Eben E. B. Bein, MA Field Organizer for Our Climate and Adult Administrator for the MA Youth Climate Coalition
Tl;dr: A bill headed for law containing a few key campaign wins on just infrastructure siting and halting gas expansion. YAY!
It has been especially difficult recently for climate justice advocates, especially youth, to feel our power and influence over the legislative process. The Massachusetts Legislature remains one of the least transparent, least productive legislatures in the country. On top of that, after hundreds of meetings, testimonies, letters, phone calls, and rallies (including this recent one with Boston Globe coverage) on behalf of the MA Youth Climate Coalition’s 7 priority bills and a whole slew of endorsements, the legislature ended its session in July, not with its usual 1, but with 0, comprehensive climate bills passed! Yikes.
But change is nonlinear. During the off-season, Representatives Jeff Roy & Richard Haggarty and Senators Michael Barrett & Cindy Creem, completed a special climate-focused “Conference Committee”—a small, closed-door series of meetings in which key members of both chambers compare notes on a theme and combine as many parts as they can into a huge omnibus bill (S.2967) that, as of 10/30/24 has passed the Senate and is highly likely to pass the House and get a signature from the Governor.
To be clear, this process is highly problematic. Rather than tapping the wisdom of all of us, represented by the full 200 members of the legislature when the legislature is actually running, 4 leaders under strict supervision of the House Speaker and Senate President stitch together their own version of many bills by their own judgment. These leaders and the Speaker and President hear more often from utilities and other corporate entities who have the sophisticated lobbying structures to influence their final product while most advocates have long since been cut out of the process. These leaders then describe the result as “fully baked” and beyond amendment. All the rank and file members of the legislature must just vote “yes” or jeopardize sinking an enormous ship on which all their most politically important relationships ride.
That said, the language and behavior of these key leaders demonstrated our growing power. In a recent article, Chair Roy admitted “Once we had …. the utilities on board, it was easy to move forward”, revealing in a way we’ve never seen before the influence of utilities on this process. Senate president Spilka took a stronger stand against the gas utilities than she has before, refusing to compromise on some of the reform pieces that Cindy Creem and Michael Barrett have been pushing for. And Barrett, a determined but hit-or-miss climate champion who has been an obstacle on many core Environmental Justice has credited Mass Power Forward leadership with helping get key, justice language into the bill. We have gotten closer and closer to the most consolidated and protected centers of power and we are changing it.
And it’s not just the language and behavior of these leaders that is shifting, but the actual bill language itself. Here are some major victories:
Energy Infrastructure Siting—Cumulative Impact Analysis
So much climate-related harm comes from where energy infrastructure is put. Historically, fossil fuel infrastructure and the associated pollution has very consistently ended up in Black, Brown, low-income, and otherwise marginalized communities. Even now, in the name of an urgent transition to renewable energy, green infrastructure has been installed or planned in ways that reinforce that violence.
A critical way to stop that is to force any utility, company, or agency who wants to build something to analyze not just the impact of that project itself but how that impact intersects with historical environmental burdens and harms already in that area. Here’s some language in the bill originally written by our frontline partners at the Environmental Justice Legislative Table:
“Cumulative impact analysis”, a written report produced by the applicant assessing impacts and burdens, including … any existing environmental burden and public health consequences impacting a specific geographical area … if the analysis indicates that such a geographical area is subject to an existing unfair or inequitable environmental burden, the analysis shall identify any: (i) environmental and public health impact from the proposed project… (ii) potential impact or consequence from the proposed project that would increase or reduce the effects of climate change on such a geographical area; and (iii) proposed potential remedial actions to address any disproportionate adverse impacts to the environment, public health and climate resilience…”
In other words, the onus is now on utilities, companies, and agencies to spell out how the impacts of their project combines with the history of a community. While this bill does not (yet) legally tie the approval of a project to the results of the analysis, this energetically requires those proposing the project to make a compelling case about the community harms and benefits.
While incomplete, I still call this an unequivocal WIN for climate justice. With this we say, no ignoring the impacts of our energy system. We say, we will not allow the scary abstraction of climate change in the future distract us from taking care of the people who are hit first and worst historically and right now. We say, unjust solutions are not really solutions. We say, yes to moving in lock step with our environmental justice partners into a justice climate future.
Gas Moratorium:
We know that expansion of our “natural” gas infrastructure is a step backward not a step forward. So we have supported a large complex campaign with the bottom line to halt gas infrastructure expansion. There are many pieces of this legislation that we did not secure yet. However, in the words of my fellow organizer Jess Nahigian at the Sierra Club, we did win:
“Changes to our methane gas system, including allowing utilities to sell geothermal; giving the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) the power to deny new requests for gas expansion into new territories; allowing the DPU to deny new requests for gas if adequate substitutes are available; changing the mandate of our gas leak repair program to include “remediating” pipes instead of “replacing” them and requiring the program comply with our emissions goals; repealing a requirement that our gas leak repair program promote more gas use.
We got some of what we fought for here! The bill doesn’t include language that would stop the Springfield-Longmeadow Pipeline, but still. Yay, progress!
If you want more bill details, check out this summary by our friends at the Sierra Club.
We can add these wins to another we did achieve last spring with the Zero Carbon Renovation Fund (ZCRF) coalition. We managed to slip some line items into the Affordable Homes Act (H.4977) bill to include a total of $425 million for energy efficiency and decarbonization authorizations, with $150 million for public housing decarbonization and $275 million for sustainable and green housing initiatives.toward the enormous project of retrofitting buildings to make them more energy efficient, electrified and otherwise lower carbon.
To be clear, our work is far from done. This bill needs to get across the Governor’s desk. We need to be sure the executive branch actually administrates the solutions they promise. We need to admit that these victories do not represent complete campaigns on Gas Moratorium or on Just Infrastructure Siting. And of course, there are still plenty of major campaigns for which the legislature has nothing remarkable to show: Interdisciplinary Climate Justice Education, Air Quality, Polluters Pay, Sunlight/Transparency, Teaching Native American Culture & History and more.
Still we should take this moment to celebrate! Any time we are able to carry a core part of our values through this very trying part of making change, we should recognize each other and our work. We should sense the impact we have made and be grateful and proud to embody it.
Thank you for your advocacy. It does make change happen, even in the legislature.
Special thanks to Jess Nahigian, State Political Director at the Massachusetts Sierra Club and the rest of our adult allies in Mass Power Forward for the intel and ongoing advocacy that made the above bill and blog possible.