The Barrett Report
Our view: Records should be made public
Gloucester Daily Times
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would unseal all public records after 90 years that were kept on individuals with mental or physical disabilities and who lived in places like the Fernald School and other state institutions. Currently those records are sealed under health privacy laws, or heavily redacted if they are released.
Sen. Michael Barrett, who filed the Senate version of the bill, said there is a need to retain some privacy for individuals, “but there also needs to be research and truth telling,” he told the news service.
Safety bills mix with calls for natural gas transition
WBUR
“Advocates and lawmakers repeatedly pointed Tuesday to the climate law that Gov. Charlie Baker signed in March, which commits Massachusetts to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and requires interim emissions reduction goals between now and the middle of the century.
“The state’s new climate law also calls for a municipal opt-in net-zero stretch energy code that addresses the use of gas in new buildings, and by next summer the administration is required to set 2025 emissions sublimits for various sectors, including commercial and residential heating and cooling, and natural gas distribution and service.”
Baker pulls support for regional pact that would address climate change
Boston Globe
This is a serious challenge to our climate planning. Plan B needs to be brought along quickly.
Barrett details plans for UN climate change conference in Scotland
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.”
In the void of national climate legislation, locals lead the way
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.”
In Glasgow, hope and hot air mix at conference to address climate change
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.
‘Triage and transition’: Safety bills mix with calls for move away from natural gas
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.”
Senator Mike Barrett to attend U.N. Climate Change Conference
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’
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.”