Oh, this is certainly a big deal. It gives a major boost to offshore wind, both in terms of some technical ways, like removing the price cap, but also changing the process of selection, so the major utilities aren’t deeply, essentially, controlling the process. There was kind of a fox in the henhouse design of the earlier law.
Under the agreement, GlobalFoundries commits to follow Vermont’s renewable energy standard, which Whiting called “Vermont’s single most effective and important law at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” The law requires utilities to purchase increasing amounts of energy from renewable sources.
Clear communication goes a long way in helping people adjust to these inconveniences. It’s also time to dedicate the funding and staffing needed to repair our transit system today and stop kicking the can down the road.
The economic development bill passed by the House of Representatives presents the latest case-in-point. Quietly tucked into the bill was an amendment that would exempt an enormous parcel of land in Everett from state laws that govern waterfront development and protect the public trust.
To fight climate change – and power outages – we need a strong and committed power grid operator that makes cleaning up our power generation mix its first priority. All six New England states have put ISO on notice.
Erica Fuller is an attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit in the case against the government and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. She said the ruling will likely shorten the government’s 10-year timeframe for reducing risk even further.
“The vessel speed restrictions and adaptive management measures agreed to by South Fork Wind will go a long way toward protecting these whales from being injured or killed by project vessels,” said Priscilla Brooks, vice president and director of ocean conservation at the Conservation Law Foundation.
We face a winter with real potential for high heating and electricity bills due to the pandemic, severe weather events, and geopolitically caused oil and gas shortages. Massachusetts and other Northeastern states are pushing hard to end the fossil fuel addiction that produces such unstable prices in the short-term – and certain climate damage over the long term.
“The most powerful way to think about what happened with Carlos Rafael is to think of him as a symptom that the system is broken and not operating properly,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel for the Foundation.
“This waterways license is yet another example of our state agency making the wrong decision and Eversource Energy not making a good decision,” said Staci Rubin, CLF Vice President of Environmental Justice. “There is a pattern of our governmental decisions granting permits to pollute in communities of color, low-income neighborhoods, and places with limited English-proficient residents.”
