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.
Electric-car Drivers, You Can Charge It at L.L. Bean in the Near Future
The retailer in Freeport will soon open Maine’s largest plug-in station to show leadership and promote sustainable practices, and other businesses may take notice. By Tux Turkel, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story FREEPORT — L.L. Bean is completing construction at its flagship retail store on what will be Maine’s largest charging station for Read More
As the “Tailpipe of the Nation,” Maine Deserves Cleaner Air
By moving to repeal the Clean Power Plan, Trump is doing the bidding of the coal industry and big polluters. By Conrad Schneider, advocacy director for the Brunswick-based Clean Air Task Force and Jacqueline Guyol, campaign organizer at Environment Maine Portland Press Herald op-ed Last week, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency took steps to eliminate the Read More
State’s Largest Solar Array Now Completely Operational
The 5-megawatt array in Madison generates enough electricity to power 700 homes. Portland Press Herald news story MADISON — The largest solar array in the state is now fully operational, as the final 25 percent of the 26,000-panel array was brought online Wednesday. The array, which will generate enough electricity to power 700 homes, is Read More
NRCM Response to Pruitt Announcement of Rollback of Clean Power Plan
Statement of Lisa Pohlmann, Executive Director, Natural Resources Council of Maine “In Scott Pruitt’s ideal world, polluters have total control of America’s energy and environmental policy. That is a disaster for Maine, which is not only downwind from many of those polluters, but is also blessed with abundant clean, local, renewable energy supplies, rather than Read More
Trump’s “Dirty Budget” is a Grave Threat to the Health of Our Planet
By Josie Cowles and May Young, Special to the BDN Bangor Daily News op-ed As young people, we’re often told we are responsible for the future, even though we can’t vote yet. We are teenagers, and because we will inherit this planet, healthy or not, we’re expected to clean up the messes left by those Read More
Allen and Elissa Armstrong are Driving Toward a More Sustainable Future
By Mary Pols, Staff Writer Press Herald news story These retirees are are loving their new electric Chevy Bolt. First of all, the Chevy Bolt is not technically Allen Armstrong’s car. It’s his wife Elissa’s, but she lets him drive it, all over their hometown of Portland and beyond. She also gave the go-ahead to Read More
Pope Blasts Climate Skeptics, Cites “Moral” Duty to Act
Francis says scientists have clearly charted what needed to be done to reverse course on global warming. by the Associated Press Central Maine newspapers news story ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis has sharply criticized climate change skeptics, saying history will judge those who failed to take the necessary decisions to curb heat-trapping emissions Read More
Researchers Find Summer Heat’s Lasting Longer in the Gulf of Maine
The warmer conditions endure two months longer than in the early 1980s, posing threats to the food chain and raising risks from more powerful hurricanes. by Colin Woodard, Staff Writer Portland Press Herald news story New scientific research has revealed that summer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, the second fastest warming part of the Read More
Maine’s Disastrous New Solar Rules Violate Our Right to Energy Independence
By Seth Berry, Special to the BDN Bangor Daily News op-ed It’s shocking, but true. Thanks to the actions of a self-proclaimed anti-tax governor, Maine is about to become the first state where electric companies can charge fees for the energy you make and use at your own home or business. This will likely reduce your Read More
