Clean air is essential for healthy, happy lives. Clean, renewable energy helps ensure clean air. NRCM works for policies and initiatives that will improve Maine's air quality and reduce global warming pollution throughout the state and region.
NRCM’s climate and clean energy work is focused on where we can have the greatest impact: cleaner cars and trucks, clean and renewable energy production, and greater energy efficiency.
Our work in these key areas is critical to reducing health and environmental problems already plaguing our state. These include high asthma rates, more “bad air days,” rising sea levels due to climate change that threaten coastal communities, and threats to our fall foliage, skiing, and our vital tourism-based industry.
NRCM makes certain that Maine's elected officials and decision-makers are kept up to date about information related to climate change pollution, clean energy technologies, and steps Maine can take to ensure clean air.
Maine Climate, Energy, Economy Experts Voice Support for Clean Power Plan
News release Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final Clean Power Plan to combat climate change. In response, Maine experts in climate, energy, and the economy, voiced their support for the plan on a telephone briefing, and called on local, state, and national leaders to do the same. They explained why the Clean Read More
Legislature Blocked Several Measures that would Have Hurt Progress on Climate Change
By Tom Tietenberg Kennebec Journal op-ed Several recent reports, coming from very different perspectives, have made a strong case for the world to take action to diminish the risks posed by climate change. These include the papal encyclical, which makes the moral case; a recent EPA report, which quantifies the economic case; and the report Read More
Winslow Ordinance Could Open Door for State’s Largest Solar Farm
Ranger Solar in Yarmouth weighs a plan that could cost $25 million and take up 100 acres, but requires zoning regulation changes. By Peter McGuire, Central Maine Portland Press Herald news story WINSLOW — The town is set to begin drafting regulations that could pave the way for a solar farm potentially 20 times bigger Read More
Legislature Overrides Veto of Bill Calling for PUC to Develop Solar Policy
Vote shows bipartisan support for helping Maine catch up on solar NRCM news release AUGUSTA, ME – Today, the Maine House (119-28) and Senate (32-3) voted to override Governor LePage’s veto of a Resolve aimed at developing a comprehensive solar policy for Maine. LD 1263, sponsored by Rep. Sara Gideon of Freeport, was amended to Read More
Supreme Court Remands EPA’s Health-protective Mercury & Air Toxics Standards
High Court decision will further delay reductions of toxic air emissions that will save thousands of lives and provide important health protections News Release Washington, D.C. — This morning in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the Environmental Protection Agency’s first-ever national standards for mercury and other toxic air pollution from coal- and oil- Read More
Solar Power Project to Cut Electric Bill at Camden High School
by Stephen Betts, BDN Staff Bangor Daily News news story ROCKPORT, Maine — The Five-Town Community School District Board approved Wednesday night a solar power project for the high school that will continue to reduce the electrical costs for the complex. Facilities Director Keith Rose said the goal of students is for Camden Hills Regional Read More
Pope Francis’ Encyclical on Climate Change: Guided by Morality, Backed by Science
“In this encyclical,” Pope Francis writes, “I intend especially to engage in a dialogue with everyone about our common home.” As a Catholic, it’s exciting for me to see Pope Francis putting climate change at the top of the Church’s agenda. Climate change has disastrous implications for our common home—God’s creation—and for the world’s poor. Read More
Maine Legislature Gives Final Approval to Efficiency Bill to Fix the “And” (LD 1215)
Senate Approves Bill Unanimously, Under the Hammer Sending it to the Governor’s Desk Statement of Dylan Voorhees, NRCM Clean Energy Director “We applaud the Senate and the full Legislature for final passage of this simple bill to uphold the clear legislative intent of the omnibus energy bill and save Maine people and businesses a billion Read More
6 Species that Could Disappear from Maine Within the Next Generation
By Seth Koenig Bangor Daily News column In 2011, the journal Science published a groundbreaking study that tracked the recent habitat shifts of nearly 1,400 animals, plants and insects, and the results were striking. Researchers found that the species were moving away from the equator and into higher elevations two to three times as fast Read More
