“Yet again the Trump Administration is pandering to big oil and gas at the expense of our health and our communities,” said Emily Green, CLF Senior Attorney. “As we run out of time to tackle the climate crisis, this policy moves the country in the wrong direction. It will lead directly to a dirtier, more polluted future. We cannot afford to hit reverse on these standards.”
In the battle against climate change, Massachusetts must be proactive, not reactive, to the impacts we know are coming. PG&E recently admitted it may take a decade for them to ensure that its wires in California are fireproof. How long will it take Massachusetts’ utility companies to prepare for extreme weather? We can’t afford to wait and find out.
Conservation Law Foundation filed its groundbreaking lawsuit against ExxonMobil for violations of federal environmental laws and for failing to prepare its Everett terminal to withstand the effects of climate change. CLF’s complaint alleges that ExxonMobil has been aware of the risks climate change poses and has not taken sufficient action — or “failed to design and implement protective measures” — to address them.
Jerry Elmer, senior attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, the environmental group that led the fight against the project, alongside the Town of Burrillville, also waited at the courthouse, arriving at the Rhode Island Supreme Court clerk’s office an hour before closing time. “The case is over. Invenergy lost. The climate won,” he said.
Just as families in Newport County prepared for a brutal winter night in late January, National Grid cut gas service to more than 7,000 customers, leaving homes and businesses in the cold. They called it a precaution and couldn’t say how it would last. Ultimately, the outage lasted a full week.
“As we said in June, this is a huge victory for Rhode Island and for the health of our communities,” said CLF Senior Attorney Jerry Elmer. “In the face of climate emergency, opening a fossil fuel plant that will spew carbon pollution for decades is simply reckless. After years of lies and misinformation, Invenergy’s efforts to pave over a forest to build this dirty plant have been dealt a substantial loss. This is proof that communities can stand up to big gas and win.”
We’re updating our electric grid for the 21st century.
“Customers should absolutely not be straddled with higher bills because of the mistakes of utilities,” said Amy Moses, Vice President and Director of CLF Rhode Island. “But the report’s suggestion of reducing demand for gas simply doesn’t go far enough. We need to get off dirty fracked gas and focus on clean renewables, not expand infrastructure that only harms our air and destroys our climate.”
(This article originally appeared in Commonwealth Magazine.)
We do not need another study to tell us that the impacts of climate change are here. Storms are growing more intense each year, and we continue to break heat records every summer. We must reach net-zero emissions in the coming decades to ensure these conditions do not get worse, and the 2050 Roadmap Bill provides the plan to get us there.
