News Clips

Boston Herald

Private jet owners are doubling down on their Hanscom investments. Insulting our intelligence as they injure our environment, they claim they’re doing us a favor!

From Chuck Collins and the Boston Herald: “I know the destruction you folks intend to wreak on Massachusetts and I resent it,” said state Senator Mike Barrett, who represents the four towns where Hanscom is located.

“Please don’t erect these bogus environmental rationales for something that has nothing whatsoever to do with relieving the crisis that faces us in terms of climate,” Barrett said at the developers’ public hearing. “Just be honest about it. This is all about becoming a little richer yourselves by helping people even richer than you.”

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Wall Street Journal

Reducing ferry flights, my ____. Here’s what more private jets out at Hanscom will mean. Massport, put up or shut up on being climate-conscious. Just say no to the Hanscom hangars.

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Bedford Citizen

Bedford students are on track to cut their waste by over 13 tons per school year. Lane Elementary School’s program involves sorting trash, recyclables, food, and liquids into different bins, and using a “share cart” for students to deposit unopened food packages. Kudos to the students and staff.

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GBH

Early education costs are high and getting higher. The Senate has taken note and just passed a bill to lower expenses for families. The bill expands access to childcare subsidies for lower-income families and caps fees for recipients at 7% of their income. It also makes permanent the pandemic-era “C3” grants, which provide monthly payments to many of the state’s early ed providers. Hats off to the Senate President, Sen. Rodrigues, and Sen. Lewis for making this a priority.

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Boston Globe

Data collected by the Massachusetts attorney general’s office shows that between 2015 and 2021, residents who signed up for competitive electric supply plans paid $525 million more than if they had continued buying electricity from their utility. Low-income residents were nearly twice as likely to be enrolled with competitive electric suppliers, and they consistently lost the most money. 

“This has been a 25-year experiment. It’s fair now to conclude on the basis of the evidence that [the market has] failed to produce value for large numbers of consumers,” said Senator Michael Barrett, the Democratic lawmaker who will help lead negotiations on a climate bill later this year. “At some point, you have to throw in the towel.” 

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GBH

Sen. Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat, told GBH News he sponsored the legislation — which would open Massachusetts’s state records after they have aged 75 years — in part because he worked at the Fernald School as part of a “buddy” program for disabled children decades ago when he studied at Harvard College. Barrett says he mentored a blind child who was housed in a ward with people who had “cognitive difficulties.”

“Did he belong there? We’ll never know until researchers can excavate the histories of the folks who were there and begin to determine why they were sent there and why they, in many cases, never found their way back into the community at all,” he said.

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Boston Globe

Offshore wind is coming through, delivering onshore jobs and clean power, despite topsy-turvy business conditions in the short term. Smart to stay the course and stick to the plan.

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New York Times

Developers of hangars out at Hanscom for super-polluting private jets for the super-rich, the IRS is dinging your business model. Massport, please get your head out of the bucket of money it’s buried in, and realize you’re morally tainted:

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Boston Globe

Customers typically have three options: stay on their utility’s basic service plan; opt into a municipal aggregation program if their town buys energy for its residents in bulk; or buy from third-party energy suppliers. One problem: Customers who sign up for third-party suppliers routinely get a bad deal. An Attorney General report found that from 2015-2021, third-party retailers overcharged customers by $525 million. Smart commentary by Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu:

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Boston Globe

These initiatives tackle huge issues, like the convenience of charging for condo and apartment dwellers, the greening of Uber and Lyft, the task of keeping chargers in good working order, and the electrification of heavy-duty trucks. Ambitious stuff.

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