Letter from the president.

• Author: Campbell, Bradley
• Position: LETTERS - Environmental protection - President's page

As I write this, New England has just celebrated two remarkable milestones. First, in early May, Block Island Power turned off its dirty diesel generators and began powering the island's homes and businesses with electricity generated by the five-turbine wind farm that began turning off its shores last fall.

And, just a few weeks ago, Brayton Point Station, one of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in New England, shut its doors for good, leaving Massachusetts entirely coal free--and the rest of New England not far behind.

These are successes worth noting in any year, but they are especially poignant in 2017. Even as we celebrate here at home, we can't ignore that in Washington we have an administration spinning fables about the return of dirty coal, promising to open fragile Atlantic waters to oil and gas drilling, and purging climate science (and scientists] from its ranks. The recently proposed federal budget sacrifices the public interest to polluters' interest. And, of course, the administration has abandoned the historic Paris climate accord.

If Washington is to be believed, protecting our environment, our climate, and our communities is a burden to business and a drain on the economy. But we here in New England know that the opposite is true. We've seen time and again that safeguarding clean air, clean...