Power Hour discussion and feedback
Wednesday, February 23
7 p.m.
Two Echo Common House (at the end of Echo Rd.)
Brunswick, ME (directions)

Have an idea that you think will reduce energy use, costs, and greenhouse gas emissions in Cumberland County? Share it at tonight’s Power Hour discussion and feedback session, facilitated by CLF Maine Staff Attorney Jane West in coalition with the Brunswick Permaculture Group and Transition Greater Brunswick.

The ideas gathered from this and future Power Hours will form the foundation of a Cumberland County energy and climate plan, which will inform the ways in which municipalities, their communities and the private sector conserve, generate, use and diversify energy in the County. It will focus on priority measures to reduce energy, greenhouse gas emissions and costs 17 percent by 2017.

The event is open to the public. Cost is $2/person. More details >

There are many things about Governor LePage regulatory “reform” proposals that could impact the quality of my family’s life here in Maine, from developing the North Woods to loosening restrictions on dirty air emissions.  But a couple of proposals in particular really frustrated me as a parent.  LePage’s proposal to repeal the BPA ban and the toxic flame retardant ban. The BPA ban phased out the toxic chemical in consumer products such as baby bottles and sippy cups.  The bill had strong support and there wasn’t a single Maine based business that testified against the bill.  But it received plenty of opposition from deep pocketed chemical industries, such as Dow Chemical.

While Washington based groups like the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the American Chemistry Council have supported a repeal of the ban, local grocers, including the Maine Grocers Association have not taken an active role and have not taken a stance on the ban.

I am the mother of two young boys, ages 17 months and 2 and a half.

My boys on the shore of Moosehead Lake

I spend a considerable amount of time combing through labels on baby products to make sure that the materials aren’t toxic.  It is time consuming to ground truth the harmful effects of chemicals.  What are the hormone disrupting effects of Bispehnol-A (BPA)?  Will that stain resistant/flame resistant perfluorinated synthetic chemical (PFC) on that couch give my boys bladder cancer?  So my attitude is to err on the side of being safe by buying products with as few chemicals as possible.  You would be surprised at how challenging  it is to achieve even that tepid goal.  But last year, Maine lawmakers took considerable strides towards making my decision making easier and safer by enacting bans on known toxic chemicals in kids products, through the Kids Safe Products Law.

Why are we trying so hard to appease out-of-state chemical companies?  Dan Demeritt, LePage’s communication director, dryly pointed out that BPA-free products are available on the market, parents don’t have to choose to buy products that contain the chemical.  This is the “people before politics” response?  As a parent that is constantly pressed for time (aren’t we all?) who frequently does shopping with 2 kids piled into a shopping cart where 5 minutes too long can spell “melt-down”, I don’t have time to read through all the product disclaimers.  Why should any parent have to take that extra step to protect their children when a simple solution is already in place?

I was pleased to see that Republican Senator Dana Dow took a stand on this issue.  He works in the furniture industry and relayed a story of a simple blood test revealed soaring high toxicity levels for PFCs.  Take a look at the link, Senator Dow testifies at around 8 minutes in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlc5urnzB50

This issue impacts all of us.  Will Maine choose to protect our children over out of state chemical companies?  Next time you are barreling down a grocery aisle trying to read the label, remember to call your representative and help them figure this one out.

When the Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Plan came out on December 29, laying out roughly 40 policies to get the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, the proposal to test a fledgling concept called Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) (See page 61) auto insurance emerged as the plan’s poster child. We at CLF felt like proud parents. You see, CLF devised the concept of PAYD auto insurance more than a decade ago as a market-based solution to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. Over the past 10 years, in addition to offering partially mileage-based insurance policies through its Environmental Insurance Agency (EIA) subsidiary of CLF Ventures, CLF has engaged insurance industry leaders, regulators, policymakers, and the environmental community in exploring the potential for PAYD to be implemented on a broad scale.

True PAYD, which is not currently offered in Massachusetts (or any New England state), is priced based on the number of miles a policy holder drives, after taking into account traditional rating factors like where the car owner lives and their driving history. By creating a variable structure for insurance rates, as an alternative to the current fixed annual premium, PAYD would provide a powerful incentive for drivers to reduce their mileage. Put simply: drive less, pay less.

Does that mean the corollary is drive more, pay more? Not necessarily. In November, 2010, CLF and EIA released the results of a study that showed that if auto insurance were priced by the mile, drivers would reduce their mileage, lowering their accident risk while also reducing fuel consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion. It also showed that car owners, regardless of where they live or work, could save money under a PAYD system if they drive fewer miles than the average for their area. Because a PAYD system by design reduces risk and accident costs, ultimately insurance prices would come down for the lion’s share of drivers.

Unlike the current insurance model that generally doesn’t care how much someone drives, the PAYD system would ensure that drivers pay their fair share for the amount of risk they incur, and eliminate the subsidy that low mileage drivers currently pay for high mileage drivers.

More data are needed to understand how to make PAYD work for as many Massachusetts drivers in as many different situations as possible. A flexible program that benefits the broadest spectrum of drivers is the key to gaining the widespread adoption needed to achieve the maximum environmental, public health and economic benefits of PAYD.

Could PAYD, which would help the state meet its climate goals and reduce accident costs while giving car owners more control over their auto insurance pricing, work in Massachusetts? We think so, and a pilot program is a great way to find out.

What do you think? Could PAYD benefit you?

Let’s say you are a state agency tasked with making a tough choice on how to spend your money.  Your options are:

a.      Spend $150 million on widening 9 miles of highway despite the fact that volume has waned;

b.      Spend $56 million on building another toll booth;

c.       Spend $3.8 million on expanding an existing, highly successful bus service that will benefit thousands of commuters.

Did I mention that you have to do this all while complying with a state law that requires you to give preference to existing systems and other transportation modes (such as bus transit) prior to increasing highway capacity through road building activities?   The obvious answer here is (c), expanding bus service, specifically the ZOOM bus service that is operated by the Maine Turnpike Authority.

Currently, the ZOOM bus runs a limited service between Portland, Biddeford and Saco.  The primary hubs are Park & Ride lots, if you’ve driven by those lots, you will see they are chock full.  Those crammed lots are a glowing testament to the resounding success of the ZOOM.

In an effort to build on that success, last year the Maine Alliance for Sustainable Transportation approached the Authority to see if it would consider expanding the bus service up to Lewiston and Augusta.  Along the way, West Falmouth, Gray, Sabbatus and Auburn would finally get much needed access to public transit.  But the Authority remained convinced that answers (a) and (b) were right.   After all, highway widening remains a popular solution to just about any transportation problem, despite the fact that, time after time, massive multi-million dollar widening projects only result in more traffic and more congestion. [the fact is, these roads never pay for themselves via tolls or otherwise.]

Does Portland really need another highway widening?

No, and the numbers prove it:

But transit advocates, CLF among them, were not dissuaded.   We found a savvy supporter in Representative Bradley Moulton, a newly elected Republican, who decided to sponsor the ZOOM bus bill, known formally as “An Act to Expand Fiscally Responsible Transportation Through Increased ZOOM Bus Service.”

And fiscally responsible it is.  Not only for the average commuter struggling with rising gas prices, but in the broader context of how Maine decides to spend money on transportation.  The days of subsidized highway widening projects are over.  With the fiscal belt tightening, now is a good time to make some smart decisions on transit.  The ZOOM bus goes a long way towards accomplishing that goal.

Stateline, the excellent online news service of the Pew Center on the States reports on the continuing interest and efforts to develop renewable energy across the nation, even where Republican governors face pressure to change course because of misconceptions that renewable energy efforts are based solely on an environmental agenda.

The article opens with the story of how the new Governor of Ohio backed down from a threatened effort to roll back an important renewable energy effort when it became clear that renewable energy, and wind energy in particular, enjoyed broad support across the state and was a bright spot in the economy during a very tough time.  It goes on to discuss the issue more generally discussing the progress continuing on clean energy in the states despite the failure of climate and energy legislation in Washington and then telling the tale of Kansas, how an anti-cap and trade Senator Sam Brownback is changing into pro-Clean Energy Governor Brownback:

With cap-and-trade off the table in Washington, and with 29 states either run by or about to be run by Republican governors, the prospects for legislation aimed explicitly at reducing greenhouse-gas emissions are not bright, at least in the near term. Shifting to cleaner forms of energy, however, is another matter. It’s just that saving the environment won’t be the driving thrust. Creating jobs will.

“The opportunities to grow new industries in business are relatively rare right now, and the clean-energy economy’s got a lot going for it from an economic development viewpoint,” says Seth Kaplan, of the Conservation Law Foundation. “There’s the number of jobs, but also the breadth: from university researchers doing basic research into the next generation of LEDs, thin-film solar or wind-turbine designs, to the blue-collar jobs, which are hard to come by these days. So Republican governors are trying to figure out how to position themselves between two poles: ideological opposition to anything with ‘climate’ on the label, and the economic development opportunity presented by the clean-energy economy.”

So it is that New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie, under pressure from conservatives, began saying in November that he was “skeptical” about climate change — yet has shown no inclination to withdraw his state from the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and remains a strong backer of developing offshore wind power. Some of the most concerted wind-energy development in the country has occurred in Texas — and especially in the Republican strongholds of West Texas — thanks to policies enacted under the leadership of Republican Governor Rick Perry. Sam Brownback, who is moving from the U.S. Senate to the Kansas governor’s mansion, opposed federal cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate but joined with Democratic senators in September to back creating a national renewable energy standard for power plants.

“Sam is very much on record as wanting Kansas to be a national leader on wind, he’s been active on how to facilitate new transmission, he’s been committed to bioenergy,” says Nancy Jackson, who chairs the Climate and Energy Project, an effort to persuade Kansans to embrace renewable energy and energy efficiency. “I feel really good about how this administration will line up on energy issues.”

Click here for full article

(Photo credit: David Moisan)

There has been a significant development in the long running saga of the Salem Harbor power plant, one of the major targets of CLF’s Coal Free New England campaign. On October 5, Dominion Energy, the plant’s owner, quietly filed what is known as a Permanent Delist Bid with ISO New England (ISO-NE), the operator of the New England electricity system and markets. The filing commits Dominion to permanently withdraw Salem Harbor Station from the forward capacity market, the key market where power plants, and other resources like energy efficiency, are paid to be present, available and ready to meet the electricity needs of the region.

What does this mean?

By filing to permanently withdraw Salem Harbor Station from the forward capacity market, Dominion is signaling that it does not believe the market will be able to provide sufficient revenue to run the plant profitably and that it cannot maintain the plant going forward.

According to Paul Peterson, senior associate at Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., “The delist process was created specifically to allow power plants to withdraw from the forward capacity market, either temporarily or permanently, depending on their economics. A power plant that enters a permanent delist bid – an irrevocable decision that it will no longer try to earn revenue from that key market – is laying the groundwork to shut down.”

Although there are alternative scenarios that could allow Dominion to re-enter the market at a future date, the barriers to re-entry are extremely high and the process for doing so is complex.

Excessive ratepayer burden

Dominion’s move puts additional pressure on ISO-NE to implement a plan by June 2014 that does not rely on Salem Harbor Station to keep the lights on – ever. On October 14, CLF filed a protest with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission citing ISO-NE’s failure to develop such a plan following the 2009 and 2010 auctions, keeping Salem Harbor Station available for “contingency” needs at enormous cost to area ratepayers. In our protest, CLF pointed to insufficient planning and loopholes in the ISO-NE process that have allowed Dominion to receive more than $30 million dollars in above market payments just to continue to exist, even while Dominion’s own filings indicated its intentions to leave the market. The company filed “static delist bids” for the past two years, a temporary exit measure that allows a company to receive above market payments if it is deemed necessary for reliability. Dominion’s ability to repeatedly game the system has forced ratepayers to bear the cost of maintaining an obsolete and polluting coal plant well beyond its useful life.

Buckling under pressure?

Salem Harbor Station is under increasing economic and environmental pressure. In June 2010, CLF filed a federal lawsuit against Dominion for repeatedly exceeding smokestack emissions limits at Salem Harbor in violation of the federal Clean Air Act. The suit would hold Dominion responsible for paying millions of dollars in penalties retroactively. Meanwhile, new EPA regulations on the near horizon will mean tougher pollution controls and multi-million dollar investments needed to comply with them. The permanent delist bid is a clear indication that Dominion doesn’t believe it can continue to wring dollars out of ratepayers for its obsolete plant for much longer, and we are making sure they won’t. Stay tuned.

Global Warming is real . . .  and I don’t just say that because it is really hot outside.

Yet again the core science presented by such reliable sources as the National Research Council has been vindicated.

As the New York Times reports a fifth official commission report (know as the “Muir Report”)  has come out debunking the fake “scandal” generated by public release of illegally obtained emails between scientists.   Opponents of action on global warming had attempted to portray those emails as showing the existence of some sort of conspiracy to distort science to meet a political agenda.  These were ironic accusations as the small band of climate deniers (whose lack of credentials and credibility is documented in this recent paper in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences) have been engaging in exactly that practice.  In a similar vein, an expert panel convened by Penn State University found that allegations that those same emails showed improper behavior by Prof. Michael Mann of Penn State were unsupported and cleared him completely.

The new British report concluded that the “honesty and rigour” of the scientists was not in question but that there had been a failure to be as open to inquiries and requests for public information and data as they should have been.

And there is the real scandal: that the opponents of sound science and action on global warming have created a toxic dynamic that drives climate scientists into a virtual bunker, rightfully fearing that speaking the truth will result in massive waves of harassment and attack.

There is much more that science needs to tell us about our climate. But the basic principles are clear – and even presentable in rather entertaining cartoons.

Not surprisingly the scientists over at Real Climate engage the news of the “Muir Report”  in depth, as well as the vindication of Michael Mann at Penn State.

The time is long past for the public dialogue and for our political leaders to walk away from these phony debates and focus on solutions.  So what are you waiting for tell your Senator to take action !!  While none of the climate or energy  bills rattling around Washington are perfect (and some are quite bad) the only way to make them better is to force an active debate and a real and concerted effort to solve the climate and energy crisis that we face.

The authors of the book The Rising Sea summarizes their conclusion that prudent planning for waterfront communities assumes a sea level rise of seven feet in a post on the Yale environment 360 website.

Chilling stuff, especially for those of us who remember when early iterations of this work nearly ten years ago labeled New Orleans as the American community most vulnerable to sea level rise and catastrophic storms.

They identify Florida as the most vulnerable place in the United States to sea level rise and aggressively argue that building new high rise developments on the waterfront is a big mistake.

In a web video interview (transcript) Rob Bradley, Director of International Climate Policy at the World Resources Institute, makes the following observation about the difficulties and challenges around the international climate negotiation process:

Well, some of the problems that occur are down to the sheer complexity of climate change as an issue. It’s too politically charged for the technocrats, but it’s way too technical for the politicians. You know, very often ministers come in and they’re handed, by their subordinates, simply too long and difficult a list of questions to get to grips with. But it’s true that the U.N. as a process offers a lot of challenges of its own and we saw some fairly ugly scenes really towards the end of Copenhagen. It operates by consensus. You’ve got every country in the world in the room and, in principle at least, if one of them disagrees with what’s happening they can block it more or less indefinitely. And so you have groups of countries, in many cases fossil fuel exporters who probably don’t see it in their interest to have a strong deal on climate change, objecting and preventing the process from moving forward. Confusingly, they were sometimes allied with countries like some of the small island states who objected on the grounds that the deal was not nearly ambitious enough and who obviously face an existential threat. But nevertheless, a process in which you’re trying to get all of that group of countries with such an incredibly diverse set of interests to agree on something is a process that is always going to raise problems.

It is worth reflecting on Bradley’s point that odd alliances have developed in the international climate negotiation process between fossil fuel exporting countries (like Saudi Arabia) who are trying to obstruct progress at every point and “small island states who objected on the grounds that the deal was not nearly ambitious enough and who obviously face an existential threat” (like the Maldives, Tuvalu and Kiribati) and to think about the equivalent phenomena here in the United States.

In the United States House of Representatives, when the Waxman-Markey climate legislation came up for a vote there were two distinct groups who voted no – the largest group were members of the Republican party and a handful of Democrats who objected to the bill as either unneeded or too extreme.  The vocal leader of this group was Rep. Joe Barton of Texas.   Barton’s skepticism about climate science and the proposed mechanisms for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is deeply reminiscent of similar sentiments coming from representatives of nations like Saudi Arabia in the international climate negotiating process (this is not just a Western view, an eloquent Lebanese blog has spoken out about Saudi Arabia’s approach to climate).    The other, much smaller, group of members of Congress (about 3  Democrats) who opposed the bill did so because it was not ambitious and aggressive enough. The most vocal of these Members of Congress is Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

The next stop for climate legislation in Washington is the floor of the US Senate.  There is little doubt that the science denying opponents of progress will be led there by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, angry enemy of all climate legislation.  It is not clear if there will be a “left wing” in the Senate – objecting to the legislation because it doesn’t go far enough.  It is notable that some of the most aggressive supporters of climate legislation in the Senate have publicly supported the Kerry-Boxer legislation that most closely parallels the Waxman-Markey bill.  Whether that coalition can support the legislation that may emerge as a result of discussions between Senator Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator Graham of South Carolina remains to be seen.

At the end of the day what really matters is that we take all the action we can to address this most systemic of economic, environmental and public health challenges as quickly as we can.   The debate and process needs to be truly and open and those with concerns about the science should be heard but the denial-for-denials-sake we see coming from Saudi Arabia and Messrs. Barton and Inhofe should not derail progress.  The desire for maximum action from the island nations is, in contrast, a truly admirable impulse and we must rise towards it as much as possible but not curse ourselves just because we can not do all that is needed immediately.