The average American spends 2 ½ hours a day in the car. That’s about 73,000 hours in a lifetime—and tons of havoc wreaked on the environment. The transportation sector is the fastest growing single source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the country, which pollute the air and contribute to global warming. Tackling this challenge means both reducing the amount of driving by smarter development and building transit and reducing the pollution pouring out of each car. Four out of five of the New England states did the next best thing—reduced the amount that cars would be allowed to pollute in the first place. Yesterday, the Obama Administration adopted those regulations nationwide, unveiling the first-ever federal clean cars standard that will limit the maximum level of GHGs that can be read more…

Our hearts go out to New Englanders dealing with the flood disaster caused by record-setting rainfall over the last couple days.  The director of CLF’s Rhode Island Director, Tricia Jedele, has circulated some extraordinary pictures of the deluge that really bring home the scope of the devastation. The tragic events playing out on the ground in Rhode Island–flooding and subsequent failure of public health infrastructure like sewage treatment plants–have been eerily predicted as likely outcomes of human-caused climate change.  But when you see the destruction occurring in Rhode Island and elsewhere in southern New England, you realize that terms like ”climate change” or even “global warming” are grossly inadequate descriptions of what is really going on: total climate chaos.   Here are just some of those eery predictions taken from a 2008 EPA National Water Program strategy document titled “Response to Climate read more…

Since 1977, CLF has led efforts to block offshore drilling in the North Atlantic, particularly in the area of Georges Bank. CLF’s efforts were instrumental in winning drilling moratoria in Georges Bank through 2012. This morning, President Obama announced new plans for offshore drilling. Here’s what Priscilla Brooks, Ph.D., CLF’s Ocean Conservation Program director, had to say. “The Gulf of Maine is a national treasure and Georges Bank an economic engine for many of New England’s coastal communities.  While we are pleased that the Administration chose to spare those and other important national marine resources in the Pacific and Alaska from this new wave of offshore prospecting, we are dismayed that the Obama administration feels it politically expedient to continue the prior administration’s pursuit of the destructive and risky business of oil and read more…

I hope the band-aids used to fix leaks at Vermont Yankee hold.  I wish I had faith in the statement “they’ve stopped a leak.”  Perhaps this is one statement from Entergy’s out-of-state corporate executives that acutally is true and reliable.  Unfortunately, the public’s confidence in Vermont Yankee is badly torn, and not easily mended.  Even if the broken pipes are repaired, all the problems are not fixed.  Vermont Yankee and regulators allowed leaks to pollute the enviornment for over two months.  Uncontrolled and unmonitored releases of radioactiviely contaminated water are illegal.  The pollution from these leaks is still in the ground and in our water.  This is unacceptable. There are still old, underground pipes at Vermont Yankee.  The fact that there were leaks in these old pipes that Energy denied even existed, indicates there are bigger problems.  read more…

The next time you enjoy the serene beauty of Cape Cod’s National Seashore or the untrammelled mountain Wilderness areas of the Green and White Mountain National Forests, pause at a particularly pristine spot and utter a quiet thank you to Stewart Udall.  Obviously the former Secretary of the Interior under presidents Kennedy and Johnson didn’t make these places so intrinsically beautiful and ecologically significant.  Instead, he dedicated his life in public service to ensuring that they, along with so many other of America’s natural treasures, remained that way for future generations to enjoy. Udall, who passed away on Saturday, was a great champion of protecting wild places through common ownership and management by our national government.  He was a leading proponent of the Wilderness Act of 1964–one of our nation’s wisest and most successful conservation laws.  read more…

The Massachusetts’ Water Resource Authority’s decision to release 15 million gallons of untreated sewage into Boston Harbor’s Quincy Bay during last weekend’s storm felt to many like a giant step backward in the decades-long fight to clean up Boston Harbor. The good news is that there are actions that can be taken today that could have kept MWRA officials from having to make that decision in the future—implementing green stormwater infrastructure to reduce the burden on our sewer pipes, reduce flooding and make communities more resilient to climate change. Many of our state’s aging sewer systems become overwhelmed with a mix of rainwater and sewage during large storms. That’s why MWRA officials were stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between quietly releasing 15 million gallons read more…

How can law and policy influence design to make the metropolitan Boston area more livable and eco-friendly? How many cars can the Green Line Extension to Medford take off the roads?  Would pay per-mile auto insurance help?  Would better bike maps and paths?  How about green zoning ordinances? Can greenspace and access to riverfronts make our communities healthier? What if Wal-Mart and Lowe’s new stores don’t just use renewable energy, but also design their parking lots to stop runoff from polluting our rivers and streams? Can Mayor Menino make the city’s public housing as environmentally sustainable as the Apple store on Boylston St the Macallen Building Condos in South Boston? Meet, greet and exchange ideas…or just kick back…with environmentalists and urbanists working on these issues and more!  Co-hosted by Boston read more…

Vermont Yankee allowed to operate with ongoing leaks. Entergy resists providing accuarate information to regulators. What are they hiding? read more..

President Obama took a very positive step when he nominated Cheryl LaFleur to be a Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Ms. LaFleur played a key role in developing the energy efficiency programs that have become a model for the nation during her time at National Grid USA (formerly the New England Electric System).  She was also instrumental in the critical decision by her company to support the landmark Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and to champion an auction of the pollution “allowances” instead of giving them to polluters for free and re-invest the proceeds in customer friendly efforts like energy efficiency. As a career utility executive Ms. LaFleur knows the companies that FERC regulates and the people who run them but as a tough, smart and fair-minded independent thinker read more…

America is waking up to the fact that the unfathomable amounts of animal dung generated by our industrial agricultural system is poisoning our water and our air.  Those who live by waters polluted by the excesses of industrial agriculturae have long understood the grim connection between our cheap-food system and the slow death of rivers, lakes, streams, estuaries, and other coastal waters.  Now the mainstream media is bringing wider attention to this looming environmental disaster. Exhibit A:  The Washington Post recently ran a prominent environmental expose under the headline “Manure becomes pollutant as volume grows” This excerpt explains the problem well: Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem,….The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed read more…