Massachusetts State Senator
Senator Mike Barrett: “In Massachusetts and throughout the country, we all need to be in electric vehicles by 2050. That’s 30 years to take all our emissions and get them down to a point that we’re not contributing to the problem.”
“Right now, we use natural gas or heating oil. Most of that in the next 30 years has to go away.”
Building, along with transportation, make up nearly 99% of Boston’s carbon emissions. The legislative package includes multiple efforts to reduce emissions, including a play to get the state to have net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Also included in the bill is a plan to jump-start efforts to supply low-cost solar electricity to low-income communities, setting a deadline for converting MBTA buses to all-electricity power and a goal of getting an entirely zero-emissions fleet by 2040.
Existing state law- the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act – set the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by the year 2050. The package of bills unveiled Thursday would effectively set a goal of 100% below the 1990 levels.
Barrett, a Lexington Democrat, has been filing bills since 2013 that propose a revenue-neutral carbon fee, with the money generated returned to Massachusetts citizens.”
Barrett said the 2030 time frame for residential carbon pricing is to allow time for cleaner home heating alternatives to evolve and for more energy-efficient homes to be built, in hopes of keeping costs down for homeowners.
“For several years the bill struggled,” Barrett said. “We did not find traction in the House in particular. I want to be respectful of the legislative branches and respectful of the governor. It seemed to me after two or three years that we weren’t moving quickly enough. I decided I wanted to put a price on carbon by any path we could lay our hands on, so I backed away from my preferred method.” Giving latitude to the governor rather than spelling out a specific mechanism helped get more senators on board with the idea of carbon pricing last session, Barrett said.
Sen. Michael Barrett told reporters Thursday that he “wanted to put a price on carbon by any path we could lay our hands on.”
Supporters of the legislative package say it would counter efforts by the Republican administration of President Donald Trump to slow the progress of energy-efficient appliances by updating the state’s own appliance standards to improve energy and water standards for household and commercial appliances.
The Massachusetts Senate unveiled a three-bill package that sets a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 100 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, instead of the state’s current target of cutting emissions by 80 percent by the deadline.
The package would not only update the state’s 2050 emissions target, but would also create limits for emissions every five years, starting in 2025 and create a commission to review whether the state is on pace to meet its obligations.
Sen. Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat, said lawmakers have been working on the climate change package since July and let the Baker administration know of their plans in November.
“The idea here isn’t to cop a headline or spring a surprise. We really want consensus … I was very impressed and very grateful to the governor for having embraced net-zero earlier this week,” Barrett said
Spilka and Senator Michael J. Barrett, who has been crafting the climate legislation since June, said they both support Baker’s pursuit of the Transportation and Climate Initiative, or TCI, an ambitious but controversial pact among eastern states that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and could raise gas prices by as much as 17 cents a gallon.
Barrett, who’s unsuccessfully pushed legislation to create taxes or fees on carbon, suggested it’s more politically feasible to pursue a pricing method if the legislation includes options.
“I decided to shift focus from trying to being prescriptive to setting deadlines. If you can move from the tool to the timeline, you can actually get a lot more support,” Barrett said.
“It’s not a spending bill,” the Lexington Democrat added of the Senate’s proposal. “It really is a bill to mobilize state government and have us focused in one direction.”
THE SENATE IS PREPARING to vote on sweeping legislation to address climate change, putting in place a series of mandates and regulatory measures as well as phased-in carbon pricing on automobile and building fuels to make sure the state meets the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, who is taking the lead on the climate change legislation, said he and his staff shared with the Baker administration in November their legislative plans, including the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. “We shared that with them because the idea here is not to cop a headline or spring a surprise. We really want consensus,” Barrett said, adding that he was thrilled the governor signed on earlier this week and House Speaker Robert DeLeo also said he was on board. “That tells me it’s possible to align objectives here,” he said. “We’re coming together.”
“We’re tightening up at every turn here,” Barrett said. “We’re getting very serious about holding ourselves accountable and then figuring out how well we’ve done, so that if we fall short in meeting one limit we’re going to double down to meet it the next time around. There’s not going to be any more slacking off and no more talk of three-year delays before you complain on how well Massachusetts is doing.”
Barrett voiced frustration that the administration would not be committing itself to a plan before the 2020 elections to allow candidates for the state legislature to have a debate about the state’s climate policy.
Holding up a copy of the 2018 Comprehensive Energy Plan published by the Department of Energy Resources, Barrett described it as 165-pages with “not a single discernable plan.” He said he wanted to know, for example, what the administration’s plan was to convert 2.4 million privately-owned, gas-powered vehicles to electric.
“Your leadership on TCI is crucial and it’s also gutsy, and I appreciate that. Still, this endless infatuation with planning and scenario building is frustrating,” Barrett said.
“At some point, scenarios become a dodge,” Barrett said.
“Climate change is relentless, and ‘putting a price on carbon’ is the single most effective thing a state government can do to fight it,” said state Sen. Mike Barrett, a longtime champion of carbon pricing. “We need to put Massachusetts state government at the forefront — right where our constituents want it to be.”