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.
News Clips
I.R.S. to Crack Down on Corporate Jet Users Who Abuse Tax Code
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:
Massachusetts should ban third-party electric suppliers
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:
State boosting EV charging with another $50 million
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.
State charts a new energy future for Mass., beyond natural gas
Boston Globe
Wednesday’s order may have felt like an especially big win for climate advocates, considering how far things have moved, and how quickly. After the proceeding began three years ago, the DPU asked the gas companies to lead the first phase of the process, giving them the ability to write the first draft of a plan for reaching net-zero emissions in 2050. What’s more, advocates said they were shut out of the deliberations after the DPU under Baker took steps to limit their involvement.
Then in 2022, the playing field shifted. Healey was elected governor, and the DPU was filled with her appointees who could rewrite the rules of the game. A bill signed into law earlier in 2022 included language that ensured the ultimate decision would be wrested from the Baker DPU, and handled instead by Healey’s administration.
“Carrying this over to the new governor’s regime was putting it on uncharted ground,” said state Senator Michael Barrett, a coauthor of the 2022 climate bill. “If you’re a gas utility, I think they had every reason to be concerned and this report would bear that out.”
Mass. Senate approves prescription drug pricing bill
Mass Live
The State Senate just passed legislation that caps out-of-pocket spending on some prescription drugs used to treat diabetes, asthma, and chronic heart conditions. For each of these conditions, insurers must select one name-brand drug and one generic drug. The bill requires insurers to eliminate deductibles and cost-sharing requirements for the generic drugs and cap co-payments at $25 for the brand-name drugs. Kudos to Sen. Friedman for leading on the issue.
Massachusetts is drowning in single-use plastics. Why not ban them?
Boston Globe
Plastics, and waste reduction in general, has been an orphan. We just haven’t managed to acknowledge that reducing waste and reducing plastic is critical to reducing emissions.
Will new offshore wind bids bring competitive pricing?
Commonwealth Magazine
Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, the Senate chair of the Legislature’s Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, said he is concerned that sharply higher prices for offshore wind power could stall the state’s decarbonization effort, which is reliant on using clean electricity to displace fossil fuels in the transportation and heating sectors.
“Competition means more than the number of developers bidding,” he said in a phone interview. “It means objective reliable evidence that developers are still bent on economizing and on giving New England consumers affordable rates. I want to see us move to high, high proportions of clean energy, but the long game here requires electricity prices that the public will accept. You don’t want to ignite a backlash against the entire climate policy project.”
What’s at stake in a simmering feud over the Mass. Legislature’s rules?
GBH NEWS
To me, progressive climate policy in the MA Legislature turns on the Senate and the House remaining equal in power. For my take on today’s tensions, watch this.
Rules feud leads to 2 takes on committee hearing
CommonWealth Magazine
“I want to thank you for bearing with us during these rather extraordinary times, this choice to have two proceedings rather than one. Presumably it won’t be forever, presumably collective decision-making will return to [the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee] and with that, joint hearings. We can’t have one without the other,” Barrett said. “But my hope is that we’ll start to abide by our traditional rules and we will once again give equal weight to Senate decision-making — not excessive weight, but equal weight — and in so doing, be able to bring the two halves of the hearing process back together as well. But probably that resolution will not be coming this year. And so we have to resign ourselves to the dual hearing process instead and to make it as bearable for all of us as possible.”
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