Over 200 ocean advocates from 23 states converged on Washington two weeks ago to deliver a very important message – full implementation of the National Ocean Policy is vital to ensure healthy and resilient oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. The Blue Vision Summit which took place May 14- 16 was a gathering of ocean and coastal leaders, focused on finding solutions to the challenges facing our oceans. This year regional ocean planning was highlighted as one of those solutions and it was evident that New England is leading the charge. During the three day conference packed with ocean themed workshops and Hill visits, key members of New England’s Congressional Delegation demonstrated enthusiastic commitment to working towards an ocean stewardship and planning model that will support healthy and economically valuable read more…

The heat is here! Even though it’s technically still spring until late June, it feels as though summer has already come to stay in southern New England. While we New Englanders pride ourselves on being able to handle all kinds of weather, the health risks posed by poor air quality shouldn’t be ignored. On a hot summer day, I know I make sure to check the weather in the morning before leaving to see how hot it might get and if there’s a chance of rain. Weather reports and weather websites are good at giving us lots of data about the day’s weather in general (hourly temperatures, chance of rain, and radar maps tracking storms), but don’t always give a detailed explanation when there’s an air quality alert (like there read more…

Hardly a day goes by at CLF that we don’t think about how to describe the work we do more simply and clearly. The issues we work on are complicated; the solutions often complex and nuanced. But the need to help people understand our role and theirs in protecting New England’s environment is critical to our shared success. This week, we launched something completely different to help educate New Hampshire residents about how their choice of electricity supplier can save them money and help the environment. The multimedia campaign, called EmpowerNH, is the creation of a newly formed coalition of retail electricity suppliers, trade and consumer groups and CLF. The coalition grew out of a common interest among this diverse set of stakeholders in promoting a competitive electricity supply market read more…

This month Rhode Island’s dominant utility, National Grid, made its second-ever filing with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) under Rhode Island’s “revenue decoupling” statute. Grid’s filing clarifies matters in a debate that swirled around the environmental community in Rhode Island (and the rest of New England) for years but ought now to be resolved once and for all – an argument over whether decoupling is a rip-off of utility rate-payers. CLF (and other environmental advocates) have argued for years that there are important environmental benefits to be reaped from decoupling. Opponents, including some ratepayer advocates, argued that decoupling would be bad for rate-payers because it would inevitably lead to unjustified rate hikes. Grid’s highly technical, 59-page filing with the PUC this month is dense reading, with pages upon pages of complicated read more…

May 23, 2013 Dear Chairwoman Sosnowski and members of the Environment Committee: This e-mail follows yesterday evening’s hearing on S-901, the Governor’s Energy Reform Act of 2013, with its provision for purchasing large quantities of Canadian hydropower; and S-938, Chairwoman Sosnowski’s proposal for extending and enlarging Rhode Island’s landmark Distributed Generation Standard Contracts program. For your reference, I attach a copy of the written submission that I provided at yesterday’s hearing, which you can see here. It was significant at yesterday’s (very long) hearing that – except for the Governor’s Administration – every witness from every sector spoke against the Governor’s energy bill. In broad terms, these witnesses came from four different sectors: (1) the utility (National Grid); (2) the environmental community (including the Environment Council of Rhode Island, Conservation read more…

This week on Talking Fish, Tom Toles responds to a new study on fisheries and climate change with a clever cartoon; in Fish Talk in the News, a top official is leaving NOAA, alewife counts are way up, and a parasite may be hurting yellowtail flounder populations. read more..

It is important to build bridges, but we need to make sure they get us where we need to go. The proposed expansion of the Vermont Gas pipeline may be more a minefield than a bridge, as one recent Vermont weekly  and one recent national energy blog reported. The project will cut through valuable wetlands and farmland in Addison County. Future plans include crossing Lake Champlain, moving Vermont closer to gas supplies from fracking that is ongoing now in New York and Pennsylvania. Proponents of the project, including Middlebury College and Vermont Gas advance an overly simplistic evaluation suggesting more natural gas is needed in Vermont because it is cheaper and cleaner than the oil and propane it will replace. Others suggest natural gas is a bridge to cleaner supplies that are read more…

Can the Vermont Public Service Board determine the meaning of its own orders? The answer would seem to be “Of Course!” But that is the question that Vermont Yankee’s owners are putting before the Vermont Supreme Court. In two orders the Vermont Public Service Board issued a strong rebuke to Entergy. The Board refused to amend its prior orders and confirmed that the conditions of Entergy’s permits remain intact. Those conditions include that Entergy will not operate Vermont Yankee past March 2012 without new approval from the Board. Entergy brought this appeal to challenge those orders. On Monday Conservation Law Foundation’s brief, filed jointly with New England Coalition and Vermont Public Interest Research Group challenged Entergy’s claims. Our brief noted: Rather than comply with the conditions … and Board orders read more…

Do you want to help shape the future of New England’s ocean and our coastal economy? New England leads the nation in regional ocean planning and now is the time for your thoughts on healthy oceans and coasts to be heard. A series of ten public meetings are being held in from late May through June to get your questions and ideas. Why should this matter to you? If you enjoy fishing, going to the beach, surfing, boating, or are interested in offshore renewable energy, these are all reasons to get involved in ocean use planning. Starting next Thursday in Portland, ME, then continuing on through all New England’s coastal states, members of the Northeast Regional Planning Body (convened pursuant to the National Ocean Policy – which President Obama signed in read more…

This week on Talking Fish, a new study in Nature shows how climate change is affecting fisheries; Saving Seafood got it wrong on the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force's peer review; in Fish Talk in the News, alewives return to the St. Croix and industry members prepare for more Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization hearings. read more..