remain. Likewise, whatever NPT’s “preferred route,” CLF remains as committed as ever to securing a comprehensive and rigorous permitting process that identifies superior alternatives and a final outcome that moves us toward – and not away from – a clean energy future for New Hampshire and the region.

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northern-pass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

We are in the midst of a massive, historic retreat in the nation’s use of coal to produce electricity, which began in 2008. This ongoing shift away from our dirtiest fuel has made news around the country. The primary reason: coal-fired power plants – expensive new facilities and decades-old dinosaurs alike – can’t compete in today’s marketplace. Investors and customers are moving toward cleaner, cheaper alternatives, principally natural gas but also renewables (especially wind) and high-tech ways of reducing energy use.

The national trend is occurring here in New Hampshire and throughout New England. This week, New Hampshire learned that PSNH is not operating its flagship coal plant, Merrimack Station in Bow, and that its economic prospects are not good. In fact, the plant will sit completely idle for six months of 2012, prompting the Manchester Union Leader to run the headline, “PSNH’s Bow power plant shuts down.” (The word “temporarily” was later added to the online story.) The two coal boilers at PSNH’s Schiller Station in Portsmouth will operate even less. (The Nashua Telegraph also took note.) This is welcome and long overdue relief for New Hampshire from New England’s top toxic polluter, and it would not have happened without legal pressure from CLF and others. More on our work in a moment.

Across the region, coal use has been collapsing for some time — and this was not unpredicted, as PSNH is claiming. PSNH’s claims to the contrary convey its willfully myopic planning perspective – a direct result of its expectation that ratepayers will cover its costs with a handsome profit irrespective of how utterly unsuccessful its investment decisions have been.

Coal-fired power plants’ “capacity factors” – their actual power output as a percentage of their theoretical maximum output at full power, running 24/7 – are intended to be very high; these plants were designed to run at close to full power day and night as “baseload” power for the electric grid. Not anymore:

In 2012, the trend is accelerating. Nationally, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that, in the first quarter, coal power accounted for only 36% of total generation – the smallest role for coal in a generation and down almost 9% from the first quarter of 2011. Regionally, a new milestone came in April, when the regional electric grid announced that, during the previous month, it didn’t dispatch any power from New England coal plants to meet the region’s electric demand.

For public health, air quality, the environment, the climate, and the communities where these plants are located, these trend lines are all in the right direction. For years, CLF’s Coal-Free New England 2020 campaign has fought to speed this progress and to make it permanent, by holding plant operators accountable for violating environmental laws (including at Merrimack Station), securing final and binding agreements to guarantee closure, and working in coalition with local residents to plan for responsible redevelopment and reuse of the plants’ sites.

In New Hampshire, with the complicity of state regulators, PSNH made big bets that the market for its coal-fired power will exist for years to come. One such spectacularly bad gamble was PSNH’s investment – over vigorous opposition from CLF, ratepayer advocates, and others – in a life extension project for Merrimack Station, including air pollution controls that address only some of the plant’s toxic and harmful emissions, to the tune of $422 million, plus a 10% guaranteed profit, money it now wants back from New Hampshire residents and small businesses through the regulator-approved rates it charges. Given coal’s collapse, which CLF and ratepayer advocates predicted at the time, this investment looks absurd and unwise, except of course to PSNH and its parent company Northeast Utilities, which has repeatedly reassured shareholders it is entitled to get back the full value of the upgrade, even if the plant barely runs.

Why has PSNH been so richly rewarded for such terrible economic decisions? Put simply, New Hampshire’s backward relic of a regulatory system is still protecting PSNH and its coal plants from the market. Remarkably, ratepayers continue to pay for upkeep and staffing at PSNH’s power plants, even when they sit idle, and also pay that same 10% profit on the value of all PSNH assets, including its quiet coal piles – and that’s whatever book value PSNH assigns, not market value.

PSNH has fought tooth and nail to protect its special treatment. Earlier this year, PSNH pulled out all the stops to kill a bill that would have directed state regulators to investigate whether PSNH’s ownership of power plants, including Merrimack and Schiller Stations, is in the best interest of ratepayers. After PSNH’s full-court press of lobbying, editorial board visits, and pressure from PSNH employees as well as PSNH-allied unions, politicians, and chambers of commerce, the House tabled the bill.

In the meantime, PSNH remains in an economic “death spiral” with very few large business customers to cover its costs. As a result, its remaining customers – homeowners and small businesses – are now paying as much as 50% more for power (8.75 cents per kilowatt-hour) than are customers of other utilities – which do not own power plants and get all their power from the competitive market (around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour). And the Legislature continues to seek the rollback of New Hampshire clean energy laws under the guise of easing ratepayer burdens, mistaking small trees for the forest of PSNH’s above-market rates, which include the costs of both PSNH’s idle fleet and buying power from more efficient plants.

What is CLF doing about it? Against the odds, we’re succeeding at forcing New Hampshire regulators to scrutinize PSNH’s costs, and the fact that PSNH’s coal plants are now sitting idle and the corresponding benefits to public health and the climate are a product of that scrutiny and a testament to CLF’s advocacy. And we’re pushing for regulators to do much more to hold PSNH accountable for its abysmal planning and force PSNH’s shareholder Northeast Utilities – and not suffering PSNH ratepayers, who are paying among the nation’s highest electric rates – to bear the downside of PSNH’s bad bets on coal. The last thing we should be doing with our energy dollars is subsidizing dirty power that can’t compete.

The market is providing an unprecedented opportunity to make that Union Leader headline from this week – and headlines like it for every other coal plant in the region – an enduring reality as New England transitions to a clean energy future. New Hampshire and the rest of New England should seize it.

A dispatch from the future? Manchester Union Leader headline, May 8, 2012

Majora Carter Photo: James Burling Chase

We’re thrilled to be co-sponsoring Majora Carter’s public presentation “Home(town) Security” on Wednesday, May 9, at 7:00 p.m. in Concord, New Hampshire.  A pioneer of sustainability in the South Bronx, Majora has been a champion of identifying and implementing creative local solutions to make communities healthy, vibrant places for all people. Majora founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001, introducing green solutions to build healthier, more sustainable communities with creative solutions like greenbelts, rooftop gardens and bike paths.  Her work earned her a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (“Genius Award”) in 2005. Since 2008, Majora’s consulting company has exported climate adaptation, urban micro-AgriBusiness and leadership development strategies for business, government, foundations, universities and economically under-performing communities.  Majora hosts the Peabody Award winning public-radio series “The Promised Land.”

Come learn about the inspiring story of Majora’s work as an “eco-entrepreneur,” using local solutions to create green, local jobs that make communities more resilient.  The event is free, but please register at www.nhplanners.org.

When: Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 7:00 p.m.

Where: Grappone Conference Center, 70 Constitution Ave, Concord, NH

Amid new scrutiny, it’s time for Massachusetts to reckon with the elephant in its climate plan (photo credit: flickr/David Blackwell)

The 5 million ton elephant in Massachusetts’s nation-leading climate action plan – the oversold and overstated greenhouse gas emissions reductions from new imports of Canadian hydropower comprising more than 20% of the state’s goal – is too big to ignore. That’s why it’s encouraging that the plan’s misplaced reliance on the Northern Pass transmission project is receiving new scrutiny.

Last December, CLF identified a significant problem with Massachusetts’s “Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020”: it adopted and relied on Northern Pass’s sales pitch that the project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 5 million tons annually and then claimed all those emissions reductions for Massachusetts. After examining the basis for the 5 million ton figure, we concluded that – no way around it – the figure was just wrong; it was calculated on the false assumption – belied by Hydro-Québec’s own data – that imported hydropower has no greenhouse gas emissions.  The way Massachusetts was relying on Northern Pass was dubious for other reasons, including the unfairness of Massachusetts claiming all the benefits of a project that will not be located in the state and the fact that there is no concrete commitment regarding how much Northern Pass power Massachusetts electric customers will actually receive.

In February, the problem was confirmed in a technical report (PDF) commissioned by CLF and authored by Synapse Energy Economics, which found that hydropower facilities, especially new projects being built in Québec to supply new imports into New England, have substantial greenhouse emissions – emissions that for several years after construction can be comparable to the natural gas power that Northern Pass would replace.

Last month, Massachusetts think-tank MassINC released an independent analysis (PDF) of Massachusetts’s progress in meeting its ambitious emissions reduction goal – 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2020. The conclusion: Massachusetts is making great strides in some areas, but needs to redouble its efforts if it intends to achieve the goal. One of the biggest uncertainties: the Massachusetts climate plan’s reliance on new imports of Canadian hydropower through Northern Pass.

MassINC’s new report signals, as CLF has argued, that Massachusetts must look elsewhere to secure sufficient emissions reductions by 2020. The MassINC report makes the critical point that it is not up to Massachusetts whether the Northern Pass project is built – and there are many reasons to doubt that it ever will be – not the least of which are the extensive permitting processes and the committed and well-founded community opposition that the project must overcome. Citing Synapse’s findings on the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower and the higher emissions associated with new hydropower facilities, the MassINC report suggests that any reliance on new imports as an emissions reduction strategy requires a credible, scientifically sound accounting of the targeted reductions, including whether and to what extent the power will come from new hydropower projects. Massachusetts needs to temper its enthusiasm for additional hydropower imports with the same scientific rigor and attention to detail reflected in the Patrick administration’s proposed regulations for biomass power.

The MassINC report is making waves, earning the lead, front page story recently in the Boston Sunday Globe and media coverage throughout the state. Consistent with the MassINC report, CLF does not rule out the possibility that new hydropower imports – if they have minimal environmental and community impacts on both sides of the border, avoid undermining local renewable and energy efficiency, displace our dirtiest power, and provide verifiable emissions reductions – could play a constructive role in a cleaner energy future for the region, particularly when considered over the long term.

But it’s time for the Patrick administration to reconsider its unfounded confidence that Northern Pass is some kind of clean energy panacea that will deliver a fifth of all needed emissions reductions by 2020. The science is clear: it’s not.

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northern-pass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

I received that message this week. It came in two parts. The first part was delivered by a polite and efficient Somerville, MA police officer, in the form of the below ticket. I had blown right through a red light.

The second part was the irony that hit me as his blue lights were flashing: Just last week I posted this blog post, about how far we’ve come in Boston toward a safe and respectful bike commuting environment, in part because cyclists tend to follow the rules far more regularly than they did in the past.

I am guilty. No question about it. It doesn’t matter that the move I made was safe – to me and others – and likely promoted efficiency because I got out of the way of traffic before the waiting cars started moving through the intersection. I violated the rules that we have developed to govern our competing demands on a shared resource: our roadways.

I am blowing the whistle on myself for a few reasons, but principally to make a simple argument: the rule of law is not only necessary, but immensely helpful. We should respect it. Now, to those reasons.

First, the experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on how subjective we all get when using the roads. I bike, and I drive. When biking, I am often amazed at how quickly I fall into the mindset that all drivers are the problem, and when driving how quick I am to note the bad moves of the cyclists on the road.  You may know what I mean.

Test yourself: are you, or is any one, really capable of innately respecting the rights of all users of a shared resource when we are users ourselves?

Which leads to the second point: this is why we have laws. They govern situations that humans are not entirely capable of governing in the absence of law. The rule of law is, in my view, one of the greatest human inventions yet. It is the fundamental underpinning of so much of a civil society, including the rational sharing of scarce, common resources subject to multiple demands, for the greater good of all.

Resources like clean water. Like marine fisheries. Like clean air for all who breathe. Like a healthy economy for the welfare of all. Like justice. And like safe streets and other public investments in transportation.

If we don’t like the rules we should not flaunt them, we should work to change them. Some innovations worth watching are now in the works.  France, for example, appears to be experimenting with new rules that would allow cyclists to go through red lights in some situations, where clearing the intersection of cyclists before cars start up might actually make for safer conditions.

I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. But I do know it was wrong for me to adopt that rule for myself. Civil society, operating under the rule of law, can’t work that way. Open respectful debate, and thoughtful engagement in our democracy and participation in the governing process – that’s how we develop the rules we use to promote the general good of the body politic.

We at CLF are engaged in that sort of work in every one of our states, to promote what we and our members (and many more) believe is the general good of society, and we’re proud to do it. Especially in the election season that is now upon us, we invite all to join in the process on whatever issue excites you. It’s good for all of us, and necessary if we’re going to address the challenges we face effectively, and together. And that’s how it has to be done.

UNH recently presented its new master plan to the larger University community. The plan includes entering into public-private ventures to develop retail and commercial space – stores – on existing agricultural land.

On the UNH web page, it states the school “is at the forefront of the efforts to define new personal, local community, governmental and global activities and policies for protecting and sustaining the Earth and its inhabitants.” It prides itself on being a national leader in sustainability and as a land grant institution it should be in the forefront of promoting local agriculture and protecting water quality.

So why are none of these lofty goals referenced in the master plan? You can read more about the master plan here.

What the University is calling “controlled development,” more closely resembles what I call sprawl. This type of development places much greater pressure on Great Bay and its tributaries from both point and non-point sources – waters that are already impaired from too much nitrogen pollution. In fact, there has been a rapid increase of impervious cover associated with development and sprawl throughout the entire Great Bay watershed. As noted in the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership’s most recent State of the Estuaries Report, the area of impervious surfaces in the watershed increased from 28,710 acres in 1990 to 50,351 acres in 2005 – a rate of over 1,400 acres per year.

The campus already faces huge traffic issues on Main Street and the idea of adding more development to this road makes little sense. Instead, the University should continue to develop its public transportation system to link the campus to existing retail development. We want to support vital downtowns, such as in Dover and Newmarket, not create low-density sprawl that will only compete with and erode these town centers.

And with the exploding interest in local agriculture, and the need for our communities to become more resilient in the face of soaring energy costs and climate change, the University needs to protect all of its agricultural assets, not turn them into parking lots. This includes such areas as Leawood Orchards – currently abandoned but valuable land that could be put back into agricultural production.

Thanks to an overwhelming outcry from the UNH community, the idea of developing the agricultural lands on the north side of Main Street appears to have been taken off the table. The next step should be to set aside all of the remaining UNH agricultural lands and a commitment to protect water quality from further development and sprawl.

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For more, visit: http://www.clf.org/great-bay-waterkeeper/ You can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

Image courtesy of epSos.de @ flickr.

New Englanders are driving and emitting more pollution every day. Emissions from New England’s transportation sector – the fastest growing emissions sector — produce about 40% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the region, more than half of which comes from passenger cars. This is a problem for New England’s people, environment and economy.

That is why CLF has been working hard with a coalition of environmental advocacy organizations to support the creation of a Clean Fuels Standard (CFS) in eleven Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. A successful CFS would achieve several mutually reinforcing goals:

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector through the promotion of alternative fuels (such as electricity, advanced biofuels, and natural gas);
• Drive regional economic growth; and
• Ensure energy security and insulate residents of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states from rising oil prices.

This week, the CFS advocacy coalition – comprised of CLF, PennFuture, Environment Northeast, Environmental Entrepreneurs, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environment America, and Ceres – welcomed good news regarding litigation in California over the CA Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). On Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion to stay sought by the State of California and its co-appellants (including CLF, who is a party to the CA litigation). This decision blocked the injunction granted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, which prevented CA from enforcing its LCFS regulations while the appeal was pending.

In real terms, as a result of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, the LCFS will be alive and well in CA while the Appeals Court considers the merits of the case – a significant victory for California, CLF, and the other appellants, and a positive step toward combating climate change in the transportation sector.

CLF and its partners also made important strides this week toward promoting a regional CFS by standing up against threats from the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a trade association comprised of fossil fuel interests and affiliated with organizations like the American Petroleum Institute. CEA (along with the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufacturers, American Trucking Associations, and the Center for North American Energy Security), is an opposing party in the California litigation described above.

Earlier this month, the CEA contacted Attorneys General in all of the states participating in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic CFS program, spreading misinformation about the California litigation and threatening to lodge a similar battle against a CFS program in our region. CLF and its allies responded strongly with a response letter to the Attorneys General, making clear that CEA severely mischaracterized the direction of the CA litigation and its implications for the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region. In fact, the CA litigation is not a predictor of the legality of fuel standards still under development in other locations, and resource-specific regional differences between the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region and California undercut CEA’s claims. The Massachusetts version of the letter to the Attorneys General is available here.

CLF believes that a regional CFS is a crucial means of significantly reducing the region’s dependence on oil, transportation costs, and greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time providing consumers more choices. CLF will continue to work with allies to ensure that the CFS program progresses in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

A keystone to CLF’s work to secure a clean energy future for the region is completing the transition to a coal-free New England. It is a time of historic progress: cleaner, cheaper alternatives are driving coal out of the market, and old coal plants are closing their doors. But New Hampshire remains a critical battleground for CLF’s work, with two costly old coal-fired power plants being kept alive by failed state policies and ratepayer subsidies.

That’s why we’re delighted to be partnering with the Sustainability Film Series at Phillips Exeter Academy to present a free screening of the critically acclaimed documentary The Last Mountain in Exeter, New Hampshire, on Friday May 4. With stunning footage of the practice of mountaintop removal mining, the film bears dramatic witness to the social, public health, and environmental damage wrought by coal and power companies, and chronicles the grassroots fight against coal in Appalachia and around the country. The New York Times called The Last Mountain a “persuasive indictment” of coal; I think you’ll agree.

The Last Mountain producer Eric Grunebaum and I will be on hand for a panel discussion to discuss the film and the future of coal-fired power in New Hampshire and New England.

Please join us:

When: Friday, May 4, 2012. 7 pm.

Where: Phillips Exeter Academy, Phelps Academy Center in The Forum (3rd Floor), Tan Lane, Exeter, NH (map). 

Bring your friends and family, and email me at ccourchesne@clf.org with any questions. We hope to see you there!

Here is the trailer:

CLF President John Kassel in front of the MA State House on his commute from work.

Every year, environmentalists and the public alike celebrate Earth Day in late April. It is a day with a long, proud history – a day when, for a brief moment, we share our environmental concern with a broader public. But let’s be clear: one day is not enough.

This year marks more than 40 years since the first Earth Day, 50 years since Silent Spring, and 20 years since the Rio Earth Summit. The mounting environmental threats we face as a region, and as a nation, cannot be dealt with in a day. They require sustained effort towards a sustainable future. They require every one of us to do our part, every day.

That may sound daunting, but here’s one solution that’s as easy as walking or riding a bike: one of the best things you can do for the environment is to bike more, to walk more, or to take public transportation. This Earth Day, give your car a rest.

There’s no question that driving is a strain on our environment, our economy and our health. Transportation is the largest US consumer of petroleum, accounting for twenty percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. High prices aren’t slowing us down, either: last year Americans spent $481 billion on gas, a record high. That’s in part because the number of “extreme commuters”— those who travel ninety minutes or more each way—have been the fastest-growing category.

For all the money (and time) spent, it’s not making us happy. Drawing on a body of research, David Brooks wrote in the NY Times that “The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.” Nor is it making us healthy. Commuting by car raises people’s risk of obesity, increases their exposure to pollution, reduces air quality through hazardous air pollution, and reduces sleep and exercise. Across the US, vehicle exhaust accounts for 55% of nitrogen oxides, and 60% of carbon monoxide emissions. For those driving, and the 25 million Americans living with asthma, this is a bad thing. These reasons and many more, CLF is proud to be affiliated with the Environmental Insurance Agency (EIA) that offers discounted insurance rates for those who drive less.

The portrait is clear: driving is one of the most polluting things we do nearly every day – and we don’t even think about it. If you want to celebrate Earth Day, drive less.

I’ve been a bike commuter my entire adult life. I rode to work in Boston in the mid-1980’s, and now, 25 years later, I’m doing it again. I can tell you that the over those years, the biking culture here in Boston has changed dramatically. When I first began riding, it was very common for me to stop at an intersection and be the only bike commuter. Now, I’m almost always part of a large pack.

A MassBike fact sheet claims that “in 2000, 0.52% of Massachusetts workers 16 and older (15,980 people total) used a bicycle to get to work.” Meanwhile, the League of American Cyclists claims that between 2000 and 2009 bike ridership in Boston increased by 118%. This rise makes sense, given the efforts by Boston’s bike-supporting Mayor Menino and his bike Czar Nicole Freedman, under whose tenure the city of Boston has installed more than 50 miles of bike lanes. Boston’s great bike sharing program, Hubway, also undoubtedly helps. After having been named one of the country’s worst biking cities by Bicycling magazine, last year they named us one of the country’s 26 best.

There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way. Back when I began riding to work in Boston, there was a fend-for-yourself, cowboy sort of attitude. That’s all changed, and for the better. Cyclists follow the rules far more frequently now. This makes for safer travel for all, and gains respect among drivers and the general public for this alternative form of transportation. Biking shares the road, and also reduces the need for public expenditures on roads. By encouraging biking, we make the most of our shared investment in transportation.

We need the same increase in respect for other forms of transit, like buses, subways and trains, which also help us get the most out of our transportation dollars. Instead of continuing to build infrastructure that funnels everyone onto roads across New England, in their cars, we need to share our transportation resources, for our benefit, and the planet’s.

We also need to optimize our transit system for walking, for biking, for trains and for buses. And we need to treat all forms of transportation equally. As CLF’s former President Doug Foy once said at UVA’s Miller Center, “It’s always amazed me that we refer to driving, roads and bridges and then everything else an alternative form of transportation.” Indeed. Isn’t walking the primary form, for all of us? The one we first learned to use? All of these “alternatives” should be equal forms of transportation, with equal access for all.

The growth of urban biking is due in large part, in recent years, to the power of numbers. And the improvement in bikers’ attitudes also continues to help: if you give respect, you get respect. But there’s also something else going on here: You can’t keep a good idea down. Let’s consider a few stats:

• A short, four-mile round trip by bicycle keeps about 15 pounds of pollutants out of the air we breathe. Source: MassBike.
• A 15-minute bike ride to and from work five times a week burns off the equivalent of 11 pounds of fat in a year. Source: MassBike.
• Individuals who switch from driving to taking public transit can save, on average $10,120 this year, and up to $844 a month. Source: American Public Transportation Association APTA

Who wouldn’t want to save money, improve their health, and save the earth? A newspaper put it well when they ran a headline that said, “Commuting to work is ‘bad for your health’ (unless you cycle or go by foot…).”

This Earth Day, ditch the car and pick up your bike. Or go for a walk. And then, when it comes time to go back to work, keep on riding. I’ll see you on the road.