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.

Profits, Not Climate Benefits, are Driving CMP Transmission Proposal
The utility’s transmission line will harm Maine’s environment, economy and way of life – and will do nothing to reduce climate-disrupting pollution. by Dylan Voorhees, climate and clean energy director for the Natural Resources Council of Maine Portland Press Herald op-ed AUGUSTA — Climate disruption is the most serious threat to the environment in Maine, Read More

Start Listening, Folks: All-out Effort Needed to Prevent Climate Disaster
Our nation has made dramatic societal transformations in short periods of time when a dire situation, like global warming, has called for it. By Joe Hardy of Wells, a retired environmental educator, consultant and mediator Portland Press Herald op-ed WELLS — The recent report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was stunning in Read More

Maine DEP Calls CMP’s Transmission Line Application “Insufficient” and “Incomplete”
CMP’s Habit of Incomplete Filings Raise Serious Questions Statement of Sue Ely, Clean Energy Attorney, Natural Resources Council of Maine “Today, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), notified CMP that its application to build a massive 145-mile-long transmission line through Maine is still incomplete. The DEP said it cannot move forward with evaluating its Read More

PUC Won’t Decide CMP’s $950M Transmission Line Project until March
by Staff Mainebiz news story The three-member Maine Public Utilities Commission issued an order on Friday that extends its review of Central Maine Power’s $950 million New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line project into next year. In their procedural order — which follows an Oct. 26 order suspending three hearings originally scheduled to be Read More

Landfill Solar Panels to Cover 95 Percent of Maine Town’s Electricity Needs
By Ralph Morang, Portsmouth Herald Bangor Daily News news story ELIOT, Maine — Dark skies and cold rain Monday morning did not hinder the progress of work on Eliot’s newest solar array. Trucks poured concrete into ballasts that will support 384 345-watt photovoltaic solar panels in three ranks at the town’s former landfill next to Read More

PUC Delays CMP Power Line Hearings, Per Request by NRCM, Others
CMP’s 11th Hour Filings Raise Serious Questions Statement of Sue Ely, Clean Energy Attorney, Natural Resources Council of Maine “The PUC’s decision to delay hearings on CMP’s proposed transmission line is a welcome acknowledgement that this process has been moving too fast for a thorough analysis of this massive, incredibly complex and flawed project. After months of Read More

Some Maine Outdoorsmen are Worried about the Potential Impact of the CMP Transmission Line
By Fred Bever Maine Public news story Listen to full news story. Some snowmobilers and hunters in Maine are raising their voices against the high-voltage transmission line that Central Maine Power wants to string through western Maine in order to bring electricity to Massachusetts. The Maine Snowmobilers Association (MSA) is contending with dissent in its Read More

New England Power Line Opposition Brings Together Unusual Alliance
Environmental groups and gas generators both oppose the power line project, which would carry Canadian hydropower to Massachusetts. by Bill Opalka Energy News Network news story The proposed New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line is creating an unusual alliance of opponents in Maine that range from environmental groups to fossil fuel power generators. Groups Read More

CMP Plans to Bury Proposed Transmission Line Under Kennebec Gorge
In a concession to opponents, the power company says it would drill under the scenic canyon instead of stringing power lines overhead if it wins approval for the 145-mile transmission line project. by Peter McGuire, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story Central Maine Power wants to bury the portion of its planned electrical transmission Read More