Category Archives: New England

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) is responsible for the development of offshore renewable energy in federal waters. While the first Gulf of Maine offshore wind lease sale is not expected until 2024, this post explores recent actions BOEM has taken to advance offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine and the agency activity we’re likely to see in the year ahead.… More

The State of Maine is expected to release the Maine Offshore Wind Roadmap in early 2023, and the global offshore wind industry should be watching. Preliminary details from the state’s roadmap—the focus of this post—clearly indicate that Maine is preparing to seize the significant opportunity presented by the Gulf of Maine offshore wind resource.

Maine’s offshore wind energy potential is ranked seventh in the nation, with more than 411 TWh/yr of offshore resource-generating potential.… More

Jerry Anderson of Drake University Law School recently did an interesting post regarding environmental enforcement.  I recommend the full post, but I particularly wanted to bring my readers’ attention to a figure Jerry included in the post.

For those who have worked in EPA Region 1, this may not be a total surprise – and yet it’s still shocking.  This picture is worth more than a thousand words,… More

On March 1, the Transportation Climate Initiative jurisdictions released a draft “model rule” that would provide a template for individual state rules governing the operation of the TCI Program.  Although only three states and the District of Columbia committed in December 2020 to implement TCI-P, the announcement on Monday indicated that the model rule “was developed by twelve” TCI jurisdictions.”  I guess that eight states like the model rule – just not enough at this point to commit to implementing it.… More

Yesterday, Massachusetts released its “2050 Decarbonization Roadmap.”  I’m tempted to call it a tour de force.  At the very least, it’s jam-packed with important issues.  One of the most valuable aspects of the Roadmap is its discussion of the potential tradeoffs among the different paths towards a decarbonized economy.  Acknowledging that the Roadmap contains much more good stuff than can be summarized in a single post,… More

Yesterday, I noted with enthusiasm the announcement that the states participating in the Transportation and Climate Initiative had released a new draft Memorandum of Understanding outlining the framework of what “RGGI for cars” might look like.  I also provided a cautionary note that the politics of TCI would be tricky and that imposing a carbon fee sufficient to attain the goal of funding an effective, low-carbon, transportation system for New England in the 21st Century might prove difficult. … More

Governor Baker addressed a room full of offshore wind stakeholders at “The Future of Offshore Wind” Forum hosted by the Environmental League of Massachusetts on Wednesday morning.  He applauded the developers, environmental groups, legislators and local students for the progress made in recent years which has led to a dramatic decrease in the price of offshore wind energy to ratepayers in recent years.

Thanks to a bill Governor Baker signed into law in 2016,… More

Yesterday, Massachusetts and the eight other New England and Mid-Atlantic states that participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative announced a proposed plan for the continued implementation of RGGI (the region’s cap-and-trade program) between the years 2020 and 2030.   The plan calls for an additional reduction of GHGs by 30% by 2030, beyond the RGGI 2020 levels. Emissions would be capped at about 75 million tons in 2021,… More

On September 23, DOER presented a straw proposal for the next phase of Massachusetts solar incentives. DOER’s ambitious proposal for a tariff-based program reflects a thoughtful development process and a laudable goal of crafting a program that is more efficient at promoting sustained solar deployment. There is plenty to like. But, DOER has bitten off quite a mouthful by proposing a structure that departs so dramatically from the SREC approach.  … More

Last Friday, the Senate Committee on Ways and Means released its version of the energy bill that passed the House earlier this month. Whereas the House bill would require distribution companies to procure 1,200 MW of offshore wind power by 2027 and 9,450,000 MWH of hydroelectric power by 2022, the Senate’s version would require 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030 and 12,450,000 MWH of “clean energy generation” by 2018.… More

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Northern Pass Transmission, LLC’s proposed 187-mile transmission line across the United States-Canada border in New Hampshire.

If approved, the line would have the ability to deliver 1200 MW of hydroelectric power from Quebec into southern New England—a potentially tantalizing amount of power for policymakers seeking to diversify the region’s generation portfolio and lower its GHG emissions.… More