Environment Massachusetts

An environmental group gathered Berkshire community leaders in Pittsfield, Massachusetts this week to detail their respective efforts at promoting renewable energy.

    Industries in Massachusetts are regularly releasing chemicals, beyond legal limits, into rivers and streams, according to a new report from the Environment Massachusetts Research and Policy Center.

Environmental activists launched a campaign Monday to win passage of a bill in Massachusetts that would commit the state to 100 percent renewable energy over the next few decades.

A statewide environmental group has recognized a number of western Massachusetts cities as clean energy leaders. Environment Massachusetts is recognizing about 15 communities for leading the way toward 100 percent renewable energy.

Environmental activists are planning a door-to-door canvass in Massachusetts this summer to promote adopting a 100 percent renewable energy policy. 

This effort comes as several energy-related bills are pending in the final weeks of the Massachusetts legislature’s two-year session. 

WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Ben Hellerstein, state director of Environment Massachusetts.

Activists warn solar power projects in Massachusetts are being stalled while legislators trade proposals behind closed doors on Beacon Hill in an effort to break a stalemate over a key incentive program.

For months now, advocates for clean energy, municipal officials, small business owners, and the solar power industry have sent letters and signed petitions urging state legislators to act immediately to lift the cap on net metering –  the system that pays solar power generators for the electricity sent to the power grid.

An environmental action group is launching an effort to encourage big box stores to utilize their rooftops for solar power.

The Massachusetts legislature recessed formal sessions for the year earlier this week without renewing a solar power incentive program.  It leaves many solar power projects across the state in limbo.

A pairs of reports by the advocacy group Environment Massachusetts highlight what it calls “game-changing” opportunities that can rapidly cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

An environmental advocacy organization is campaigning in Massachusetts to drum up public support for ending restrictions on a solar power incentive program.

Dozens of solar power projects in Massachusetts have stalled because limits have been reached on a program that compensates the owners of large solar arrays, according to an activist, a Co-op Power company executive, and a municipal official who spoke Tuesday on the steps of Springfield City Hall.

With Charlie Baker to be sworn in as governor of Massachusetts in less than one month, community leaders are urging the Republican to expand solar power in the commonwealth.

As governor-elect Charlie Baker pieces together his administration, advocates for solar power are urging the Massachusetts Republican to make the renewable energy source a key initiative.

A new study released today says a proposal by the Obama administration to reduce power plant emissions to combat climate change would also have benefits for people’s health.

A study from Harvard, Boston and Syracuse University scientists said there would be substantial health benefits if carbon emissions from power plants are reduced by the levels being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Environmentalists in Massachusetts are campaigning to make sure federal funding remains intact to preserve the commonwealth’s parks and natural resources.

A recent report shows the United States has taken a chunk out of its carbon dioxide emissions over the past seven years as a result of actions and policies.

Regional environmental groups have released a report highlighting a potential for growth in wind energy.

Environmental activists in Massachusetts are trying to launch a preemptive strike against hydraulic fracturing. While the controversial gas drilling practice has been the subject of fierce debate in New York for years it has drawn little attention in Massachusetts.

   The group Environment Massachusetts is urging Massachusetts lawmakers to enact a ban on fracking even though geologists and the petroleum industry insist the chances are remote the controversial gas drilling technique-- where water and chemicals are used to break rock--  would ever be used in the Bay State.

As the one-year anniversary of Superstorm Sandy approaches, environmental groups are looking at ways to prevent a similar weather event.

Environmentalists are pressing Beacon Hill lawmakers to back a bill that would ban the practice of fracking in Massachusetts.

Fracking refers to the natural gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing that pumps pressurized water mixed with sand and chemicals into well holes to crack open fissures in the ground.

Many environmental groups oppose the process saying it can lead to contaminated drinking water.