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.
Central Maine Power Project a Bad Deal for Maine
The proposal would allow a foreign company to cut a wide swatch through the forest of northern Maine, with little benefit to the state. By Tom Saviello, Republican state senator from Wilton Central Maine Newspapers op-ed Imagine what the people of Maine would think if a European company decided to cut a path the width Read More
Legislators Battle with LePage Over CMP’s Proposed Transmission Line
by Andy O’Brien Free Press news story Gov. Paul LePage and Central Maine Power are battling it out with environmental groups, local power generators and a bipartisan group of legislators over a proposed $950 million electrical transmission line from Lewiston to Quebec. The 146-mile New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC), which is a joint effort Read More
Poll Shows Maine Voters Ready for Action to Address Climate and Support LMF and National Monument
Augusta, Maine – Today, the Natural Resources Council of Maine (NRCM) released the results of a public opinion survey on the attitudes of likely Maine voters on a range of environmental and energy issues. The survey was completed in April by the Portland-based research firm Critical Insights. The results are being sent to more than Read More
Baker Adviser Helped Energy Firms Land Big Mass. Contracts
By Joshua Miller and Jon Chesto Globe Staff Boston Globe news story The top political adviser to Governor Charlie Baker also provided strategic and communications advice as a paid consultant to two companies that recently landed massive clean energy contracts in Massachusetts. Jim Conroy, an experienced political strategist who managed Baker’s 2014 campaign and is Read More
Farmington Rethinks Endorsement of Quebec to Massachusetts Power Line
In a letter, Gov. Paul LePage said four lawmakers who wrote to Massachusetts expressing their opposition to the New England Clean Energy Connect project “may now have to deal with reprimands.” by Rachel Ohm, Staff Writer Central Maine newspaper news story FARMINGTON — Town officials are rethinking their endorsement of the New England Clean Energy Read More
Climate Change to Have Drastic Effects on Gulf of Maine Lobster and Clam Fisheries, Studies Say
New work by academic researchers details how warming waters will drive some of the state’s key commercial species north and expose others to predators. By Kevin Miller, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story AUGUSTA — Two new scientific studies are highlighting the current and future impacts that rising ocean temperatures will have on lobster, Read More
NextEra Energy Moves Forward on First of Four Large Maine Solar Farms
by Maureen Milliken Mainebiz news story When NextEra Energy’s planned 20 megawatt solar project in Fairfield received Maine Department of Environmental Protection approval in last month, it was the first of several large-scale projects planned for Maine. The solar array is the largest approved by the department in the state so far, but if the Read More
Maine Lawmakers Tell Massachusetts Officials to Reject CMP Project
By Fred Bever & Keith Shortall Maine Public news story A bipartisan group of influential Maine lawmakers is telling Massachusetts regulators to reject Central Maine Power’s (CMP) proposal to build a big transmission line through western Maine. The 145-mile high voltage line would bring electricity from Hydro-Québec’s dam system in Canada down to Massachusetts consumers. Read More
Maine Lawmakers Voice Objections to CMP Power Line in Letter to Massachusetts Regulators
The co-chairmen of two legislative committees say they don’t think the 145-mile transmission line proposed by CMP would benefit Maine. By Ray Routhier, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story The bipartisan leaders of two legislative committees who disapprove of a proposed 145-mile power transmission line through western Maine sent a letter to regulators in Read More
