The news from the Nation’s Capitol is bleak. The United States Senate will not consider anything remotely like comprehensive energy and climate legislation before its August recess. While it is good that they will be looking at legislation to address oil spills and laudable energy efficiency efforts like HomeStar the decision to not address the underlying climate and energy crisis is tragic. However, even after the BP oil disaster, Congress still continues to leave New England’s ocean and our coastal communities at risk of the next big spill. Effectively, Congress is turning its back on the science that describes the fundamental peril facing our climate, the families who need the jobs that a surge of green development will bring and embracing a course of continued dependence on imported oil and read more…

Through a recently released tool authored by the World Resources Institute as part of Google’s Public Data Explorer, users are able to visualize greenhouse gas emissions like never before: On a per capita basis, New England states are leading the pack with some of the lowest numbers. Why? New England states tend to be more efficient in our use of electricity and natural gas. As our states are more compact and developed, New Englanders generally drive less. New Englanders typically drive more efficient vehicles. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding: Of course, there’s still plenty of room for improvement – and in this midst of this climate crisis, we’re all going to have to do much better to turn things around.

On July 20, transportation agencies completed the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Vermont’s Circ Highway.  The planned project would be an expensive new boulevard roadway outside of Burlington, Vermont.  The project is a poor public investment and a subsidy for sprawl. Costing over $60 million dollars, saving only 4 minutes of travel time, limiting public transportation options, destroying irreplaceable farmland and wetlands while providing less congestion relief in Essex compared to improving existing roads is simply a bad idea. Join CLF in calling for sensible transporation solutions, NOT more crowded roads and more pollution.  Submit comments online by August 27, 2010 or attend a public hearing: Public Hearings will be August 9 & 10: Monday August 9th 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. @ Williston Central School Auditorium -195 Central School Drive, Williston Tuesday August 10th 6:30 p.m. read more…

Yesterday, an exciting and inspiring delegation of emerging leaders from the international environmental community paid a visit to CLF’s Boston office. The delegation was sponsored by the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program, a professional exchange program that seeks to build mutual understanding between the U.S. and other nations through short-term visits such as this one. The group was in the U.S. to learn how environmental law is implemented and enforced here, and they chose CLF specifically as the group to advise them. WorldBoston, a local nonprofit organization, organized the Boston portion of the delegation’s visit to the U.S. The fifteen delegation participants came from the world over – Bangladesh, Czech Republic, Haiti, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Serbia, Thailand, Uganda, Venezuela, Vietnam and the West Bank. While all read more…

Today President Obama is expected to sign the nation’s first-ever National Ocean Policy. This process started a year ago with the Ocean Policy Task Force and is greatly based on the excellent work of two separate blue ribbon panels, hundreds of meetings between the OPTF and ocean users and stakeholders, and two lengthy comment periods. The NOP is a great step forward for our oceans, coasts and the communities that love and depend upon them. CLF and hundreds of other groups around the country have been working for such a comprehensive approach to better ocean protection and management for years. This is a good day to optimistic about the future. In one of histories great ironies, the NOP was close to being finalized and signed when the Deepwater Horizon blew up, sank read more…

After months of political and legal muscle flexing to bully the Board of Environmental Protection into setting an extremely aggressive hearing schedule, the proponents of a liquefied natural gas import and regasification industrial facility on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay sought and obtained a last minute postponement.  Why? The official story is that the BEP didn’t want to make their decision without certain information that Calais LNG failed to submit in response to comments they received three months earlier from two state agencies concerning impacts on wetlands and fisheries. We think there’s something else going on.  Perhaps the project’s financial backers, a shapeless subsidiary of Goldman Sachs, got tired of wasting money.  Or perhaps Calais LNG recognized the significant weaknesses and impacts of the project as set forth in testimony read more…

On an appropriately wet and windy afternoon yesterday in Boston, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act with a vote of 101-52. Modeled after the bill passed by the Senate in February, the Act will streamline the siting process for wind energy projects, making it easier for developers and local authorities alike to incorporate well-designed wind power initiatives into the plan to meet the state’s energy demand. The new legislation is a major step towards building a clean energy economy for Massachusetts and reducing dependence on fossil fuels. The bill will now head to a House-Senate conference committee for further discussion. Here’s what Sue Reid, director of CLF’s Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Change Program, had to say on the issue: “Massachusetts needs to tap read more…

I was fortunate to join six activists in a meeting Wednesday morning with Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  We  delivered a clear message: Lack of responsible regulatory oversight is unacceptable.  The public has lost faith in the NRC. As James Moore with VPIRG stated regarding the repeated mishaps at Vermont Yankee:  “We need a cop on that beat and we don’t have one.” Ray Shadis with the New England Coalition said:  “What we see is a system rotten one end to the other.  The NRC doesn’t see that.” Chairman Jaczko claimed he shares our same concerns, stating he wished we could follow him around for a day and know that he hears these same concerns from his staff.     I said I look forward to taking him up on that invitation, as read more…

Last Friday, CLF filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in support of Amendment 16 in a federal lawsuit challenging the new groundfishery management regulations, which went into effect on May 1, 2010. The lawsuit, brought by the cities of Gloucester and New Bedford and members of the fishing industry, broadly challenges the new fishing regulations – known as Amendment 16 – on a variety of grounds. CLF, which has long fought for a science-based, more balanced system of fisheries management to ensure a sustainable fishing industry, supports Amendment 16 as critical to ending decades of overfishing in federal waters off of New England’s coast. CLF will intervene as a defendant with the Department of Commerce and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the senior officials of which read more…

Overwhelming support for SHUTTING DOWN VERMONT YANKEE NOW at the Vermont Public Service Board hearing last night in Brattlboro, Vermont.  A BIG THANK YOU to all the folks who came to the hearing and told the Board ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.   The message from advocates was clear: Vermont Yankee must be shut down.  The continual failings and breakdowns are harming our environment and communities.  The pollution in the Connecticut River, groundwater and the soil must stop.  Great stories about the event in  Times Argus, the Brattleboro Reformer and the Keene Sentinel.  The hearing was the Board’s chance to hear what the public thinks.  Many people from across Vermont, Massachusetts, and beyond, made the trip to Brattleboro. If you couldn’t come to the hearing, you can submit comments on Yankee’s leaks electronically to the Public Service Board via:  psb.clerk@state.vt.us  or use CLF’s action alert.