Barrett details plans for UN climate change conference in Scotland

senmikeb
Lexington Wicked Local

Sen. Mike Barrett has made it a priority over the years to focus on the effect of climate change on Massachusetts.  Now, he is taking to the international stage in an effort to galvanize Bay State residents and outside parties into taking immediate action on climate change and its impacts. 

“This is the rubber-hits-the-road moment for international climate change negotiations,” Barrett said.  “This nitty gritty, close-up question of execution is a tough one.  What we need to do in Glasgow is to come up with some international standards for state and city actions.” 

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In the void of national climate legislation, locals lead the way

senmikeb
Boston Globe

Barrett attended the 2017 climate summit in Bonn, shortly after President Donald Trump had pulled the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.  

Four years later, the politics and the stance on climate change at the White House have undergone a sea change, but the challenges of passing binding legislation through Congress remain. 

“Our current situation is different, and yet in some respects it’s the same,” said Barrett. “What we’re doing in Massachusetts becomes all the more important as the odds go longer around significant national action.” 

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In Glasgow, hope and hot air mix at conference to address climate change

senmikeb
Boston Globe

In the coming days of the two-week conference, there will be additional visitors from Massachusetts, including Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Kathleen Theoharides; one of the primary authors of the state’s new climate law, Senator Michael Barrett, a Democrat from Lexington; and Boston’s environment chief, the Rev. Mariama White-Hammond.

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‘Triage and transition’: Safety bills mix with calls for move away from natural gas

senmikeb
Wicked Local

“Reaching that goal is going to require us to move buildings onto electric heat and off of gas, which will raise questions about the infrastructure that we have in place to deliver gas,” Sen. Michael Barrett, the Senate co-chair of the TUE Committee, said. “And at the same time, of course, we’re concerned about leaks from that infrastructure and somehow have to balance our weariness about continued investment with the necessity of maintaining public safety. Each year, at least so far, about 14,000 new leaks are detected in this infrastructure. And we’ve been running hard to stay in place, plugging leaks but finding new ones.”

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Senator Mike Barrett to attend U.N. Climate Change Conference

senmikeb
For Immediate Release

State Senator Mike Barrett, Senate Chair of the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy of the Massachusetts Legislature, will attend COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.  The Conference is a once-a-year gathering of representatives from every part of the world and the pre-eminent forum for coordinating joint action against global warming.

“Here in the U.S., with all the hiccups happening in the Capital around climate strategy, a lot of responsibility is shifting back to state-level government,” Barrett says.  “Several years back, in 2015, the summit in Paris was about the role of nations.  This year, the summit in Glasgow is about all hands on deck — nations, for sure, but also states, provinces, cities, businesses, and citizen activists.”

State-level actors have been included in previous U.N. Climate Conferences, Barrett says — he took part himself in the 2017 meeting in Bonn — but such “subnational” efforts have been in and out of focus.  This year, due in part to the scaling down of climate policy making in Washington, interest in state-level initiatives is high.

The Conference runs two weeks, from Sunday, Oct. 31, through Friday, Nov. 12.  Barrett is attending the Conference’s full second week.  He says he’s looking forward to joining the day of meetings set aside to discuss climate options for cities, states, provinces, and regions.  Other Week Two sessions will address policies on (1) transportation; (2) the built environment; (3) science and innovation; (4) women’s rights and gender equality; and (5) adaptation.

Back in Massachusetts, Barrett is also the author of a bill to establish the “Massachusetts Fund for Vulnerable Countries Most Affected by Climate Change.”  The idea is to create a new “checkoff” option on state income tax forms, one that would allow, but not require, taxpayers to donate money, over and above taxes owed, to a special account set up to aid those nations of the world that are especially vulnerable to severe drought, rising ocean levels, desertification, and the other most devastating effects of global warming.

A special Week Two session will be devoted to questions of assistance to these nations, and this is where Barrett hopes to discuss his proposal.

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Proposed Massachusetts public records bill would aid pursuit of ‘truth telling’

senmikeb
MassLive

“A bill that would unseal all public records after 90 years would unlock the stories of generations of Massachusetts residents who lived in state institutions with mental and physical disabilities, according to academics and legislators trying to strike balance between privacy and the public interest. 

“Rep. Sean Garballey and Sen. Michael Barrett have filed legislation that would no longer shield from public inspection, due to health privacy laws, records kept on individuals with disabilities who lived in places like the Fernald School. 

“‘There needs to be privacy protections, but there also needs to be research and truth telling,’ Barrett said.” 

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Massachusetts vastly underestimates emissions from natural gas, study finds

senmikeb
Boston Globe

“Some state lawmakers said the time for cutting emissions is now, noting that Massachusetts’ new climate law requires the state to cut its greenhouse gases by 50 percent by the end of the decade. 

“‘Keeping up the infrastructure is beginning to look like a hopeless job,’ said Senator Mike Barrett, one of the climate bill’s lead negotiators.  ‘There’s been little progress since 2014, and not for lack of trying.  We may be better off walking away from the assets as soon as we can.’” 

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As state law requires steep emissions cuts, utilities face an urgent quandary: to build or not to build new gas pipelines?

senmikeb
Boston Globe

State Senator Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat who helped lead the effort to pass the state’s new climate law, urged regulators to view Eversource’s proposal with “suspicion” and worried that similar efforts would be made to scare the state into allowing utilities to continue building gas infrastructure.

“Every time we try to put into place a carefully managed strategy of retreat from gas, we’re going to see utilities invoke redundancy, resiliency, or modernization to preserve their customer base and continue to build,” he said, noting that existing state incentives have made new construction an important part of their revenue. “These arguments are glib and self-serving, and we need to oppose them.”

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Beacon Hill eyeing tradeoffs on offshore wind

senmikeb
Commonwealth Magazine

Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, the Senate chair of the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee, remains skeptical. He says the state already has some of the highest electricity prices in the country, so it shouldn’t accede to higher prices on 20-year power supply contracts with offshore wind developers to lure a manufacturing facility to the state. Higher electricity prices, he says, might hinder attainment of the real prize – decarbonizing the state’s economy by convincing consumers to shift to carbon-free electricity to power their cars, buildings, and everything else.

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The state asked for a blueprint of a gas-free future. Why are the utilities writing the first draft?

senmikeb
Boston Globe

Senator Mike Barrett, an architect of the state’s landmark climate legislation, said the arrangement at least raises the specter of bias, and at this moment in the climate crisis, when acting quickly is paramount, that can be a problem. “None of this guarantees a set of biased results, but all of it raises questions,” he said. “All of it is a bit disquieting.” 

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