With horns blaring and percussion booming, the Leftist Marching Band greeted the crowd as they entered the South Church on State Street for a July 30 rally in support of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan. Despite the humidity and light rain, nearly 100 local advocates for clean energy attended to hear Portsmouth mayor Robert Lister and Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen speak about, and advocate for, the EPA’s plan, which was released in late July and formally adopted on Aug. 3.
The plan is the EPA’s first nationwide standard that addresses climate change. It sets systematic standards for carbon dioxide emission reductions, with the aim of reducing nationwide carbon from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels within the next 15 years. States will develop their own plans for cutting emissions, and, according to New Hampshire officials, the state is on track to meet those goals.
Sponsored by the nonprofit Climate Action Coalition and Sierra Club, the rally was hosted by Kathy Corkery of Sierra Club, who said the plan will “usher in a new standard for our country.”
During the event, Lister described how climate change has affected the Seacoast in the last century. “There has been a six- to seven-inch sea level rise on the Seacoast since 1927,” he said, adding that further rising sea levels can have an adverse effect on real estate and other sectors of the economy. In 2013, the city released a report on the city’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change and a plan for mitigating those effects.
“The time for action is now. We have the moral obligation to protect future generations,” Lister said. That’s what it’s all about … if this is going to happen anywhere, it’s going to happen in Portsmouth.”
During his remarks, Cohen scooped a quip from his time leading the ice cream company: “As we say at Ben & Jerry’s: if it’s melted, it’s ruined.” Cohen said reduced carbon emissions can create more jobs and allow new industries to thrive.
He also advocated for addressing a more deep-seated problem when it comes to large-scale systematic changes in federal regulations: money in politics. “We are using a form of monetary jiu jitsu,” he said. “We are using money to get money out of politics … That’s the biggest problem in our government. But, for now, march forward, march onward, and save our environment!”
“Anything we can do to clean up nationally has benefits to New Hampshire.” — Craig Wright of the N.H. Department of Environmental Services
The crowd poured out of the church and onto State Street, swelling into a mass carrying homemade signs and shouting chants. Chris Pamboukes, an employee at Revision Energy, an Exeter-based solar panel installation company, squeezed into the crowd and chanted calls to action with the group. Asked why he came, he said with a chuckle, “To walk the talk!” He added: “I talk a lot about concern for the environment and actions that need to be taken to move us to a post-carbon era.” An on-the-roof installer of solar panels, Pamboukes said working in renewable energy “is a way where I am able to do something for a living where every day is involved in pursuing something that I believe is right. I believe in climate science and that human-induced climate change poses a threat to our precious and complex ecosystem.”
Craig Wright, director of the air resources division of the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, said the agency is “cautiously optimistic” the new standards will dovetail with the emissions reductions the state has already achieved as part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). New Hampshire joined nine other states in RGGI in 2005; since then, Wright said, the state has cut emissions by 40 percent.
“Hopefully, we’re well on our way to meeting Clean Power Plan requirements,” he said.
The Clean Power Plan is “a very important first step to positioning the U.S. in leading the charge to fight against climate change,” Wright said. Any changes in national emissions will ultimately benefit New Hampshire and New England, he added.
“New England is kind of the tailpipe of the country; all our weather comes from the West or the South, and so all the emissions … filter through New England. Anything we can do to clean up nationally has benefits to New Hampshire,” he said.
According to Wright, DES has begun working on a proposed plan. The first step: reading through the some 1,500 pages of new EPA rules. The agency will work with the state’s Public Utilities Commission, Office of Energy and Planning, and other agencies on a plan, which must be submitted to the EPA by September of 2018. As the plan is developed, there will be opportunities for public comment, he said.
Portsmouth is home to two coal-burning power plants — Newington Station and Schiller Station, both owned by Eversource Energy (formerly known as Public Service of New Hampshire). Eversource spokesman Martin Murray said the company doesn’t anticipate any major changes to the plants as a result of the Clean Power Plan.
“In the big picture, we anticipate that because of our continued involvement … in RGGI, the state will be able to satisfy (the plan’s) requirements,” he said. “We don’t expect anything that’s going to require us to end up with new hardware or infrastructure added to our plants.”
Nor does the company expect the plan to increase electricity prices, Murray said. The biggest factor behind rising energy costs is the availability of natural gas, according to Murray.
“Natural gas is by far the largest single source of electricity production in New England, but so far, the supply system coming into New England” hasn’t improved, Murray said. “We expect in several years we’ll be in a better position, but in the short term, we do expect price volatility, especially in the winter months.”
An overview of the plan can be found at http://1.usa.gov/1M3eUxP.
Top of page: Portsmouth mayor Robert Lister speaks at a Climate Action rally on July 30. photo by Ian Frisch