STOP CLIMATE SELLOUT TO UTILITY COMPANIES
Deforestation for sand-mining and industrial solar in Carver, MA. Image from Community Land and Water Coalition
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This summer, the Massachusetts legislature failed to pass a climate bill. House leadership would pass only a Siting and Permitting giveaway to utility companies. Senate leadership held firm that any climate bill must include reductions in fossil fuels and plastics, and Environmental Justice (EJ) provisions. The failure scrapped these and other crucial climate legislation—for example, a requirement, passed by both House and Senate, for MassPort to prioritize state climate goals in every new project.
GOVERNOR GREENWASHES
Now Governor Healey has submitted a new supplemental budget bill to resolve issues left on the table. For climate, she only includes the House’s Siting and Permitting bill and the EJ provision. Her bill masquerades as “streamlining” so-called clean energy projects. But it will increase environmental damages and increase profits for utilities and their shareholders—who are among the big donors to Governor Healey and also to the Boston Globe, which repeats Healey’s greenwashing in its coverage.
We need a climate bill that will replace methane gas infrastructure to meet climate goals and to prevent doubling utility fees. Utility companies profit primarily from charging for the infrastructure they build and maintain. Healey’s proposal will allow them to build a second energy infrastructure system for renewables without removing any gas infrastructure. In other words, Healey’s proposal will allow utilities to bill ratepayers for two sets of infrastructure. As proposed, this bill virtually guarantees increasing popular opposition to renewable energy projects because of higher fees. We need a bill that will replace the methane gas system!
Utility companies also seek profits from timber—clearcutting forests—and the governor delivers, riding roughshod over local democracy. Her bill strips localities’ ability to require that renewable energy projects be sited in environmentally responsible ways. Nobel Prize-winning scientist William Moomaw explains that we should not be cutting down forests for solar: (1) Harvesting timber releases more carbon than fires and all other disturbances combined. (2) According to a joint Harvard/Mass Audubon report, Massachusetts can produce enough solar energy to meet state net-zero emission goals without cutting forests. It’s not green to cut forests.
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO ENSURE REAL CLIMATE ACTION!
Please reach out to your legislators and the governor today. Tell them to require all the following climate provisions:
- Reduce fossil fuel use, phase out methane gas, and stop subsidizing biomass.
- Require every renewable energy project to be environmentally responsibly sited with little or no deforestation and with independent scientific verification of environmental impacts.
- Require a Cumulative Impact Analysis in all Environmental Justice communities to ensure justice-centered siting of every energy project.
- Require MassPort to prioritize and promote state climate goals in every new project.
- Reduce plastics and forever chemicals: Ban PFAS, synthetic turf, and single-use plastics, and update the Bottle Bill.
Tell your legislators not to fall for Healey’s greenwashing. Passing only the Siting and Permitting bill is a bargain with the Devil that exchanges our children’s future for corporate profits.
Take Action Now
NOT A LOT OF TIME?
With one click, you can make a difference! Send an email to your state legislators and to the governor urging them to support a climate bill with all these provisions.
HAVE TIME & ENERGY TO DIG IN?
Join us and our climate allies at the Statehouse to make your voice heard!
Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Team’s Press Conference and Rally
Tuesday, Sept. 24th at 12 noon
Meet at Nurse’s Hall, 2nd Floor of the Boston Statehouse
You are invited to
- a) wear a suit jacket and play a legislator “kicking the climate can”
- b) or wear red and hold a sign with our call for a robust climate bill now!
SAMPLE SIGNS:
- Site solar responsibly! No logging or mining for solar!
- Phase out gas! Stop GSEP! [GSEP = Gas System Enhancement Program]
- Environmental Justice now!
- Make MassPort prioritize climate!
RSVP here: https://bit.ly/DontKick
Extinction Rebellion Boston’s Rally, Die-In & Dance Party
Thursday, Sept. 26th at 5:30 pm
NE Corner of Boston Common, across from the Statehouse
Wear clothes suitable for lying on the ground – dying symbolically – and help us communicate to legislators that we need climate action now!
RSVP here: https://xrboston.org/action/die-in-sept26-2024/
Thank you for all you do! You make a difference with every letter, action, and vote!
The ORMA GND-Climate Crisis Working Group and the TreesPG Network
To get the Zoom link and join the TreesPG Network at our next meeting, please fill out the short form here: https://tinyurl.com/join-TreesPG.