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.

Quebec Hydro Line Will Ruin Maine’s “Golden Egg” — Our Beautiful Forest
By Roger Merchant, Special to the BDN Bangor Daily News news story I walked into the Maine woods in 1965 as a forester and photographer, and spent the next 50 years exploring and appreciating these woods. Maine’s natural resources contribute to our rural quality of life, tourism and forestry economies. Central Maine Power’s proposal to Read More

Mainers Share the Charge They Get Out of Owning Electric Cars
The ride-and-drive event Sunday in South Portland coincides with National Drive Electric Week. by Gillian Graham, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story SOUTH PORTLAND — Khanh Ngo is passionate about his Tesla. Standing in the shade at the edge of a parking lot, he eagerly showed off his Tesla Model X to prospective owners Read More

CMP Project Draws Local Response at Hearing
Daily Bulldog news story FARMINGTON – A transmission line project designed to connect Canadian hydro-power to the Massachusetts grid drew roughly 150 people to a Maine Public Utilities Commission hearing held on the University of Maine at Farmington campus Friday evening. A second, simultaneous hearing was held in The Forks. Forty people provided the MPUC Read More

Second Small Maine Town Votes Against CMP’s Hydropower Project
By Lori Valigra Bangor Daily News news story West Forks plantation, a town of 56 residents, voted Thursday night by a majority not to support Central Maine Power’s project to transmit electricity from Canada to Massachusetts via Maine. In a 45-7 vote, townspeople objected to the New England Clean Energy Connect project being pushed by Read More

Maine PUC Seeks Public Testimony on NECEC Project
The Public Utilities Commission will hold public witness hearings Friday in Farmington and The Forks about the proposed power line. Central Maine Newspapers news story The Maine Public Utilities Commission plans to hold public witness hearings Friday in Farmington and The Forks to hear from members of the public on Central Maine Power Co.’s proposal Read More

As Maine Reconsiders Offshore Wind Terms, Some Say Credibility Being Hurt
by Bill Opalka Energy News Network news story The backers of a two-turbine test project say they were blindsided by a recent decision to reopen terms of four-year-old contract. A move by Maine officials to rewrite terms of an offshore wind deal will delay a long-awaited demonstration project and further hurt the state’s credibility with clean Read More

As CMP Transmission Line Plan Charges Ahead, Opposition to the Project Grows in Maine
By Fred Bever Maine Public news story Central Maine Power (CMP) says that it is ready to negotiate the terms of its bid to build and upgrade 145-miles of high-power transmission lines that would bring electricity from Canada’s Hydro Quebec dam system to Massachusetts customers. The move comes as regulatory hearings in Maine and Massachusetts Read More

New Survey: Maine Electric Car Owners Love Their Cars, Save Money on Fuel
Next steps: Get the word out, add charging stations NRCM News Release Today the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) released the results of its second comprehensive survey of Maine’s registered electric car owners. The survey was mailed to every electric car owner in Maine –1,300 of them – an impressive 33% of them responded. Read More

Quebec Hydro Project Could Spoil a Pristine Maine Wilderness
By Janice Cooper, Special to the BDN Bangor Daily News op-ed In my younger days, I canoed and rafted down many American rivers, including the Allagash and the mother of all whitewater rapids, the Colorado. I held on for dear life as we tossed our way through the Grand Canyon, thinking, “There is no better Read More