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.
Canada-Portland Tar Sands Pipeline Hits Strong Opposition
41,000 Comments Submitted from U.S. and Canadian Citizens Against Threat of Piecemeal Proposal Portland, Maine—The Canadian National Energy Board today closed public input on the proposed Line 9 Reversal Phase I tar sands pipeline project after receiving more than 41,000 citizen comments in opposition. A coalition of 11 groups, including Environment Maine, Natural Resources Council Read More
Natural Resources Council of Maine Goes Solar
Nonprofit now powered with solar energy, expects to save $32,000 over life of project NRCM and ReVision Energy AUGUSTA, ME – The Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM), the state’s leading environmental advocacy organization, has begun powering its Augusta headquarters with solar energy. NRCM partnered with ReVision Energy, a leader in solar design, installation, and Read More
New Report Sheds Light on Disappointing Winter
Last winter, I wrote a blog post, Joys of a Maine winter, sharing my love for winter fishing in Maine. But this winter has been disappointing. With the warm December and January, and early spring (summer, really) temperatures, the ice fishing season was much abbreviated. I got out on the ice maybe only five times this Read More
Warming Winters Threaten Maine’s Outdoor Traditions
“On Thin Ice” Report Details Impacts on Maine’s Outdoor Heritage Natural Resources Council of Maine and National Wildlife Federation Augusta, Maine—Near-record warmth in the winter of 2011-2012 left wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts and the businesses in winter-based sectors scrambling to adapt—and it’s just a preview of what’s to come in a warming world, according to Read More
A Birder’s Take on Signs of Spring
Last year around this time, dozens of cars lined up along Route 126 from South Gardiner to Gardiner. Children, along with one or both of their parents, gazed out through the windows or stood nearby as two Coast Guard ice breakers plowed their way up the Kennebec River, slicing through thick layers of ice—an annual Read More
In Opposition to LD 1787, An Act To Create Efficiencies in the Administration and Enforcement of the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code
by Dylan Voorhees, NRCM Clean Energy Director Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today regarding administration of Maine’s Uniform Building & Energy Code (MUBEC).¹ I would like to make four overall points to the committee. 1. MUBEC is important for Maine consumers, our economy, and our energy future. Moving backward on MUBEC will Read More
Groups Concerned about Tar Sands Oil Pipelines for Midwest & Maine
NRCM, Sierra Club Maine, NRDC, NWF Conservation groups gathered in Portland today to express concerns about efforts to pipe tar sands crude oil from Canada into the United States, citing proposals to build a massive new pipeline across America’s heartland and the possibility that tar sands could flow from Canada through Maine for export. A Read More
Mercury and Birds
A report by the Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), finds that mercury contamination is at levels dangerous enough to cause physiological and reproductive harm in a wide-range of songbirds and bats in the 11 northeastern states, including Maine. The report, Hidden Risk, finds that certain species and habitats are of special concern. Bicknell’s Thrush, Rusty Blackbird, Read More
Recalling the Cold Sledgehammer: NRCM’s Polar Dip and Dash
I have felt the cold sledgehammer of ice water closing in on my head before—that’s what it felt like to me when I plunged under the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean at Portland’s East End Beach during the Natural Resources Council of Maine’s (NRCM’s) Polar Plunge in 2009. That was a special occasion; I Read More
