Jun 23, 2020

Healthy and Equitable Community Investment

Over the past decade, scientific evidence and data linking community conditions to health outcomes has grown exponentially. This report offers recommendations for how the growing ecosystem of tools, approaches, and data sources should support community investment’s impact on health and equity in communities.

Jun 22, 2020

MBTA Increases Fairmount Line Service

“For too long, Boston’s black and brown neighborhoods have not had quality access to much-needed transit options,” said Staci Rubin, Senior Attorney at CLF. “This pilot is a great start, but these communities deserve the same level of transit as affluent areas like Back Bay or Beacon Hill. We’ll continue to advocate for the Fairmount Line to run as frequently as the T’s subway lines and to be electrified to improve air quality and fight the climate crisis.”

Jun 16, 2020

The Truth about Plastic Bag Bans

Several studies have emerged challenging the effectiveness of plastic bag bans. These studies and their coverage in the media are causing some confusion among consumers and legislators. We want to set the record straight, as studies critiquing plastic bag bans don’t account for the broader scope of plastics.

Single-use plastic bags threaten our environment.
Jun 10, 2020

Why COVID-19 Is Hitting Some Communities Harder

COVID-19’s unequal impact on our communities has laid bare stark realities about health, wealth, and housing. As our Healthy Neighborhoods Study has shown – and as the map of COVID-19 infections bears out ­– low-income and people of color face community-level stressors resulting from public health inequities and environmental injustices. These stressors result directly from decades of discriminatory housing policy.  

Jun 05, 2020

Trump Decimates Protections for Atlantic’s Only Marine National Monument

“Once again, the president is making cynical use of the national crises he has inflamed to pander to the very few New Englanders who may still have faith in his leadership,” said Bradley Campbell, President of CLF. “Having ravaged our economy nationally, Trump is now dismantling the few protections now in place to avert the demise of New England’s traditional marine fisheries, culture, and economy. We call on the New England delegation and the public to fight this attack on our ocean and our future by all means available.” 

Jun 01, 2020

State Denies Equal Access to Public Hearings

“Preventing residents from commenting on a project that will have enormous impacts on their community is not only shameful but a form of discrimination,” said Amy Laura Cahn, Director of CLF’s Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice program. “East Boston and Chelsea already experience some of the worst air quality and pollution in the state and adding yet another industrial facility will only compound these injustices. State leaders need to be held accountable for silencing community concerns to push this project through.”

The waterfront site near the dangerous electric substation proposed by Eversource in the Eagle Hill community in East Boston. The jet fuel tanks and other infrastructure in the background highlight the need for climate justice in this community.
Jun 01, 2020

Opponents Of Proposed Electrical Substation In East Boston File Federal Civil Rights Complaint

The complaint states that “Spanish-speaking residents were left with no way of understanding what was said during the two- and half-hour hearing, and no ability to understand and thus respond to or echo the testimony of others as an English-speaking resident might have done. When these residents were finally permitted to speak — following hours of English-only, complex, and technical testimony by parties, intervenors, and limited participants — they had no context or confidence to share their perspective, rendering the record essentially incomplete.”

May 29, 2020

Environmentalists Call For Resumption Of Bottle Returns, Reusable Shopping Bags

“Now, we should be able to, number one, get back to business as usual and redeem those bottles and cans that people have stacked in their basements and in their garages,” said Kirstie Pecci of the Conservation Law Foundation’s Zero Waste Program. “And then, number two, we know that it’s time to stop using single-use plastic. It’s not protecting us from the virus.”