New England Needs California’s Clean Trucks Rules – Here’s Why.
Slashing polluting emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles is a critical part of our climate fight.
Slashing polluting emissions from medium- and heavy-duty vehicles is a critical part of our climate fight.
“It’s clear that the state is lagging behind where we need to be in slashing climate-damaging emissions,” said Caitlin Peale Sloan, Vice President of CLF Massachusetts. “This Administration and the next one need to prioritize real movement in existing policies to match the analysis in this plan, which relies heavily on vague proposals for programs yet to be developed. We need focused and sustained leadership to ensure that systemic change can be achieved in time, as incremental steps will no longer cut it. Any efforts also need to be anchored in equity and justice, and we’ll be pushing officials to improve the plan released today.”
“The Supreme Court’s new majority has hobbled EPA’s ability to reduce pollution from power plants, expanding an obscure doctrine into an all-purpose tool for the Court to stop agencies from acting on the most significant threats to human health and the environment,” said CLF President Bradley Campbell. “By arbitrarily limiting EPA’s explicit and broad authority under the Clean Air Act to require the use of less polluting systems, the Court has consigned millions of Americans to more illness, shorter lives, and greater poverty in an overheated climate, while giving itself nearly unlimited authority to invalidate protections and safeguards intended by Congress.”
“The climate crisis will not spare Connecticut, and our legislators are clearly taking this threat seriously,” said CLF attorney Shannon Laun. “Expanding clean, renewable energy will help us cut emissions and protect the air our families breathe. It’s time for Governor Lamont to sign these bills into law so we can get to work.”
“This is a huge step towards getting polluting, dirty fossil fuels out of our homes,” said Shannon Laun, CLF staff attorney. “Unfortunately, PURA is giving gas companies a grace period to sign up more customers for the incentive program. Gas poisons our air and is a major driver of the climate crisis, and the incentives should have been ended immediately.”
“It’s clear that we can’t wait any longer to fight climate change,” says James Crowley, Staff Attorney for CLF Rhode Island. “Rhode Island has a climate law that demands cuts to polluting emissions – and this irresponsible expansion would absolutely lead to more emissions. The Board made the right call in requiring a full review and safeguarding our health and future in the face of the climate crisis.”
As nearly every New England state has instituted mandatory cuts to climate-damaging pollution, the term “net zero by 2050” has popped up a lot. What does it even mean?
Our health is inextricably tied to the environment’s health, especially for communities overburdened by climate change. It’s for this reason Vermont needs an environmental justice law.
“The PUC made the right call today,” said Chase Whiting, CLF Vermont staff attorney. “Allowing GlobalFoundries to skirt the state’s climate laws would set us back years in reaching our pollution reduction goals. This would be nothing more than an illegal loophole for a wealthy corporation, and officials saw right through it.”
Where we live affects how much pollution we experience each day. It affects how long our commute is, how hot our neighborhood gets in the summer, whether we can afford winter heating bills, how much or how little open space we have around us, and whether we have access to healthy homes, nourishing food, and quality schools.