A full environmental review is needed before Vermont Gas Systems digs up wetlands and pollutes the air.

Federal law requires a full review for major projects – like pipelines – that will have significant environmental impacts. The Vermont Gas project should not be exempt from this requirement.

The proposed gas pipeline planned for Addison County would use publicly owned rights of way. Land acquired with federal tax dollars. When federal land is used for a major project, the environmental impacts need to be fully evaluated. That’s the law. And it only makes sense that before we allow our tax dollars to support major projects, we know what the environmental impacts are.

In a letter to the Federal Highway Administration, Conservation Law Foundation is calling on the Agency to undertake this needed review.

The significant wetland, water resource, habitat and air pollution impacts have already been noted in testimony filed with the Public Service Board. Vermont Gas plans to use a right of way that was acquired for the Circ Highway and has already been shown to have significant and valuable wetlands. A full and new review is needed for the gas pipeline.

Before we blindly commit to a pipeline that will have far-reaching impacts for generations, we need a thorough and transparent understanding of what is at stake.

Read CLF’s letter here.

photo courtesy of kara newhouse@flickr.com

Expanding natural gas in Vermont moves us in the wrong direction to address climate change. The expansion increases greenhouse gas emissions, compounding Vermont’s contribution to climate change.

In detailed testimony filed with the Vermont Public Service Board, Conservation Law Foundation explained that the simplistic evaluation by Vermont Gas that the expansion will reduce emissions is simply wrong. Testimony from Dr. Elizabeth Stanton shows on pages 18-19 that expanding natural gas increases emissions more than three million tons over 100 years and brings environmental costs of an additional $76,000,000.

This project is not a good deal for Vermont.

Dr. Elizabeth Stanton shows that the emissions from the full life-cycle of the project result in significant increases in global warming pollution. This project will be around for a long time as will its greenhouse gases. Dr. Stanton explains on pg 9:

“The natural gas life cycle is the set of all processes related to the use of natural gas from its extraction, processing, and distribution, to its end-use combustion. Life-cycle analyses are studies that determine the upstream and downstream consequences of a particular product or service used by consumers.”

Its overall emissions include leaks of methane, a gas 25 to 72 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate change.

Testimony by Dr. Jon Erickson, Dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont shows that expanding gas results in locking us in to fossil fuels at a time our climate and energy goals require moving the opposite direction. He states at pg 6:

“Any expansion of the delivery of natural gas to customers in Vermont has the potential to substitute for other nonrenewable, carbon-based fuels (such as fuel oil), but also has the potential to displace current and future uses of renewable energy (such as wood-based home heating or district heating).”

His testimony goes on to state at pg 8:

“Beyond GHG-related risk, the extraction of natural gas supplies is using increasingly environmentally damaging procedures such as hydro-fracking, a practice that Vermont has temporarily banned within State borders. Environmental regulation in other States and Canadian Provinces poses a risk to the long-term stability of natural gas supplies.”

Let’s be honest. Increasing our reliance on fossil fuels, including natural gas, is a bad move.

MA DOER Commissioner Sylvia, Chelmsford Town Manager Paul Cohen, MA EOEEA Secretary Sullivan, and MA DEP Commissioner Kimmell at the Earth Day announcement in Chelmsford. (Photo credit: Emily Norton)

Today the Patrick Administration took an important step toward meaningful deployment of electric vehicles (EVs) in Massachusetts. Building on momentum from the Massachusetts Electric Vehicle Roundtable that CLF co-hosted with the Administration in March, the Patrick Administration launched a new incentive program yesterday: the Massachusetts Electric Vehicle Incentive Program for Municipalities. The Administration announced this new program on Earth Day at events in Greenfield and Chelmsford. CLF attended the announcement, and you can watch a video clip of MA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Kimmell and MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Sullivan announcing the new program in Chelmsford here and here (pardon the occasional wind!).

Following the MA EV Roundtable in March, the Administration created the Massachusetts Electric Vehicle Initiative to promote EVs in the Commonwealth. The new incentive program, focused on helping increase use and visibility of EVs in Massachusetts towns, is a noteworthy first step for the MA EV Initiative. This program will help municipalities purchase EVs as well as fund installation of charging stations. The program offers $7,500 grants per EV and $15,000 per publicly accessible charging station to eligible communities. The program, which is administered by the MA DEP,  has $2.5 million available for these grants.

At yesterday’s Earth Day launch for this program, Secretary Sullivan noted that increased deployment of EVs is an essential step toward meeting the climate commitments contained in the MA Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). Increased EV deployment is indeed an important step if the Commonwealth is to meet its mandatory greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction targets, and CLF is pleased to see the Commonwealth taking initiative with this measure. At the same time, the big picture for GHG reductions in Massachusetts still requires significant progress that can only be achieved through markedly stepped up action. The Administration has not met the GWSA’s deadlines for adopting and implementing regulations to reduce GHGs commensurate with the requirements of the GWSA across all sectors – including transportation. While steps to promote EVs will help move the needle, the newly announced Initiative must complement, rather than serve as a substitute for, much more expansive action that is urgently needed across the transportation sector and beyond.

The Commonwealth’s press release following the launch indicated that this program “is the first of what the state plans will be other state incentive programs to increase electric vehicle deployment and ease their use.” CLF is pleased that the Patrick Administration is taking its commitment to fostering meaningful deployment of EVs in Massachusetts seriously, applauds the Commonwealth for this important first effort, and is optimistic for meaningful next steps for the MA EV Initiative. We hope that the successful launch of this program will help fuel a broader effort to reduce GHGs and ‘green up’ all of our transportation options!

Depending upon where you live, recycling can be confusing. Answers to questions aren’t always self-evident. For instance, what can and cannot be recycled? Or, what goes in which bin? Thankfully, Rhode Island has tried to make recycling easier in a hope that more people will participate.

The solution? Single-stream recycling – where households do not have to separate paper from plastic – everything can go in the same bin. Other items can also now be recycled, such as plastic cups, tissue paper and just about any plastic container two gallons or less in volume.

Single-stream recycling was introduced last summer to help the state’s sad 15.9 recycling rate. Yesterday I met up with my neighbor; her daughter was finishing a bottle of water. As she threw it back into her car, her mom said, “Take that out of the car and put it in the trash!” At the time, we were standing right by a recycling bin.

I told them both that they should recycle the bottle for many reasons: landfills are filing up, can be harmful to the environment and, in today’s time when recycling facilities are so readily available, there’s no excuse not to reduce our impact on the environment. Her response to me was something like this: “I try and do everything else, but I admit I’m not good at recycling.”

This points to a simple fact: The state can introduce simpler ways of recycling, but education and a solid public relations campaign are also needed. The “WHY should I recycle?” is just as important now as it ever was.

It would behoove the state and maybe just save some of our valued land to start educating people to nurture a brighter and cleaner Rhode Island.

Watson and the Shark. a 1778 oil painting by John Singleton Copley. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Shark! OK – not until the third paragraph, but I want you to stay with me[i]. The second meeting of our first-in-the-nation coastal and ocean Regional Planning Body is happening in a couple of weeks, and the goal is to set some goals for regional ocean planning. This may sound like a wonky, best-left-to-professionals sort of affair, but we beg to differ. Bear with me, and maybe I can convince you that this is worth paying attention to.

An offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands. Image courtesy of Nuon @ flickr

As of June 2012, the world boasted 4,619 megawatts of installed offshore wind energy capacity, while the United States had none. President Obama and other national leaders like Susan Collins want to change that statistic. The public also increasingly supports clean renewable energy in the wake of frequent severe weather events like Hurricane Sandy caused by climate change.

The biggest barrier to developing offshore wind energy has been criticism of its cost compared to other forms of energy. But offshore wind technology is in its infancy; it must be tested and supported much like subsidies were provided for the testing and development of oil and gas exploration. A recent study by the Brattle Group contained two findings that I found interesting.

- First, the study estimates the total investment needed to develop a U.S. offshore wind industry and how that investment would affect the price of electricity. The study showed that offshore wind could cost less to develop than subsidies paid for coal, oil and gas over the last 50 years.

- Second, the study estimates that offshore wind would result in an average monthly-rate increase for American consumers ranging from 0.2 percent to 1.7 percent.

Considering the huge amount being added to our tax bills to finance natural disaster relief from increased hurricanes, tornadoes and other weather events caused by global warming, this modest increase in electric rates to switch to cleaner power is a no brainer.

Here in New England, we have several potential opportunities for offshore wind: Cape Wind in Massachusetts, DeepWater Wind projects in Rhode Island, and the Hywind Maine pilot project in Maine.

What do you think? Would you pay a little more for electricity tax to reduce our dependence on fuels that add to global warming?

Vermont keeps working on better ways for people and goods to get where they need to go. The threats from climate change and the high cost of maintaining our travel ways mean we need to be smarter and greener.

In 2011 Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin announced that the Circ Highway – an expensive, polluting and ill-conceived highway project outside Burlington — would not be built as planned. In its place a Task Force would work on solutions that won’t bust the budget or foul our air and water.

Over the past year a good part of that work looked at targeted improvements in the immediate Circ area. The result is a study of the network . With this are recommendations that were just adopted by the Task Force to move forward with making improvements to some existing roadways in and around Williston.

A public meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 5, 2013 from 7:30 – 9:00 PM at Williston Town Hall, with a presentation of the findings of the study and the recommendations. The meeting is hosted by the Williston Planning Commission. Refreshments will be served.

CLF has been mostly pleased with this work and encouraged that new and more effective solutions are moving forward. As we noted in comments to the group, a bigger role for transit and roundabouts could cut costs and pollution further.

Come learn about new projects and let the transportation officials working on these projects know what you think.

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.

Vermont is poised to take a big bite out of the high cost and pollution of heating our homes and businesses. Slashing a full one-quarter of both lies within our reach.

Over the past decade, the cost Vermonters pay for staying warm has more than doubled. This strains our pocketbooks, our environment, our health and our security. Watching our dollars go up in smoke drains our economy.

What can we do? Building on the enormous success of our electric efficiency efforts, we can improve the heating efficiency of our homes and businesses in a similar manner. While some efforts have begun, most of the savings opportunity remains on the table. Throughout Vermont, heating efficiency has saved the average homeowner about $1,000 a year.  (See a recent editorial here).

A new report of Vermont’s Thermal Efficiency Task Force provides a strong roadmap for jumpstarting heating efficiency and renewable heat for our homes and businesses. The Task Force recommendations show how Vermont can stretch its heating dollars farther and provide over $1.4 billion in direct savings. That’s $1.4 billion that is not going up in smoke, literally leaking out of our homes and businesses.

Affordable heat means lowering bills. Every year Vermont struggles to fund low income heating assistance (LIHEAP). With affordable heat, Vermont can reduce the funds needed and can use LIHEAP dollars to help more Vermonters. Cutting fuel use by one-quarter means that for every four homes that are weatherized, help is available for one additional family.

Affordable heat reduces pollution. Every gallon of fossil fuel we don’t burn means less pollution. Whether we are adding solar to our roofs or insulating/weatherizing our homes we leave a lasting positive legacy for our children by taking seriously our responsibility to tackle climate change and reduce pollution.

The long and short of it is that Vermont — and Vermonters — can’t afford to keep wasting energy, wasting money and wasting clean air. Vermont’s commitment to affordable heat is our ticket to more comfortable homes and businesses, and a thriving and affordable clean energy economy.