“The vessel speed restrictions and adaptive management measures agreed to by South Fork Wind will go a long way toward protecting these whales from being injured or killed by project vessels,” said Priscilla Brooks, vice president and director of ocean conservation at the Conservation Law Foundation.
We face a winter with real potential for high heating and electricity bills due to the pandemic, severe weather events, and geopolitically caused oil and gas shortages. Massachusetts and other Northeastern states are pushing hard to end the fossil fuel addiction that produces such unstable prices in the short-term – and certain climate damage over the long term.
“The most powerful way to think about what happened with Carlos Rafael is to think of him as a symptom that the system is broken and not operating properly,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the Foundation.
“This waterways license is yet another example of our state agency making the wrong decision and Eversource Energy not making a good decision,” said Staci Rubin, CLF Vice President of Environmental Justice. “There is a pattern of our governmental decisions granting permits to pollute in communities of color, low-income neighborhoods, and places with limited English-proficient residents.”
“Unfortunately, New Hampshire has been on this treadmill of constantly expanding landfill capacity. There’s now a proposal by Casella to build a brand new landfill. And it’s an approach that threatens the health of our communities and natural resources like the Ammonoosuc River,” said CLF’s Tom Irwin.
“They’ve known since the 1970s that their products are damaging the climate,” said Darrell Brown, vice president of CLF Rhode Island. “But instead of protecting our communities from climate fallout, they’ve spent nearly 50 years and billions of dollars sowing doubt and deceit.”
Removing the incentives and rebates for heat pumps as called for by the oil dealers would only punish those who don’t have the resources to choose a cleaner, healthier and cheaper way to heat, cool and dehumidify their homes and businesses. There is nothing just or equitable about that. Stay the course, Maine.
If we consider the facts, adapt to changing conditions and avoid polarizing this issue, we can find ways to develop and bring to market innovative fishing systems that allow a healthy right whale population and a healthy lobster fishery to coexist.
Greg Cunningham, director of the climate and clean energy program at the Conservation Law Foundation in Massachusetts, has been pleased to see that the struggles to pass major legislation have ended in success in many places.
“I would say that the last two years there has been more activity than I’ve seen in my 15 years of doing this,” said Greg Cunningham.
A federal appeals court is reinstating restrictions on fishing gear in a nearly 1,000-square-mile swathe of ocean off Maine’s coast. It’s a blow to Maine’s lobstermen and a victory for advocates for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.
