WBUR
Sen. Michael Barrett, Golden’s Senate counterpart at the Committee on Telecommunication, Utilities and Energy, said the House’s bill would make it nearly impossible to monitor the state’s progress towards those goals, and said he favors the Senate’s approach of installing interim targets every five years rather than every 10 years.
“Here we have goals widely spaced apart with no accountability back to the public or the Legislature in the House bill,” he said. “There’s a reason the Senate proposed a standalone, independent climate policy commission. That’s because the executive branch charged with realizing the goals cannot also be left to report on whether they’ve achieved them. You’ve got to separate out implementation and monitoring, and I’m deeply disappointed that the early drafts of the House bill leave the two roles together.”