The National Sea Grant Law Center is pleased to announce the availability of "Offshore Renewable Energy: A Regulatory Primer." The Regulatory Primer provides basic information on regulatory authorities with respect to offshore wind, wave, tidal, and ocean thermal energy conversion projects. It also briefly discusses state authority, local concerns, and an emerging alternative management framework - marine spatial planning. Its brevity and straight-forward explanations should help Sea Grant extension agents, communicators, local decision-makers and anyone else struggling to understand the complex regulatory framework.

The Regulatory Primer is available online at
http://www.olemiss.edu/orgs/SGLC/National/offshore.pdf

Please contact Stephanie Showalter at sshowalt@olemiss.edu for more information. Hardcopies are available upon request, although the numbers are limited.

The world’s oceans are like an alien world. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that 95 percent of them remain unexplored. But the mysteries do not start a mile below the surface of the sea. They start with the surface itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/
science/28ocea.html?hpw

In my opinion, it is still feasible to solve the global warming problem before we pass tipping points that would guarantee disastrous irreversible climate change. But urgent strong actions are needed. These actions would have multiple benefits, providing a helpful economic stimulus, improving public health, and increasing energy independence and national security.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/
mailings/2009/20090713_Strategies.pdf

As Island towns refine and strengthen their regulatory authority over local wind turbine projects, the Martha's Vineyard Commission (MVC), as the Island's comprehensive land use planning agency, is considering the extent of its role in the process.

MVC executive director Mark London said this week that the commission is closely watching two key pieces of state legislation that will influence development of wind power on land and sea.

http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/
news/2009/07/30/wind-energy-legislation.php

A bicyclist on his first ride in Boston pedals tentatively into the furious rush-hour snarl of Charles Circle on a stormy morning. He signals that he needs to go left. The BMW behind him wants to go straight. Guess who wins. The biker brakes hard to avoid a collision, earning an angry honk from the Honda Civic behind him.

This is biking in Boston, city of clogged streets, minimal bike lanes, and drivers who often act as though two-wheeled vehicles have no right to the road. City planners want to change all that - by putting more bikers in the streets. They intend to roll out what would be the nation’s first citywide bike-sharing system next spring, making hundreds of bicycles at dozens of stations across Boston available to anyone who can swipe a credit card.

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/
2009/07/29/hub_to_beckon_bikers_with_sharing_program/