THE BAKER ADMINISTRATION told lawmakers on Tuesday that it would comply with a Supreme Judicial Court decision mandating specific reductions in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, but said it was too early to speculate on how those reductions would be accomplished.
Lawmakers at a State House hearing suggested putting a price on carbon, increasing energy efficiency efforts, and halting all efforts to expand the region’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure. But Martin Suuberg, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, refused to speculate on what the administration would do.
“We are going to take a look at all of the strategies,” he told members of the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, stating several times that the administration plans to convene an advisory group at the end of June and then hold public hearings with the goal of setting policy quickly.
On May 17, the SJC ruled that Massachusetts, first under former governor Deval Patrick and now under Gov. Charlie Baker, had failed to comply with a state law requiring the development of regulations setting hard, declining limits on in-state greenhouse gas emission sources.
State lawmakers and the Baker administration have been talking about developing an offshore wind industry and buying more electricity from Canada. But Suuberg said the Global Warming Solutions Act requires the state to go further to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
David Ismay, a staff attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation, the plaintiff in the SJC case, estimated the state’s annual greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by 5 million tons if the state is going to comply with the law’s 2020 targets. He suggested the 5 million ton reduction could be accomplished by cutting in half leaks from the state’s gas distribution system, doubling energy efficiency spending, lowering by 3 billion the number of vehicle miles traveled in the state, and doubling the rate of growth in the use of renewable energy.
“Just doubling energy efficiency?” asked Sen. Marc Pacheco of Taunton, the chairman of the Senate committee. “How about quadrupling energy efficiency?”
Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, who is pushing legislation that would impose a tax on carbon, worried that state officials will face no penalty if they fail to comply with the Global Warming Solutions Act. He said the only way to force compliance would be to ration fuels that contribute to global warming. “Short of that, I don’t think there is a foolproof compliance mechanism,” he said.
Ismay of the Conservation Law Foundation said his organization would return to court if the state fails to comply with the law. He said one possible outcome could be a judge taking control of the compliance process.
Peter Shattuck, the Massachusetts director of the Acadia Center, an environmental advocacy group, said the one initiative the state cannot pursue if it wants to comply with the emission reduction targets of the Global Warming Solutions Act is to build new natural gas pipelines into the region.
The technology necessary to meet the mandates of the Global Warming Solutions Act is not available. Whatever policy the state adopts is not only doomed to failure, it unnecessarily increase rates sky-high.
Time for someone on Beacon Hill to introduce legislation to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act. Legislating our way into a clean energy future is next to impossible. If and when the technology becomes available, common sense is all we need to avoid the use of carbon.
If we are serious about dealing with climate change, we must stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure. Cast your vote in the Boston Globe’s gas pipeline poll at: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2016/05/27/should-massachusetts-oppose-further-natural-gas-pipeline-construction-state/Jx6ILb8gcpzmncNnz1JWMO/story.html
Waiting around for new technology to deal with global warming is not a good option. We have already procrastinated for decades since it first became clear that global warming would lead to climate chaos if left unchecked. We are already seeing higher food prices due to the drought in California. The damage and death toll from bigger tornados and hurricanes is mounting.
There is huge untapped potential for application of readily-available technology such as insulation, solar panels and wind turbines that pay for themselves. Look around at all the roofs without solar panels, even in places like Florida the “Sunshine State.” Think of all the jobs that could be created by investing in a sustainable future.
Wasting money on impotent solutions to global Warming will only leave us without resources to adapt when it finally arrives.
For renewable energy to stop global warming, it needs the availability of mass energy storage.
Why isn’t storage on the top of the government’s list in the transition to a fossil fuel free future?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1
Given the fact that most new ventures fail, betting the state and regional economic future that the Gigafactory will rescue the impotent wind and solar farms after we close all the coal and nuclear power plants, is a gamble that we do not need to take.
Elon Musk’s battery gigafactory is just one step down the long road to a planet on which our grandchildren can survive. We are in a race for our lives. We need to pick up the pace.
As I see it, the effort to reverse Global Warming is forcing the destruction of coal and nuclear power, rushing to replace them with currently plentiful natural gas, because mass energy storage is unavailable and not demanded.
The net result is little to no avoidance in CO2 emissions. Last year, the loss of nuclear forced CO2 emissions to increase here in New England.
Should the development of economical mass storage fail to materialize, our grandchildren will be forced tor rebuild coal and nuclear when gas is finally depleted.
As for the race to a clean energy future, currently, we are running backwards!
Yes, we are in a race for our lives, and we are losing badly. If our grandchildren try to rebuild coal infrastructure, they will be sorry. Too bad there is such an irrational fear of the latest nuclear technology, which could wring more energy out of “spent” fuel rods, thus turning a liability into an asset and helping to reduce carbon emissions at the same time. We have the technology we need to greatly reduce or possibly even eliminate the threat of climate chaos. Some of it, like insulation, is very low-tech. What we lack is the political will to make the necessary changes within the requisite time frame.