Update 1/6/15: Our online action alert makes it even easier to contact Rhode Island leaders and tell them to stop the Invenergy plant. Take action now! Invenergy wants to build a $700 million fossil fuel power plant in Burrillville, Rhode Island, that will continue emitting large amounts of carbon pollution for as long as 40…
Nov 20
2015
2015
Apr 30
2015
2015
Vermont is Burning the Furniture
Vermont legislators are scrambling to plug the budget – and there are plans to raid funding for heating efficiency to do that. This is troubling on many levels. It raids monies from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to backfill another shortage. It also comes on top of the proposal to shortchange energy efficiency as part of otherwise…
Feb 10
2015
2015
Halted: VT Gas Pipeline
Welcome news from Vermont Gas Systems that it will not proceed with Phase 2 of its expensive and polluting natural gas pipeline. Over recent months, project costs have skyrocketed and pollution impacts increased. New gas pipelines lock us into continued fossil fuel use for decades into the future are a bad bet for our climate…
Dec 4
2014
2014
Coming Clean: Strengthening EPA’s Clean Power Plan
Even if it’s hard for our brains to accept, we all know the impacts to come from climate change if we don’t significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions now and throughout the century: food insecurity, species extinction, and dramatically severe weather events. If that news isn’t sobering enough, we’ll also face a rapidly decreasing ability to…
Oct 2
2014
2014
The Market Speaks — Maine (and New England) Should Listen
The preliminary conclusions are in on Maine’s proposed gambit to invest ratepayer money on natural gas pipeline expansion—it’s not worth the risk. Those were the findings of the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) staff in its recommendations to the Commission issued last night. The staff report finds that the cost of using ratepayer money to…
Jul 10
2014
2014
CLF Appeals Withholding of Public Records on Regional Energy Plans
Conservation Law Foundation filed appeals in Vermont and Massachusetts regarding the withholding of public documents about the development of the New England Governors’ regional energy plans, which include gas pipeline and hydropower projects. CLF requested these documents in March to bring transparency to the process surrounding the Governors’ plans, which to date have been shrouded…
Jan 31
2014
2014
Tar Sands Coming Soon, to a Pump Near You?
Today the US State Department announced in its final supplemental environmental impact statement that the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would pump 830,000 barrels/day of high-carbon, dirty oil from Canada to the United States, would have a negligible impact on climate change. Seriously? Well, that’s what the document concludes. Though the State Department acknowledges that the…
May 14
2013
2013
Oil and Water Don’t Mix
With warming seas and ocean acidification putting unprecedented pressure on our already heavily fished, shipped, and polluted coastal areas, adding the extreme pressures of seismic testing and offshore oil drilling, which we keep hearing are supposed to be safe and foolproof, but never really are, seems like a foolhardy move. There are plenty of other…
Feb 28
2013
2013
Dark Days Ahead: The Financial Future of Brayton Point
Just how much financial trouble is Dominion facing at its 50-year old coal and oil-fired power plant? The prospects are bleak and looking worse. For years, people have assumed that the largest coal-fired power plant in New England could weather any storm, but the numbers show that Brayton Point is facing dark days, and the…
Jan 16
2012
2012
When a Fact Check Goes Wrong and Misses the (Clean Energy) Point
The rise of dedicated public fact checking services like PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and the Washington Post Fact Checker has been a generally good thing. However, these services can go astray when they decide that a statement which would be improved with clarification is “false” – a practice that weakens the “false” label when it is applied to an outright falsehood.