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.
Mainers Overwhelmingly Oppose CMP Transmission Line
CMP’s desperate gambit doesn’t change that Statement of Dylan Voorhees, Clean Energy Director, Natural Resources Council of Maine “In a desperate gambit to try to salvage its controversial power line proposal, Central Maine Power (CMP) today acknowledged that its proposed 145-mile transmission line across Maine would cause significant harm to the Kennebec Gorge. But this small Read More
Scores Speak Out to Regulators about Impact of CMP’s Transmission Line Proposal
More than 70 signed up to speak at the hearing and most who testified in in the first three hours voiced concerns about the impact the project would have on the environment and tourism. by Rachel Ohm, Morning Sentinel Portland Press Herald news story HALLOWELL — The Maine Public Utilities Commission heard hours of testimony Read More
New Study Shows CMP Transmission Project Would Not Reduce Climate-changing Carbon Pollution
Reveals Hydro-Quebec’s financial incentive to “green-wash” power News Release Natural Resources Council of Maine, Sierra Club, and Maine Renewable Energy Association (Augusta, ME) A new analysis released today by environmental and renewable energy organizations concludes that the transmission line through western Maine (NECEC) proposed by Central Maine Power (CMP) and Hydro-Quebec would not reduce carbon Read More
Report Challenges Environmental Benefits of CMP Project
The report says hydropower from Quebec would merely be redirected to a new U.S. market and will not affect emission reductions regionally, a claim Hydro-Quebec refutes. by Tux Turkel, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story Hours before a much-anticipated public hearing on the merits of a new transmission line through western Maine, an analysis Read More
Sobering New U.N. Report Validates Climate Science, Economics
A price on carbon and an internationally coordinated and enforceable effort are surely the way forward. by Michael Jones, Brunswick resident and associate professor of economics emeritus at Bowdoin College Portland Press Herald op-ed BRUNSWICK — The news Monday proclaimed two remarkable, and related, events. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations committee comprised Read More
U.N. Climate Report is Our Pearl Harbor Moment
The politics of division won’t work to fight a threat like global warming. Portland Press Herald editorial The events of the last two years show that Americans know how to choose up sides and fight each other. But if we had to, could we put aside our differences and fight together? We are about to Read More
Somerset County Residents Want Commissioners to Oppose CMP Power Line
In January commissioners supported the $1 billion, 145-mile CMP transmission line to carry hydropower from Canada to Massachusetts. by Doug Harlow, Staff Writer Central Maine newspapers news story SKOWHEGAN — More than two dozen people packed the Somerset County Commissioners’ meeting Wednesday afternoon with one message to the board: Reconsider your support of Central Maine Read More
Solar Suit Aims to Put Maine Back on Track
A delivery charge for electricity that does not have to be delivered is a backward policy. By The Editorial Board Central Maine newspapers editorial With every technological advance, solar energy becomes less expensive and a more attractive as an investment. Except in Maine, where the Public Utilities Commission has developed policy to fight progress. While Read More
L.L. Bean Now Home to Maine’s Largest Electric Vehicle Charging Station
by Nathan Strout Times Record news story FREEPORT — L.L. Bean’s retail campus in Freeport is now home to Maine’s largest electric vehicle charging station after adding eight Level II chargers over the summer. The addition gives Midcoast motorists and tourists another public option to charge up in a state where public charging stations can Read More
