photo courtesy of dklimke@flickr.com

Cleaner cars are on the way. In an important step for climate change and air pollution, Vermont is updating its vehicle air emission rules so we can all have cleaner cars and breathe easier.

The rule follows California’s standards and reduces the allowed emissions and greenhouse gases from cars beginning with the 2015 car models.

The greenhouse gas reductions contained in the proposed amendments are expected to reduce new passenger vehicle carbon dioxide emissions by about 32-36% by model year 2025.

Cars that are 1/3 cleaner. That’s a huge step in the right direction. Transportation is responsible for nearly half of Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions. These emission controls are vital to achieve Vermont’s greenhouse gas reduction goals.

CLF and Vermont have a long history of support for cleaner transportation. In a lawsuit where CLF provided key support, Vermont defeated a challenge from the automobile industry to previous emission rules. The decision was followed in other states and continues to pave the way for reduced emissions.

Conservation Law Foundation joined with other organizations and submitted these comments in support of Vermont’s rule.

Environmental issues span the globe. When it comes to nuclear power, global action is needed. That’s why it was a privilege for CLF advocates to meet with a number of environmental lawyers from Japan, many of whom are members of the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation.

The tragedy of Fukushima shows the need for the US to stop giving nuclear power a free pass. Just yesterday another mishap at the accident-prone Vermont Yankee facility resulted in the draining of some of the radioactive cooling water. Enough already.

Our conversation addressed how environmental groups operate. We also touched on some of the litigation tools available to protect our environment from the risks of nuclear power – from problems with the storage of waste, the possibilities of accidents, and the economic problems that nuclear power creates.

Our colleagues in Japan have a far keener sense of how important this work is. As different as our legal systems are, it was interesting to find the similarities as well, including how challenging it is to navigate the interplay of state or local government oversight with federal regulations.

The attorneys shared with CLF MA advocate Jenny Rushlow that most Japanese attorneys interested in practicing environmental law are only able to dedicate a small percentage of their time to environmental cases, as it is difficult to find compensation for that work. As a result, the attorneys we met with mostly take on environmental cases on a volunteer basis. The group reported on a number of high impact cases, including a current lawsuit aimed at classifying carbon dioxide as a pollutant, much like the Massachusetts v. EPA case.

photo courtesy of Department of Energy @ flickr.com

In the past 25 years, our lives have become increasingly “plugged in.” We have an ever-increasing number of devices in our lives, our homes, and our offices that use electricity. What is amazing is that with our foresight and work during this same time period, our region now uses energy efficiently more than ever – reducing pollution, saving money, growing jobs, and cutting through partisan politics to succeed.

That’s a regional legacy to be proud of and one highlighted in the recent op-ed co-authored by former CLF President Douglas Foy. 

With the publication of “Power to Spare”  in 1987, CLF and others set forth the effective “out of the box” thinking that allows for reduced energy consumption while increasing economic growth. As the op-ed recounts:

“Our proposition was unique: To shift incentives that encouraged utilities to sell more power, to a new model that would reward them for promoting conservation. By putting efficiency on a level playing field with coal, gas, oil and nuclear, we would be able to lower demand, cut consumption, decrease total use and reduce pollution. We promised to boost the local economy at the same time through the job intensive investments in efficiency and by reaping the economic benefits of lower energy costs.”

And it’s been a success that continues.

Massachusetts passed the “Green Communities Act” and has grown energy efficiency jobs and lowered electric costs, with average rates for residential consumers dropping from the 4^th highest to 11^th highest place.

Rhode Island recently approved an aggressive efficiency budget and is expected to meet more than 100% of its anticipated load growth with energy efficiency, not through additional polluting electricity generation.

In New Hampshire, CLF Ventures recently managed a statewide project helping communities throughout the state identify ways to reduce energy consumption and costs through greater efficiency.

Vermont has its own efficiency utility that works statewide providing one-stop-shopping for businesses and residents to reduce costs and energy use with a budget designed to achieve over 2% annual savings.

Maine now has an independent energy efficiency authority which, in 2011, obtained state-wide energy savings equivalent to the output of a 110MW power plant by obtaining $3 of savings for every $1 invested by the program.

The transformation begun 25 years ago – that we are all a part of – continues. It provides a model for the country, and a model for further action to tackle climate change.

Today marks the launch of the Coal Free Massachusetts Coalition Campaign to Phase Out Coal, Protect Public Health, and Transition to 21st Century Clean Energy. Across the state, in communities where the remaining coal plants operate, local residents and supporters have joined to call for the end of coal. The campaign issued the following statement:

It’s time to end reliance on coal-fired power plants in Massachusetts according to a new state-wide coalition of environmental, public health, faith and community groups, and elected officials. Citizens gathered in coordinated events across the state in Somerset, Holyoke, and Salem to announce a new Massachusetts campaign to protect public health and communities, renew efforts to make the transition to energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources, and revitalize local economies to create more jobs.

Coal Free Massachusetts announced the following platform:

• Phase out all of Massachusetts’ coal-fired power plants by 2020;
• Advance energy efficiency and clean renewable energy like responsibly sited wind and solar to
  support the transition from coal electricity generation in Massachusetts
• Partner with and empower community leadership and vision for clean energy and clean-tech
  development for our host communities, including:
• Robust transition plans focused on the long-term health of the community
• Innovative opportunities for growing the green economy
• Support for workers and municipal revenues

Coal burning is highly polluting and devastating from a public health perspective. The coal burning plants in Massachusetts – Salem Harbor Station, Mount Tom (Holyoke), and Brayton Point Station (Somerset) – are the largest air polluters in the Commonwealth. In 2011, coal only provided 8% of the total energy in New England but still emitted more than 8 million tons of CO2 in Massachusetts alone. One in 10 New Englanders suffer from asthma and MA ranks 20th in mortality linked to coal plants. A 2010 Clean Air Task Force report showed that pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 251 deaths, 211 hospital admissions, and 471 heart attacks in Massachusetts every year. Nationwide more than 112 coal plants have announced retirement under pressure from local communities and efforts to protect public health. MA spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually – $252 million in 2008 alone – importing coal from other states and countries, including some places that are hostile to the US.

CLF has long worked to clean up dirty, polluting power plants, and is proud to be part of this continued effort to move Massachusetts away from reliance on coal and towards clean energy resources such as efficiency, conservation and renewable generation.  Click on the links to find out more about what CLF and the Coal Free Massachusetts coalition are doing and how you can join!

photo courtesy of Mark Setchell@flickr

When Vermont’s Governor Shumlin announced last year that the outdated, expensive and ill-conceived Circ Highway would not be built as planned, it opened the door for lower cost and less polluting solutions that would actually help folks get around and not just pave over farmland, forests, and wetlands.

In the first round a number of good solutions are advancing, including the Crescent Connector in Essex Junction which transforms a small downtown with thoughtful design, making it easier and more pleasant to walk, shop, get around and not simply drive in traffic.

Unfortunately, for the next phase, some officials still seem stuck in the dark ages.

When presented with an evaluation by the County’s transportation planning officials that building portions of the old highway would be expensive, have the same environmental problems and opposition as the Circ, and fail to solve congestion problems in the area, town officials still decided to advance this project for further consideration.

The sad part is that being stuck with these outdated non-solutions, keeps real solutions at bay. Any trapeze artist will tell you that you have to let go of one trapeze before you can grab the next one and move forward. If you just keep hanging on to the first trapeze all you will do is swing back and forth in place.

It is time to let go of the old Circ trapeze and move forward with real solutions like fixing the existing roadways and improving transit so everyone can get around more easily and not simply suffer through more traffic and more sprawl.

Conservation Law Foundation filed an Amicus (Friend of the Court) brief on behalf of Conservation Law Foundation, New England Coalition, Vermont Natural Resources Council and Vermont Public Interest Research Group in support of the State’s appeal to overturn the decision of Judge Murtha that Vermont has no say regarding Vermont Yankee.

Not so fast. As the Brief notes, the Vermont Legislature has clear authority to determine whether to allow the continued operation of Vermont Yankee. Vermont’s laws do not conflict with federal law and they are part of a decade of energy legislation focused on moving Vermont’s power supply away from older and more polluting power sources, like Vermont Yankee. 

There is a much longer history here. Vermont Yankee is a tired old nuclear plant and its owners are untrustworthy. Our brief shows that Vermont’s actions are authorized and reasonable.

“The Legislature’s track record shows that the Vermont Legislature has been passing energy legislation for years in response to constituents’ strong support for transitioning to renewable energy. Vermont engaged in the legitimate exercise of its traditional authority over power planning, including the future use of nuclear power plants. Vermont’s purposes, including planning, economics and reliability, are not only plausible, but show how the General Assembly has been preparing for the eventual closure of Vermont Yankee, whether in 2012 or thereafter, by enacting legislation, including Act 74 and Act 160, to assure that Vermont will be able to timely transition to an economical and environmentally sustainable energy supply” (pg 19)

Vermont Yankee’s troubled history also shows the validity of the Legislature’s actions. “Since Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (Entergy) purchased the Vermont Yankee facility in 2002, a steady stream of mishaps, misrepresentations and disappointments shattered Vermont’s faith and trust in Vermont Yankee and its owners. From the failure to make any contributions to the decommissioning fund, followed by the collapse of the cooling towers in 2007, the proposed “spin off” of the plant to a highly leveraged subsidiary, the false statements to regulators and the broken promises of a power contract that never materialized, Entergy’s actions have had what an Entergy executive described as a “corrosive effect” on the relationships needed to maintain a major electric generating facility within the State.” (Pg 5). 

“These events evidence the untrustworthiness and lack of credibility in Entergy management that precluded the Vermont Legislature from affirming a continued business relationship with Entergy.” (Pg 23).

The Brief was a joint effort of our organizations. As organizations that have been involved in matters concerning energy legislation and Vermont Yankee for decades, our brief provides the Court with the perspective of how Vermont’s laws are part of Vermont’s broader efforts to responsibly manage energy supply. 

See Brief Here and Brattleboro Reformer story here.

I am pleased to announce the launch of our new e-newsletter – Great Bay Currents. As the Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper, my goal is to build a stronger public voice for protecting the Great Bay estuary and for meaningful and immediate actions to address the threats facing this remarkable natural treasure.

To accomplish this goal, I need your help.

The health of the Great Bay estuary is intractably linked to our quality of life on the Seacoast – in New Hampshire and southern Maine.  It’s key to our local economy, to the recreational opportunities we enjoy, and to the health of the marine environment. Unfortunately, the estuary is approaching a tipping point, and time is of the essence in solving the water pollution problems that threaten it.

I hope you’ll sign up for Great Bay Currents to keep informed, and that you’ll join me in the effort to save this critical resource. Help us build a stronger voice for the estuary. Encourage your friends to stay informed by forwarding them this message or sending them this link to sign up for Great Bay Currents.

If you would like to know how you can become more personally involved, please email me. The Great Bay estuary needs you, and I hope you, too, are inspired to make a difference.

For additional information about the Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper, visit us on our website or Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.

photo credit: Ivy Dawned, Flickr

The end of any legislative session is tumultuous. Vermont’s citizen legislature, that meets part-time only a few months each year, is no different. In this year’s end-of-session tumult, progress on clean energy was left on the cutting room floor. This is a big disappointment. The same legislature that made skiing and snowboarding Vermont’s official winter sports failed to pass legislation that would keep those sports off the endangered list.

The Vermont Legislature stripped the Renewable Energy Standard from the energy bill it approved. Renewable standards require utilities to help address climate change by providing their customers with a certain percentage of power from clean, renewable sources. The more power we get from clean sources, the less power we get from older and dirtier fossil fuel plants. Twenty-nine states, including every other New England state, already have renewable standards, but Vermont is left behind in the dark ages of dirty power.

Throughout the session, CLF worked closely with other environmental organizations, business leaders and renewable developers to put in place a meaningful renewable standard so Vermont’s electric power users can do more to reduce carbon. The urgency of the climate crisis demands strong action.

There will be opportunities to move further ahead on renewable electricity next year, along with some legislation to help heating efficiency and electric vehicles, but each year we delay means more carbon reduction is needed. It is disappointing that in a year in which Vermont saw, in the form of flooding from Hurricane Irene, the kind of damage that climate change can do, and then saw one of the warmest winters on record (which wreaked havoc on ski areas and maple syrup production), we are not doing more to tackle climate change.

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 Massachusetts remains a critical battleground for CLF’s work, with two costly old coal-fired power plants continuing to jeopardize public health and stoke climate change.

That’s why we’re delighted to tell you about an event hosted by Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker entitled “The True Cost of Energy: Coal.” Councilor Decker has invited the public to a panel discussing the true costs of coal and a free screening of the critically acclaimed documentary The Last Mountain in Cambridge, MA, on Wednesday, May 9. 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 will be on hand for a panel discussion to discuss the film and the future of coal-fired power in Massachusetts and New England. I will be available before and after the event to answer any questions you may have about CLF’s work to secure a coal-free Massachusetts.

Please attend:
When: Wednesday, May 9, 2012. 5-8:30 pm.
Where: Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02138 (map).

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

You can watch the trailer here: