The folks who deny that the globe is warming are fond of saying the computer models that show how our climate is changing are wrong.  It looks like they may be right – but not in they way they intend. The situation may be much worse as in-depth review of paleoclimate data (information about the changes in the earth’s climate stretching back millions of years) suggests that CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models” – which would mean that we could see changes in global average temperatures by 2100 that would render large sections of the earth uninhabitable.

Scary stuff that is described quite clearly by Joe Romm on his authoritative Climate Progress blog.

This science reinforces, yet again, the need to take aggressive action on a wide range of fronts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

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?

The Maine Alliance for Sustainable Transportation (MAST), the statewide coalition of which CLF is a steering committee member, has submitted a proposal to increase commuter transit options, reduce household expenditures on gasoline and diesel, increase employment opportunities and productivity and reduce government expenditures by expanding the routes of the highly-successful ZOOM Turnpike Express bus services along the Maine Turnpike corridor. The program would also establish a fund for the improved maintenance of Maine’s roadways.

“Financially, this bill just makes a lot of sense for a fiscally-strapped state like Maine,” said CLF Maine Staff Attorney Jane West. “Instead of spending $56 million on a tollbooth or $150 million to widen a couple of miles of highway, this bill will serve thousands of commuters, reduce traffic congestion and provide a much-needed alternative to paying three dollars and more per gallon at the pump, for a fraction of the cost of any other solution.” More >

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.

Boston’s iconic Longfellow Bridge serves as a poster child for public transit. Every few minutes, the bridge transports Red Line commuters between Boston and Cambridge, affording its passengers a breathtaking view of the Charles River and Boston skyline– and the parallel lanes of bumper-to-bumper vehicle traffic that the speeding train leaves in its wake. While that’s a positive situation for MBTA riders, it’s a dangerous one for the rest of the city’s commuters who don’t cross the bridge by car– cyclists and pedestrians.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) Highway Division had released plans to rebuild the historic bridge as is. In May 2010, CLF advocated for an alternative plan that would make the bridge more bike and pedestrian-friendly. In response to CLF’s call to action, MassDOT created the Longfellow Bridge Rehabilitation Task Force, which recently released its recommendations on what alternatives should be included in the project’s Environmental Assessment to submit to the Federal Highway Administration.

Last week, CLF submitted written comments to the Administrator of the Highway Division at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) in response to those recommendations. In a letter to MasDOT Highway Division Administrator Luisa Paiewonsky, CLF explained that to comply with federal and state law, MassDOT should include at least one strong alternative plan for presentation and analysis that retains the current structure of the bridge throughout while altering its traffic pattern so that only one lane exists in both directions with a two-lane release into Charles Circle on the Boston side. Such an alternative would uphold the structural and architectural integrity of the bridge, help the state reach its health and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and improve safety for bikers and pedestrians.

Learn more about what CLF is doing the improve transportation alternatives in communities throughout New England.

Conservation Law Foundation issued the following statement in response to today’s release of Massachusetts’ Clean Energy and Climate Plan, which will reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

“The 25 percent target puts Massachusetts on the right trajectory to achieve the greenhouse gas reductions the science says we need to see by 2020,” said John Kassel, president of Conservation Law Foundation. “Setting the target at the maximum authorized by the Global Warming Solutions Act is in keeping with the Patrick Administration’s track record of bold and innovative clean energy and climate policy that recognizes the opportunity in aligning our environmental objectives with our economic ones. The new plan will put in place a diverse portfolio of pragmatic solutions that create jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions – a winning formula for the Commonwealth and one that will no doubt be watched closely around the country.”

Kassel served on the Climate Protection and Green Economy Advisory Committee that consulted with state officials on the drafting of the Plan. CLF played a key role in making the statute a reality and has lent its expertise throughout the planning process to ensure a final plan that was aggressive enough to achieve the necessary GHG reductions while still being achievable.

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) protects New England’s environment for the benefit of all people. Using the law, science and the market, CLF creates solutions that preserve natural resources, build healthy communities, and sustain a vibrant economy region-wide. Founded in1966, CLF is a nonprofit, member-supported organization with offices in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The Boston Globe ran an interesting essay in its Ideas section on whether we should do “randomized trials’ of new laws before applying them to our entire society and economy.

Louis Brandeis, a great Boston lawyer before ascending to the Supreme Court once eloquently and clearly presented the mechanism we have long had in place for doing something of the sort:

“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” – New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, 285 U.S. 262, 311, 52 S.Ct. 371, 386-387, (1932) (dissenting opinion of Brandeis, J.)

Back in 1932 a knuckle-dragging Supreme Court invalidated a law enacted by the State of Oklahoma that required  people who wanted to manufacture, distribute or sell ice obtain a license first.  In the dissent quoted above Justice Brandeis blazed a path that continues today – a path based on the clear recognition that states should be generally allowed to enact their own laws subject only to clear preemption by federal law.

This history has served the environment well.  Over the last 40 years the great advances in clean air, clean water and toxics reduction have come from the states – with the Federal Government following along. Sometimes these efforts have been states going it alone and sometimes it has been coordinated action by a group of states.  Two key examples of that kind of collective action are the way that automobile emissions regulations were developed by California and then adopted by a range of states, led by the New England states and the development of a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative by the states of the East Coast.

“The states as laboratories” does not have all the virtues of randomized trials like the experiments used in the pharmaceutical world but it does have the advantage of being very real.

In the wake of Dominion’s announcement that it would not be cost effective to continue to operate and invest additional capital for pollution controls at Salem Harbor Station, the Patrick Administration has sent a message to ISO-NE calling for action.  In a letter to the President of ISO-NE, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Ian Bowles, highlighted the need to invest in clean energy instead of propping up old, environmentally obsolete coal plants such as Salem Harbor Station.  Secretary Bowles urged ISO-NE to “quickly implement” a solution to allow Salem Harbor Station to retire.

Clean energy policy has been one of the centerpieces of the Patrick Administration, and this letter signals not only the Administration’s commitment to building clean, new energy infrastructure, but also the important role they have in hastening the retirement of the coal-fired power plants that cause significant damage to public health and the environment.

ISO-NE is responsible for finding an alternative that will remove any need for Salem Harbor Station; however, after 7 years of transmission upgrades and planning, ISO-NE rejected Dominion’s request to remove Salem Harbor Station from the market over concerns that the plant could be needed on the hottest days of the year.  CLF has been pushing ISO-NE to expedite its planning process so that ratepayers will not be forced to bear the costs of keeping this 60 year old coal and oil plant on line despite its continued struggles to meet environmental regulations. 

The Secretary’s letter is particularly timely given that ISO-NE will host meetings on December 15 and December 16 to discuss the planning process for replacing Salem Harbor Station.

Recent headlines over a strategically thinking Bald Eagle in Wiscasset brought a wry smile to my face because this bird somehow managed to undo what dozens of fiscally prudent Mainers have been unable to do for the last decade: stop the DOT.

It is only with a modicum of irony that it took the American Bald Eagle, our symbol of freedom, to loosen the shackles of an oppressive, fiscally irresponsible DOT plan to build the Wiscasset Bypass.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Wiscasset’s seasonal traffic congestion, let me paint the scene:  let’s say you are “from away” and traveling to Midcoast Maine.  You are heading north on I-295 and you see a sign that says “Coastal Route”, doesn’t that sound charming?  “Let’s take that route!” exclaim the passengers in your car, and so you dutifully exit.  You are cruising along, everything is fine, and you soon approach the town of Wiscasset that declares itself to be “The Prettiest Little Village in Maine.”  Lovely!  You make a few winding turns, catch a glimpse of the water through some Victorian homes, your expectations soar and then suddenly you find yourself in a bit of traffic.  Maybe there was a fender bender, no one is moving.  You inch forward after a few minutes. 17 minutes and 43 seconds go by.  Still stuck.  You move agonizingly slow through this “Pretty Little Village” that seems uglier by the minute because all you can see is a line of brake lights a mile long.  You make one last turn and then the full scope of the traffic is revealed, and it is a brutal scene.  Idling cars are backed up for miles, for no apparent reason other than a bunch of flip-flop clad pedestrians scrambling to cross the road back and forth a zillion times so they can taste for themselves if the lobster rolls at Red’s Eats really are the best in Maine.  It is well known that the summer tourists queuing up for a lobster roll at this well-known eatery, located practically on Route 1 itself, is a significant contributor of the infamous start-and-go pile-ups along Route 1.  By the time you make it through this, everyone in the car is fighting, you have no idea why you thought a vacation to Maine would in any way constitute an “escape”, you are cranky, hungry (because there was no way you were going to contribute to the problem by actually eating at Red’s Eats), and you openly wonder why they don’t just build a pedestrian bridge for crying out loud!?

The truth is, it is a valid question. A pedestrian bridge or tunnel to alleviate the bottleneck at Red’s Eats is such an obvious solution that you really do have to wonder why it doesn’t already exist.  Yes, there are some historical compatibility issues, but it is relatively inexpensive and logical solution.  Yet it was summarily dismissed by the DOT.  So what about the installation of traffic lights at both the intersection of Route 1 and 27?  How about the prohibition of left hand turns in the downtown area?  What about a reconfiguration of parking along Route 1?

Source: Maine DOT

Which of these solutions did the experts agree was a reasonable approach?  None of the above.  Rather, after a decades-long planning process, the alternatives flirted with three bypass options, N8C, N2F and N2A, noted in the diagram above.  All three are wildly expensive, in the $85-$100 million dollar range, (this in a state that lacks funds for even basic road maintenance), all have impacts on environmentally sensitive lands, and all, even the shortest option, double the route.  This will waste travel time, cost drivers more money and burn more dirty fossil fuels.  The negative impacts don’t stop there.  The existing Davey bridge will cease to become a priority and when limited state coffers must choose on repairs, it will be the sacrificial lamb, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.  In addition, let’s think about what the by-pass is actually “by-passing.”  It’s the entire commercial center of Wiscasset.  The charming antique shops: by-passed.  The funky art galleries: by-passed.  The gift shops, well, you get the idea.   All seasonal traffic will be diverted away from the hard working Mainers that rely on tourists for their yearly revenue.

In the wake of the eagle nest discovery, the DOT has indicated that it is “evaluating whether to resubmit an application to support one of remaining alternatives as the preferred option for a bypass.”  But perhaps the evaluation should take a step even further and not start with the assumption that a bypass to alleviate seasonal summer traffic is the only option.  Let’s go back to the drawing board on this one and come up with a solution that reflects our fiscal reality and that can actually be built in under a decade.  The Wiscasset Task Force will meet on December 15 at 6:30 to drill down into these issues and hopefully come up with a sound solution.