Springfield, alongside community and environmental organizations like CLF, has been fighting this proposed biomass plant for years. We set the fight aside in 2017 when Palmer Renewable Energy, the company behind the proposal, paused its plans for construction. But now the company is back, hoping that its efforts to weaken state policy will bring its proposal back to life.
With recently passed legislation, community choice power is on the verge of becoming a powerful tool for local, community-based efforts to advance clean energy, save people money, and curb carbon pollution.
Maine’s newly elected governor and legislature delivered on critical new laws that will cut climate-damaging emissions, protect Maine’s families and children from toxic chemicals, clean up our rivers, and save energy – all while creating jobs, growing new industries, and strengthening the economy.
The only way to fight back against these economic, health and environmental impacts is to drop our fossil fuel habit and drastically lower our polluting emissions now, and this law will help get us there.
This legislative session was full of historic victories for the people of Vermont. Our legislature passed three of the strongest pollution protection laws in the country, setting the standard for New England and the rest of the country.
“We need only look out our windows to see that climate crisis is real and it is here,” said Emily Green, Staff Attorney at CLF. “We owe it to future Mainers to confront climate change head-on to protect our health, our economy and our way of life before it’s too late. This bill truly makes Maine a national leader in responding to the greatest crisis of our generation.”
Today, Invenergy was denied a permit to pave over a pristine forest in Burrillville to build a fracked gas and diesel oil power plant that would emit carbon pollution for decades. This is a victory for CLF, for the people of Burrillville, and for a world facing a climate emergency.
“By rolling back even modest efforts to curb climate-damaging pollution from the power sector, the EPA has signed the death certificates of thousands of Americans,” said CLF President Bradley Campbell. “Dirty coal and fracked gas spew toxic pollution into our communities and bring the looming climate crisis even closer to reality. Yet again, this administration has sacrificed public health and safety at the altar of the fossil fuel industry.”
“It’s time we leave dirty, polluting fossil fuel plants in the past,” said Emily Green, Staff Attorney at CLF. “The future of energy is clean and local, and these bills come not a moment too soon. Our communities will now be able to harness Maine’s natural resources to power homes and businesses. We must all do our part to preserve a livable planet while we still have time.”
In spite of its critics, clean, renewable energy continues to come down in price and become better able to handle the demands of our electricity grid.
