Massachusetts State Senator
“Mandatory liability insurance for gun owners, requiring them to absorb the full costs associated with their gun ownership, would be a giant step forward in the Commonwealth to combat gun violence. “An Act to Require Liability Insurance for Gun Ownership,” sponsored by Representative David Linsky and Senator Michael Barrett, is currently up for debate in the next legislative session.”
“This looks to be a major rewrite,” Barrett texted a News Service reporter. “Hard to know what the two legislative branches will manage to agree on, in the time we have left.”
“This was already a tough negotiation,” Barrett added.
“The changes we’re after make for an unusually long list, because they track the lengthening list of concerns our constituents bring to us,” said Senator Michael J. Barrett (Lexington), Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. “The climate problem takes many forms, and with this bill we respond in kind. People worried about the issue will find grounds for hope here.”
Frustrated by a pair of Mass Pike electric vehicle charger stations that have been inoperable for more than a year, two state senators pressed Transportation Secretary Jamey Tesler to fix the problem by next month and make clear how the administration will expand EV infrastructure.
Senate Majority Leader Cynthia Creem and Sen. Michael Barrett, who co-chairs the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee, wrote to Tesler this week voicing “disappointment” that vehicle charging stations at I-90 rest stops have been broken for a year-plus.
Beacon Hill now has the opportunity to take steps that will make it possible for educators, students, and the general public to understand the role Massachusetts played in both developing and resisting that idea.
The Senate has passed a budget amendment based on legislation put forward by Senator Mike Barrett and Representative Sean Garballey to fund a first-of-its kind commission that will study the history of state institutions for those with disabilities. If created, this commission, which would be led by disabled people, will undertake historical human rights work, including identifying the names of thousands of people buried anonymously in institutional graves.
On Monday, in a letter to Secretary of Transportation Jamey Tesler, state Senators Cynthia Creem and Michael Barrett demanded that the broken chargers be fixed by July 1 and asked for information about who was responsible for their operation and maintenance.
“The continued inoperability of these chargers hampers the Commonwealth’s ability to reach its EV goals, not only because it makes it more difficult for EV drivers to travel across the Commonwealth, but also because it feeds into an inaccurate yet prevalent narrative that EVs are not reliable for long-distance travel,” the pair wrote to Tesler.
State Sen. Michael Barrett, Senate chair of the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, said having the testing center gives Massachusetts a competitive advantage in becoming a national center for offshore wind. Already, Charlestown is the premier testing site for the East Coast offshore wind industry, and he said the expansion is necessary to maintain that advantage. “We’ve got to have a facility here in Massachusetts that can accommodate the largest products out there,” Barrett said. “You’ve got to keep modernizing just to keep pace.”
During a State House News Service event in Boston on Thursday morning, Roy and Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate chairman of TUE, each pitched their chamber’s bill and looked ahead to how the two approaches might be reconciled. The House bill is essentially a deep dive on offshore wind policy while the Senate’s legislation is a more broad climate and energy bill that touches upon offshore wind but also deals with topics like climate resilience, solar policy and electric vehicles.
“Despite the significant difference in emphasis, there’s much that Jeff and I agree with … we’re going to have no difficulty discussing all of these things,” Barrett said. “But this is going to be hard, all kidding aside, because the Senate has views … on solar, on the relative importance of offshore wind, on how to approach transmission … so this isn’t going to be a simple matter of everything the Senate wants to do on electric vehicles being traded for an important offshore wind piece and everything we hope to do for cities on clean buses being traded for another offshore wind piece.”
