Opinion: The Climate Bill – A Big ‘F’ for Massachusetts Legislators

After a pitiful performance by our elected representatives, this legislative session was a missed opportunity to make the commonwealth a climate leader. Our lawmakers had a chance to make significant progress slowing the expansion of our dirty and expensive methane gas system.  Instead, legislative leadership got tied up in political spats and, in the end, they chose not to extend the session & finish the job.

The legislative process is broken. Partly because of undue influence from corporations routinely blocking popular and effective legislation in favor of utility and developer profits. These leaders, our public servants in the conference committee, had plenty of time to make decisions on shirking their responsibilities to their constituents. The legislature’s inaction is a grave, tragic disappointment and its members must be held accountable. The environmental priorities that were not addressed include: rapidly expanding methane gas pipelines despite clear health and climate risks; new construction of fossil fuel power plants; environmental justice communities disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis, and an overreliance on international fossil fuel markets driving costs upwards. Also, municipalities lost their local control over their natural resources.

The failure to pass environmental legislation comes after a year and a half of advocacy that included hundreds of meetings and thousands of calls and signatures to legislators. Many of the most popular policy proposals received an enormous number of legislative co-sponsors, yet Speaker Mariano and President Spilka did not allow these proposals to come to a vote. Many policies ‘died in committee’ where politicians take secret votes that their constituents (and the public) are not able to see. Many more died in the backroom process where amendments to bills were withdrawn before they had a chance to receive a vote.

The conference committee for the climate bill should promptly fix the fiasco they have created. They have disappointed the majority of environmental organizations and their constituents and have lost all confidence that these lawmakers are on the side of their constituents. We won’t vote again for you unless you make the climate bill a strong reality.

I urge my State Representative Mindy Domb and Governor Maura Healey to urgently pass a robust climate bill that moves us away from more pipelines and towards justice for our communities. Increasing large gas pipelines now undermines our climate goals. The commonwealth’s 2050 decarbonization roadmap and the Massachusetts Clean Heat Commission both call for prioritizing clean energy, not more gas. The Department of Public Utilities agrees. Their December 2023 order acknowledges the need to move beyond gas and may require legislative action. A truly robust climate bill will include that crucial action. Let’s build a clean energy future, not lock ourselves into a fossil fuel past. It’s high time for our leaders to put the long-term health of our community members, now and for future generations, ahead of the demands of profit-seeking industries. The time to act is now. You, public servants, must return to a formal session to pass a true climate bill!

We, the Sierra Club and concerned environmental organizations, in the pursuit of happiness for the common good, have always looked at the rights of nature alongside the rights of humanity. This basic ethical approach guides us ‘to enjoy, explore, and protect the planet’ and its communities since many decades ago.Laura Rojo MacLeod is a member of the Massachusetts Sierra Club Executive Committee