Massachusetts State Senator
The leaders of Minute Man Arc, a non-profit that supports people with disabilities, are excited about their recent swing toward an electric van fleet. As the state urges wider electric vehicle adoption, other Concord groups are weighing their own projects.
With 12 chargers and 15 electric vans, Minute Man is “blazing a leadership path,” state Sen. Michael Barrett said.
Massachusetts lawmakers have reached an agreement on a bill that would make it easier for family members to obtain records of their disabled loved ones who lived in institutional housing. The governor is expected to sign it into law.
State Sen. Michael Barrett, who spearheaded the legislation in the Senate, said the goal of the bill is to serve families who have long been left in the dark while balancing privacy concerns.
“I’m feeling very good, that the House and the Senate made sure that this good, kind, sensible idea did not get lost,” he said. “This should give us more confidence that government works once in a while. It certainly is working in this case.”
Given a big job, the Special Commission on State Institutions has re-opened a long-neglected inquiry into Massachusetts facilities for people with mental health issues or intellectual or developmental disabilities. Its report examines the barriers that persist today for members of the public — including relatives and researchers — who have tried and failed to access the records of people who lived and died there.
Good piece from the Globe Editorial Board, who advocate for legislation like the bill I’ve filed that would open these records to the public.
“Demand is up for private aviation, the luxury that separates the 1% from the 0.1%.”
Is this disgusting or what? Massport, an arm of our own Massachusetts state government, mustn’t hand over its property at Hanscom to the plutocrats. Thank you WSJ for the good reporting.
MA Legislature to gas utilities: Good news. We’ve ended the anti-competitive tilt towards natural gas in MA law. Your “obligation to serve” only fossil fuel is over.
On a 37-3 vote, senators passed a bill that aims to better protect the identities and personal information of providers and those seeking abortion and gender-affirming care.
The bill, which beefs up a 2022 law, would restrict state agencies from sharing information with out-of-state investigations, require insurance companies in Massachusetts to limit access to patient electronic medical records, and require hospitals here to provide emergency abortions if medically necessary
“A major US engineering body this week gave the nation’s grid infrastructure a damning D+ score in its quadrennial school report-style assessment, which noted that “a large portion of the system exhibits significant deterioration” with “strong risk of failure”.
There are bright spots of course – not least in New England, where a study by the grid operator found that the region could absorb power from over 9GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050 with far less investment than previously anticipated.”
Can we have a little optimism, please? Clean energy and the Massachusetts climate movement have legs younger than Donald Trump’s. We’ll be alive and kicking when he is long gone.
And now for something different: Kudos to my amazing daughters, whose entrepreneurial embrace of happy endings makes me smile on my most challenging days.
State Sen. Mike Barrett posited to Davey that “there is a sense in which you’re rolling out SAFs, I think, as a shield and in order to disarm us,” a point that Davey heatedly denied, referencing an SAF startup in Charlestown in his defense. To this, Barrett replied: “We have lots of startups in Massachusetts that hope someday to cure cancer, and we certainly want to encourage them to try. But none of us go out and encourage our kids to smoke cigarettes because the cure is going to come in their lifetimes.”
“I hope that Massport appreciates that what is done today on climate is inadequate, and I hope it also appreciates that the policies have changed,” Barrett said. “I don’t pretend to be able to predict particular outcomes on particular projects, but I do know that Massport needs to take this seriously.”