Connecticut TCI Supporters Continue Push for Vote

Environmental groups are pressuring Connecticut lawmakers to revive a cap-and-trade proposal aimed at lowering emissions from the transportation sector during an upcoming special legislative session.

But with that session set to begin soon, it remains unclear if, or when, the proposal will come up for a vote.

Governor Ned Lamont (D) earlier this year pushed for the state to join the Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) by championing legislation, SB 884, but the proposal never reached the Senate floor.

The program targets a 30pc reduction in CO2 emissions from gasoline and diesel fuel use in the US northeast by 2032 from a 2002 base year.

“Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether or not this will be on the agenda for a special session in September,” Jordan Stutt, director of carbon programs at the Acadia Center energy think tank, said. “But we are continuing to urge policymakers to take action on this with urgency. This cannot wait.”

The push follows a recent report from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) that showed transportation emissions climbing and recommended that the state join TCI-P.

“There seems to be a lack of urgency to rein in transportation pollution and the longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it will be to meaningfully address that problem,” Stutt said.

Environmental group Save the Sound is also trying to rally support for the program, although its leaders are not as optimistic about a vote in September.

“I think they were trying to keep things focused so they did not open a can of worms with having a bunch of competing proposals in this session,” said Charles Rothenberger, climate and energy attorney for the group. “That being said, I think the possibility is still open in terms of coming back for a subsequent session before the regular February session.”

Representative Joe Gresko (D) last week said he hopes to have TCI “under consideration at a future special session, possibly in November,” but said that the proposal would not be taken up at the September session. Senate Transportation Committee co-chair Will Haskell said he “continues to support a cap-and-invest program that will reduce carbon emissions and improve greener transportation infrastructure.”

But opponents like Senate Republican leader Kevin Kelly are pushing back, calling TCI a “gas tax.” Kelly has urged Lamont to focus on maximizing investment in the state via federal dollars rather than to try to push this legislation.

Lamont’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Lamont at the end of 2020 signed an initial agreement with Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC, that called for the four jurisdictions to launch the program as early as 2023, with next year to serve as an emissions reporting period.

But the deal requires at least three states to complete the necessarily legislation or regulation to formally launch the program, which does not seem likely given roadblocks in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The program was developed through the TCI, a collaboration of 13 states and the District of Columbia. The TCI-P was tentatively set to launch next year and begin compliance in 2023 with a CO2 budget of about 42.1mn metric tonnes.

This piece was authored by Julia Martinez and published in the Argus Media newsletter

Connecticut falls behind state’s GHG goals: ‘We told you so,’ says Acadia Center

Connecticut’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rose 2.7% from 2017 to 2018, according to the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), meaning the state is not on track to meet emissions reduction targets lawmakers set in 2008. Rising transportation emissions are the largest factor, according to the agency.

Connecticut’s Global Warming Solutions Act requires the state to reduce economywide GHG emissions 80% below 2001 levels by 2050, with an interim target of 45% below 2001 levels by 2030. The electric sector has made significant progress toward the goal, but overall “there is urgent work to be done,” DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said in a statement.

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The rise in Connecticut’s 2018 GHG inventory did not surprise the nonprofit Acadia Center, which has been sounding the alarm for years.

“We told you so,” Jordan Stutt, Acadia’s carbon programs director, said in an email.  

The group says energy efficiency is the cheapest way to reduce building emissions, but with “low-hanging” upgrades like LED lighting now complete, the state will need to invest in building retrofits with a particular focus on low- and moderate-income residents.

Acadia also wants to see Connecticut lawmakers — who will meet in an upcoming special session to consider extending the governor’s pandemic-related emergency powers — to pass legislation enabling the state’s participation in the regional Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P) to reduce vehicle emissions.

 

Read the full article in Utility Dive here

Newly-Released Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report Documents Failure of State Policies to Combat Climate Change

HARTFORD, CT –  Today, the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) announced the release of the 2018 Connecticut Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory report.  Much progress has been made and Acadia Center applauds DEEP for making these gains. However, this report concludes that the state needs to do more to address the climate crisis.  The 2018 GHG Inventory tracks the state’s progress toward meeting the economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets established in the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA). The report is clear: Connecticut is not on track to meet its 2030 and 2050 GHG targets and is failing to meet the goals laid out in the 2008 Global Solutions Warming Act.

Acadia Center urges the state to take bolder action to reduce greenhouse emissions. The 2021 legislative session failed to achieve far-reaching climate legislation. Bills that addressed priorities identified in the inventory report as key emissions reductions policies, including support for the Transportation and Climate Initiative and mandatory reporting on building energy consumption, did not pass. Acadia Center supports both of these bills.

“Connecticut has an opportunity to turn this ship around and build back from the failed efforts to address the egregious greenhouse gas and carbon emissions that thwart the fight against climate change” said Amy McLean, Acadia Center State Director and Senior Policy Advocate.

In order to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, Connecticut must do more to address emissions from the transportation and buildings sectors. Below, Acadia Center identifies key strategies to help Connecticut lower its transportation and buildings emissions.

Transportation
The primary culprit behind Connecticut’s climate failure is the transportation sector, which now accounts for more climate pollution than Connecticut’s electricity and residential sectors combined.

Despite the clear science on climate change and the increasing pollution from the transportation sector, Connecticut’s policymakers have failed to act with the necessary urgency to address this challenge. Time after time, practical solutions have been rejected in favor of inaction.

Fortunately, the upcoming special session offers Connecticut legislators an opportunity to be leaders on this critical issue by passing ambitious, equitable legislation to enable the state’s participation in the Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P).

“Proactive measures to reduce transportation pollution, like TCI-P, will not only help to meet climate targets, but will create jobs, boost the economy, provide better mobility options, and improve public health,” said Jordan Stutt, Acadia Center’s Carbon Programs Director.

Buildings
Energy efficiency is the least-cost way for Connecticut to reduce emissions from buildings. With the decline of low-hanging fruit like more efficient light bulbs, the state’s efficiency programs have an opportunity to reinvest in deeper savings from whole-building retrofits—especially in low- and moderate-income homes and rentals, whose occupants have not benefited from the same access to program incentives as other homes.

Ramping up installation of weatherization measures like insulation and air sealing reduces emissions, saves money, and decreases the up-front cost of building electrification. Connecticut only insulates 0.1% of its housing stock each year, compared to Massachusetts’ 1.2% per year. Weatherizing more buildings is an indispensable strategy for achieving Connecticut’s climate targets.

It will be impossible to meaningfully reduce emissions from buildings in Connecticut without immediate, widespread building electrification. Heat pumps can provide efficient space heating, air conditioning, and water heating for any building in the state, even on the coldest winter days. The 2022-24 Conservation and Load Management Plan is the perfect opportunity for the state’s two electric utilities to embrace cold-climate heat pumps.

“The searing temperatures in the beginning of the summer and the historic rainfall and flooding that took the lives of dozens of people in the Northeast less than two weeks ago are the reality of climate change,” said Amy McLean. “It is time to address the problems with real solutions that will make a difference. The legislature, the Lamont Administration, and the voting public can work together to make it happen. The time is now.”

Media Contact:

Amy McLean, Connecticut Director and Senior Policy Advocate
amcleansalls@acadiacenter.org, 860-246-7121 x204, cell: 860 478-912521

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Acadia Center is a regionally focused non-profit organization headquartered in Rockport, Maine, working to advance a clean energy future that benefits all.

United States Baulks at the Political Cost of a Carbon Price

The Green New Deal was introduced with great fanfare on Capitol Hill by lawmakers Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey and hailed as the United States’ flagship package to combat climate change in 2019. Notably, for such a package, it did not contain any carbon pricing mechanism. Then, Joe Biden’s $1.7 trillion infrastructure plan launched in May 2021—fundamentally the administration’s central climate change mitigation policy package—also did not include carbon pricing.

The US is becoming an outlier on the international stage. According to the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a US environmental non-profit organisation, about half of the nations signed up to the Paris Agreement plan to—or already do—use market-based approaches to help achieve emissions reduction. Globally, 22% of the world’s emissions are already covered by carbon pricing, notes Jessica Green at the University of Toronto and a critic of carbon pricing.

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In the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) region—one of the US’s few state-level programmes that spans eleven northeast states—power sector emissions have fallen more quickly on average than the rest of the country while the region’s economies have thrived, notes Jordan Stutt at the Acadia Centre, a clean energy, research and advocacy group in Maine. Without RGGI, emissions would have been 24% higher from 2009 to 2015, a Duke University study found.

Read the full article in Foresight- Climate and Energy here

Is a ban on new natural gas hookups on the table for Aquidneck Island?

PROVIDENCE — If there’s a frontline in the battle over natural gas in Rhode Island, it has to be Aquidneck Island.
It’s where thousands of people in Middletown and Newport lost heat 2½ years ago when an extraordinary set of mishaps resulted in an interruption to their gas supply on some of the coldest days of winter.
It’s where National Grid is working on a long-term plan to shore up service and, in the meantime, wants to continue to operate a temporary plant that can tap into liquefied stores of natural gas when necessary.
And it’s also where a pair of leading environmental groups has formally petitioned state regulators to enact a moratorium on new gas connections to help curtail use of a fossil fuel that is a key driver of climate change.
The request from the Conservation Law Foundation and the Acadia Center is the latest twist in an ongoing debate about the future of gas on the island, which literally sits at one of the endpoints of the pipeline network that sends the fuel around New England, making it especially vulnerable to disruptions to delivery.

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Even though the siting board didn’t immediately give his group what it wants, Hank Webster, Rhode Island director of Acadia, expressed satisfaction that a moratorium is still on the table.

“A moratorium, paired with targeted efficiency and electrification improvements, will deliver consumer benefits directly into people’s homes and businesses,” he said in an email. “Sinking tens of millions of ratepayer dollars into new long-lived gas infrastructure just doesn’t make sense, given the need for [Rhode Island] to cut greenhouse gas pollution as fast as we can.” 

Read the full article in the Providence Daily Journal here

Joint Statement on Approval of TCI Ballot Question by Massachusetts Attorney General


BOSTON — As the extreme weather across Massachusetts and beyond makes clear, we face a climate crisis that threatens our Commonwealth. Severe storms, flooding, drought and dangerous heat affect us all. This crisis demands clear action and responsible leadership.

The Transportation and Climate Initiative, or TCI, will benefit residents all across Massachusetts and beyond as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing carbon emissions. TCI will help protect our environment and health while also improving vital transportation services on which we all depend.

Transportation pollution, which is responsible for over 40 percent of carbon emissions in the region, harms everyone, but particularly our most vulnerable residents in Environmental Justice communities, children and seniors. At the same time, our aging transportation infrastructure urgently needs new investment to make it more equitable, more reliable and safer.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, TCI will generate investments in clean transportation alternatives, including those designed to reverse historical trends and advance equitable outcomes in communities that have been underserved by transportation infrastructure or disproportionately impacted by tailpipe emissions.

The ballot question proposed by TCI opponents threatens our environment, our health, and our transportation. But that’s not all. This poorly drafted, overly broad petition could threaten any policy or revenue source designed to eliminate pollution from transportation.  That includes both existing revenue sources and potential future policies which benefit families and communities most burdened by transportation pollution.

We are confident that if this petition makes it onto the ballot, Massachusetts voters will join Governor Baker, other elected officials, civic leaders and advocates in opposing this ballot question, and supporting a bipartisan, regional approach to reducing air pollution while modernizing our transportation system.

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Transportation for Massachusetts (T4MA) is a diverse coalition of more than 100 member and partner organizations with a stake in improving transportation across the Commonwealth. Our coalition advocates at the state, federal, and local levels for transportation policies that are innovative, sustainable, and environmentally friendly. We want a transportation system that strengthens our economy and our communities, while also being safer, healthier, more affordable and reliable. Learn more at t4ma.org.

Acadia Center advances bold, effective, and equitable clean energy solutions for a livable climate and a stronger, more equitable economy.forms strategic alliances and engages all stakeholders—legislators, business and community leaders, advocacy and environmental justice groups—to press for next-generation solutions and ensure long-term results. See acadiacenter.org.

MASSPIRG Education Fund is an independent, non-partisan group that works for consumers and the public interest. MASSPIRG Education Fund is part of The Public Interest Network, which operates and supports organizations committed to a shared vision of a better world and a strategic approach to getting things done. Through research, public education and outreach, we serve as counterweights to the influence of powerful special interests that threaten our health, safety or well-being. Visit masspirg.org.

The Environmental League of Massachusetts (ELM) is committed to combating climate change and protecting our land, water, and public health. By creating diverse alliances and building the power of the environmental community, we use our collective influence to ensure Massachusetts is a leader in environmental and economic sustainability. Learn more at environmentalleague.org.

Ceres is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization working to solve the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. Through our powerful networks and global collaborations of investors, companies and nonprofits, we drive action and inspire equitable market-based and policy solutions throughout the economy. Learn more at ceres.org.

LivableStreets envisions a world where streets are safe, vibrant public spaces that connect people to the places where they live, work, and play, and advocates for practical, people-centered transportation systems in Metro Boston that can dismantle invisible barriers that divide neighborhoods, communities, and people. See livablestreets.info.

Media Contact:

Josh Ostroff
Transportation for Massachusetts
508.654.3330

Download Statement as PDF

Acadia Center Files Request for Immediate Gas Moratorium in Rhode Island

Acadia Center, joined by Conservation Law Foundation, filed a motion on August 18th with the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board requesting an immediate moratorium on new fossil gas (also called natural gas) connections across Aquidneck Island, which encompasses the communities of Newport, Portsmouth, and Middletown in Rhode Island. The filing comes as part of proceedings to consider National Grid’s proposals to build and operate new major energy facilities, like Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) vaporization equipment, that will support their plans for gas growth across Aquidneck island.

National Grid’s analysis predicts that it has already enrolled more customers than its gas supply can handle on the most extreme cold days, so it is seeking additional ways to bring more gas to the island. Acadia Center analysis demonstrates that through a combination of energy efficiency and electrification to reduce gas demand, the deficit could be completely eliminated in just a few years – likely at a lower cost than new gas investments. Expanding today’s limited gas demand response programs could exert significant downward pressure on gas demand and play a key role in reducing and even eliminating the claimed supply shortage. In a nutshell: “When you’re in a hole, STOP DIGGING!”

Acadia Center is asking the Energy Facility Siting Board (EFSB) to ensure that National Grid considers these viable clean energy options. The mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions limits enacted by the Act on Climate bill requires Rhode Island to reduce its GHG emissions 45% by 2030, 80% by 2040, and to net-zero levels by 2050. Each time National Grid makes a new gas connection, it is introducing yet more fossil fuel reliance for the next 20 to 30 years while locking in climate-harming emissions like carbon dioxide and methane that constantly leak from the gas distribution system.

National Grid has rebuffed Acadia Center’s repeated requests to establish a gas moratorium, even temporarily, on Aquidneck Island. Instead, National Grid plans would actively grow the size of the problem they have created and lock in more greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. By marketing gas conversions to new customers, National Grid’s plan would impose more costs on Rhode Island’s ratepayers, through construction of new gas equipment, gas mains, service line connections, and monthly customer charges.

Allowing this problem to grow does not benefit the people of Rhode Island. Climate- friendly clean energy solutions are available today and local communities on Aquidneck Island have requested a non-infrastructure approach for future energy needs. New gas connections only increase demand and exacerbate the supply concerns that National Grid is citing, and narrows the possibility that efficiency and electrification alone could solve the issue.

The EFSB will hear Acadia Center’s filing, at a hearing on August 26th. For more information regarding this proceeding, please contact Acadia Center’s Rhode Island Director, Hank Webster, at hwebster@acadiacenter.org.

More on the Aquidneck Island clean energy opportunity:

For more information:

Hank Webster, Rhode Island Director & Staff Attorney, hwebster@acadiacenter.org, 401.276.0600 x 402

 

As Maine reinvents its electricity grid, it will need greater public engagement, utility oversight and data-sharing

The U.S. electricity grid is a dinosaur, a huge, unwieldy relic of the past. Built with an expected lifespan of 50 years, much of its infrastructure is now more than 60 years old. Its outmoded design reflects an era when power flowed only one way — from generators to consumers.

Now the grid must become more of a beehive with energy entering and exiting in countless directions, given distributed energy resources like wind and solar generation. Like a hive, it needs substantial storage capacity. And it must handle increased demand: The New England regional grid is expected to see a doubling or tripling of electricity use by 2050 as heating and transportation shift from fossil fuel reliance.

Maine is just starting to confront the magnitude of this power sector overhaul. Last fall and winter, a diverse group representing environmental, consumer and industry interests, utilities and state agencies — the Maine Utility/Regulatory Reform and Decarbonization Initiative (MURRDI) — met repeatedly to discuss how to navigate this grid transformation, eventually releasing consensus recommendations. A few are already taking form, thanks to laws passed in the recent legislative session.

A more flexible grid

The grid of the future must be nimble, partly due to the intermittent nature of renewable power. Another factor driving load flexibility is that electricity consumers can now be active producers (in the case of rooftop solar) and can adjust their electricity use in response to price signals (such as time-of-use rates).

Electricity consumers who shift their use to lower demand times can — in industry lingo — “shave the peak.” Load flexibility offers numerous benefits, Kay Aikin, co-founder of Dynamic Grid in Portland, said at a June E2 Tech Forum: It reduces infrastructure needs and costs (including energy storage capacity), and helps cut carbon emissions.

As part of a newly passed law to advance energy storage, the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has opened a docket to look into rate design issues at Maine’s two dominant utilities, CMP and Versant, exploring how time-of-use rates could offer sufficient incentive to shift consumer behavior.

The PUC also has opened a docket to investigate the design and operation of electricity distribution, trying to determine how the system can accommodate substantially more power. The commission has hired consultants and expects their reports by early next year, according to Susan Faloon, a PUC spokesperson, and then “the commission will conduct a full investigation.”

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Whether these two efforts coordinate remains to be seen, but according to MURRDI participant Jeff Marks, Maine director for the nonprofit Acadia Center, “they need to get started quickly and they need to work together.” 

There’s widespread acknowledgment, he added, that “if we’re going to get to the scale of decarbonization we need to, we’re going to have to do planning in a completely different way than we do now.” A growing number of people, Marks included, are convinced that means separating grid planning functions from utility ownership. Who takes over that planning role is “still an open question,” he added, but “there’s going to have to be a discussion about utility structure going forward.”

Read the full article in the PenBay Pilot here

Massachusetts should be converting 100,000 homes a year to electric heat. The actual number: 461

When Massachusetts officials look into the not-so-distant future of 2030, they see 1 million homes across the state comfortably heated and cooled by sleek, efficient heat pumps, their old oil- and gas-burning systems — and the climate-warming emissions they spewed — relegated to the scrap heap.

But they are woefully behind pace to reach that lofty goal, and the more time that passes without an urgent response, the further out of reach it gets.

According to the state’s own plan, Massachusetts should be converting 100,000 homes a year from fossil fuels to electricity for heating and cooling. The reality is much different: Just 461 homes made the switch last year, according to data reviewed by the Globe.

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Of the 461 full-electric conversions in 2020, fewer than half were facilitated by Mass Save. The rest came from programs sponsored by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and the Department of Energy Resources. Both departments have offered programs that help homeowners purchase heat pumps. Though there may have been some additional electric conversions that year, experts in the field said that number is likely to be small.

Critics who have been watching the slow progress in Massachusetts are coming to the conclusion that, in its current form, the Mass Save program, which for 20 years has been effective at increasing energy efficiency, may no longer be the best vehicle now that the program’s directive is shifting to helping fight the climate crisis.

“It’s difficult to build new imperatives onto old programs,” said Matt Rusteika, who leads the buildings initiative at Acadia Center, a clean energy advocacy organization.

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Ben Butterworth, a Melrose homeowner and the senior manager for Climate and Energy Analysis at Acadia Center, said that out the five contractors he spoke with, only one was comfortable fully converting his oil-burning heating system to heat pumps. Because he works in the field and is well versed in the technology, he knew to look around for a more amenable contractor to help him make the switch. But others might be more likely to take the first contractor’s advice and keep a fossil fuel system for backup.

Read the full article in the Boston Globe here

The 6th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report – Acadia Center Reacts

Even if you can’t handle more bad news these days, you need to know about this. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN-sponsored body, recently released its latest report on the global climate crisis. Its findings are not surprising for those who have been following climate science as closely as Acadia Center, but heart-stopping, nonetheless. In a nutshell: the climate crisis is not far off. It’s a currently occurring crisis, “unequivocally” caused by humans, and worsening with every year we delay aggressive action.

The changes in climate that we’ve already seen – multiple episodes of extreme heat, rain, snow, and flooding throughout the Northeast in 2021 alone – are just the beginning. Tipping points – events which, once they occur, create feedback loops that worsen climate change, are already happening. Just this week, other scientists announced that the Gulf Stream (the cross-Atlantic current of water from Florida to Europe) is weakening and may collapse entirely,  driving up sea level rise in New England faster than anywhere else (and causing famine and disaster for Europe and Africa).

The IPCC report discusses tipping points which are predicted to come a decade sooner than the IPCC estimated only 3 years ago. In the 2015 Paris Agreement, 196 countries of the world set the goal of limiting global warming to below 2˚ Celsius higher than pre-industrial temperatures. This report concludes we’ve already crossed the 1˚ mark and may hit the 1.5˚ global mark by 2030.

What will it look like if we don’t act?

Think about what happens in your family in a typical decade:  births, deaths, weddings, graduations. Life. But how might all that change if we don’t act? My children will be in high school in 2030. They will still be children. But the world is likely to look very different by then, let alone what it will be like when they are young adults or older adults, for the changes that have already been set in motion are irreversible for centuries.

But there is hope. Change is possible and  doable. Both the IPCC report and Acadia Center analysis show that ending our use of fossil fuels will have an impact. The sooner, the better. The faster we reach at least net-zero CO2 emissions and rebuild carbon sinks, the sooner we can change the trajectory of the global climate crisis and begin to save not just future generations, but ourselves.

 

From: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58130705

In the last year alone, Acadia Center has helped the states of the Northeast set mandatory climate targets, hold state agencies responsible for meeting those climate targets, empower energy efficiency programs to consider climate in planning for efficiency. In Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and ISO-NE, Acadia Center set their course for a clean energy future. Next up: ending incentives that promote new fossil fuel use and pressing Connecticut and Rhode Island to take on the climate crisis and  the transportation crisis by passing legislation to advance transportation and climate justice through the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI).

What can you do?

 Make your voice heard. Reach out to your civic leaders to take climate seriously now. If they made promises to address climate change, hold them to it. If they haven’t, demand that they do. Amplify the voices of youth and vulnerable communities who face the brunt of this crisis. Stop using fossil fuels. Keep recycling. Replace your old, inefficient appliances and cars with better, safer, electric ones. Weatherize your home and help others to weatherize theirs. Walk, cycle, take public transit instead of driving. Read more, talk about the climate crisis more. Use less… way less.

And, if you’re so inclined, donate to non-profits like Acadia Center who are taking on the systemic causes of the climate crisis and ensuring that we make this decade count. Because, if anything, this new report proves that now is when our work is needed the most.