Massachusetts State Senator
“The pandemic really dampened economic and physical activities. It helped reduce emissions,” said Sen. Michael Barrett, D-Lexington. “We reached the required limit because of that. We didn’t get there by the virtue of our climate action.”
On Thursday, Assistant Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Katherine Clark (MA-5) celebrated the historic American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding being used to replace Lexington Public School buses with an electric fleet. The 2021 law made available $7 million to replace old diesel school buses with new electric school buses. Assistant Speaker Clark was joined by State Senator Michael Barrett, State Representative Michelle Ciccolo, and local officials. Lexington is receiving $350,000 to purchase new electric buses and fulfill the promise of safe, efficient transportation options for every student in the district.
“I see a real threat here,” said state Senator Michael Barrett, co-chairman of the Legislature’s telecom and energy committee. “For Massachusetts, the new generation of essential workers will be the young person who wants to do hands-on work in clean energy, not in the front office but on the front lines. Massachusetts has not had a focus on being a welcoming place for young blue-collar workers. … We have shortages as far as the eye can see and no plan to do much about it.”
State lawmakers and environmental advocates welcomed the proposal, which was required by the state’s landmark climate law that took effect last year and mandates that the state cut its emissions by 50 percent below 1990 levels by the end of the decade and effectively eliminate them by 2050. But they hoped regulators would make changes to the proposal before the law requires it to be enacted by the end of the year.
“There’s real progress here, and yet I’m disappointed,” said state Senator Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat and one of the climate bill’s lead negotiators. “What is missing is significant. This proposal gives permission to put new natural gas infrastructure into the ground, when we know those assets will have to be abandoned to meet our climate goals.”
The administration’s delay, and reports that developers are seeking to weaken the code, prompted the Massachusetts legislature’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy to hold the Jan. 19 hearing to consider a suite of building electrification bills that could backstop the state’s executive branch.
“To reach our climate goals, we need to begin constructing buildings that do not rely on fossil fuels for heating,” committee co-chairs Sen. Mike Barrett and Rep. Jeff Roy said in a Jan. 18 statement. “On the off chance that the stretch energy code either does not emerge soon or emerges but departs from legislative intent, we’re looking at contingency steps the Legislature may want to take.”
The chairmen of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, Sen. Michael Barrett and Rep. Jeffrey Roy, said before the hearing that they were concerned that the Baker administration has not yet produced a draft of the municipal opt-in net-zero stretch energy code that last year’s climate law requires to be in place by the end of this year.
The Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs “told the public to expect a draft of the code by last fall. But something’s happened. It’s not seen the light of day, and we hear some developers want it weakened,” Barrett and Roy said in a joint statement.
The law requires the Baker administration produce a draft of this “stretch” energy code by the end of 2022, but legislators said they were expecting one sooner.
“[The Baker administration] told the public to expect a draft of the code by last fall. But something’s happened. It’s not seen the light of day, and we hear some developers want it weakened,” said Sen. Michael Barrett and Rep. Jeffrey Roy, chairmen of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, in a statement. “On the off chance the stretch energy code either does not emerge soon, or emerges but departs from legislative intent, we’re looking at contingency steps the Legislature may want to take.”
The state’s new climate legislation aimed to do just that, and required the state to come up with a new building code that would allow cities and towns to move ahead.
The Baker administration promised a draft by fall 2021 but failed to deliver. And now some climate-concerned legislators want the administration to answer for it.
“Each additional day of delay means one day less of public discussion,” said Senator Mike Barrett, who cochairs the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, which is scheduled to discuss the delays — and what to do about them — at a hearing Wednesday. “The clock is ticking down, and Baker’s people know it.”
Committee co-chair Sen. Michael Barrett was critical of removing the price cap. Barrett felt that with only two bidders in the last round in which both received contracts, and just a handful of developers on the East Coast, there was too little competition to ensure a lower price without a cap.
“We are stuck in a situation where we’re going to have to deal with a very small universe of potential players,” said Barrett, who noted that with no price limit on their bids, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey energy contracts were 43%, 68%, and 100% higher, respectively, than what Massachusetts obtained with an upper limit on pricing.
Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, the Senate chair of the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, has raised concerns about removing the cap at a time when the state is relying more and more on low electricity prices to bolster its climate change efforts. He has done price comparisons showing that Massachusetts procurements for offshore wind are priced well below those of other states where price caps do not exist.