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CLF’s Clean Energy and Climate Change Program is developing and implementing, here in New England, innovative strategies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and provide a positive model for the nation and the world.

Clean Energy & Climate Change Program goals:

1. Promote and implement a clear vision for the transformational changes needed to meet the emissions reductions that science tells us are needed to protect our climate.
2. Advance policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector through cleaner vehicles and smarter land use and growth.
3. Foster highly efficient use of electricity, oil and natural gas across the region, putting us on a trajectory to meet all growth through efficiency.
4. Develop and implement smart greenhouse gas policy in the New England states and fight to ensure that national cap legislation allows New England states to continue to lead the nation.
5. Increase pressure, in all forms, to reduce reliance on fossil fuel electric generating plants.
6. Work to increase renewable energy generating capacity and associated infrastructure in New England by fighting for good policies and projects.

CLF's current Clean Energy & Climate Change initiatives and cases include:

• Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: Advocating for, and watch-dogging the implementation of, the first-ever mandatory "cap-and-trade" program in the United States to cap and reduce the greenhouse gas pollution causing global warming. Learn more...
• Low Carbon Fuel Standard: Creating a market-based, technology-neutral policy requiring reductions in the carbon content of fuel. Learn more...
• MA Global Warming Solutions Act: Working to insure that the provisions of the Global Warming Solutions Act are implemented as intended to address the compelling challenge of climate change. Learn more...
• Clean Car Standards: Partnering with New England states to reduce emissions from cars and trucks, our region's fastest-growing source of global warming air pollution, through our Clean Cars Campaign. Learn more...
• Renewable Energy in New England: Supporting policies that provide critical incentives for renewable energy generation. Learn more...
• Decoupling: Pushing electricity regulators to create incentives that encourage energy efficiency and implement decoupling. Learn more...
• Cape Wind: Ensuring that the proposed 130 turbine wind farm in the federal waters off of Nantucket Sound moves forward. Learn more...
• LNG Terminal Siting: Examining the impacts of proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) sites across New England, ensuring a full environmental review. Learn more...
• MA Green Communities Act: Ensuring that the provisions of the act are implemented as intended to protect the climate and public health. Learn more...
• Brayton Point Power Plant: Protecting Southern New England from the devastating effects of thermal pollution caused by the Brayton Point Power Plant, dubbed one of New England's "Filthy Five" polluters. Learn more...
• Mercury Initiative: Reducing toxic mercury emissions by enforcing long ignored federally mandated mercury pollution control requirements. Learn more...
• Salem Harbor Power Plant: Working to require that the Salem Harbor Station come into compliance with environmental regulations. Learn more...
• Somerset Station Power Plant: Opposing the proposed transition of the Somerset Station Power Plant into a coal gasification plant. Learn more...
• Maine Climate & Energy Planning Act: Working through a stakeholder process initiated by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to consider the appropriate design for a regulatory program that will address the energy and climate impacts of new development projects. Learn more...
• Central Maine Power Transmission Expansion: Advocating for a solution that puts Maine on a fast track to achieving maximum energy efficiency and demand response. Learn more...
• Vermont Yankee: Involved in proceedings that will determine whether the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant will be given permission to operate for an additional 20 years. Learn more...

Clean Energy & Climate Change key accomplishments and victories: 

• Published Power to Spare, a template for sustainable energy in the region.
• Received the National Environmental Achievement Award for efforts to develop world-class energy-efficiency programs in the region.
• Forced landmark settlement with Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a series of commitments to expand transit service and reduce air pollution in exchange for the construction of Boston's Central Artery project.
• Stopped construction of three coal-fired power plants in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and forced smog-reducing technology at Merrimack Station, New Hampshire's dirtiest power plant.
• Pushed the Vermont legislature to double its energy efficiency budget.
• Participated in a suit that caused the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a rebuke on the Bush Administration's global warming inaction. The ruling decided that the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency authority to reduce global warming pollution by regulating greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.
• Championed the critical issue of efficiency into the Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCo) energy debate; the Public Service Board adopted many CLF recommendations in creating a new system for transmission planning that better incorporates energy efficiency and local generation to avoid or delay future transmission projects.
• Intervened in hearings before the Vermont Public Service Board to illustrate the clean air benefits of the proposed East Haven Wind Farm.
• Advanced renewable energy projects in Maine by intervening before the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) on hearings for a Redington Township wind farm project.
• Ensured environmental impacts were appropriately addressed and mitigated in the Searsburg, VT Wind Project.
• Successfully challenged the MBTA's failure to implement transit improvements, securing a dramatic reduction in toxic emissions from city buses.
• Prevented the construction of a coal gasification plant in the coastal town of Wiscasset, Maine and helped enact a new law that imposes a three-year moratorium on construction of new coal gasification plants and requires the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to set CO2 emission standards for coal gasification plants.
• Fought a proposed diesel fuel-fired power plant in the environmental justice community of Chelsea, Massachusetts; the power plant would be located on Chelsea Creek directly across the street from Burke Elementary School.