STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, MARCH 6, 2008.....Without debate, the Senate on Thursday approved a bill aimed at drastically cutting back on the commonwealth’s greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40 years.
The bill, filed by Sen. Marc Pacheco, would require Massachusetts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
“Global climate change is the most pressing problem facing our state and our nation and the world,” Pacheco said just before his bill was engrossed and sent to the House. “It’s an historic moment. If we pass this legislation with the help of our colleagues in the House of Representatives, we will be a state in the nation where we will see increased investment.”
According to U.S. EPA statistics, Massachusetts carbon emissions levels are already hovering around 1990 levels, with the latest measurement, from 2004, calculating that Massachusetts releases 83.21 million metric tons of burned fossil fuels each year, compared to 83.92 million tons in 1990.
The bill charges the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs with developing a "statewide emissions reduction plan" by Jan. 1, 2009.
The plan would be based on information kept in a comprehensive "greenhouse gas registry and inventory" run by the Department of Environmental Protection, which would catalogue major sources of emissions across the commonwealth.
Other components of the bill include charging EOEEA with setting up a revolving loan fund for green building and charging the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development with establishing various renewable energy grant and training programs.
The bill has numerous reporting requirements, including a comprehensive EOEEA report on the progress of the emission plan by 2010.
Robert Keough, a spokesman for EOEEA, declined to comment on the bill’s specifics. “The Patrick administration is broadly supportive of moving toward an economy-wide standard for greenhouse gas emissions,” Keough said. “We look forward to working with the legislature on this important challenge.”
Environmental activists said they were thrilled about the bill’s passage in the Senate and are gearing up for a push in the House.
Senate Republicans stayed quiet during proceedings Thursday, allowing the bill to advance on a voice vote and watching their amendments get rejected without debate. Business leaders in Massachusetts have come out swinging, contending that tough emissions restrictions would devastate Massachusetts’s manufacturing industry.
Senate Democrats tacked on a handful of amendments. After the session, Senate Republican issued a statement blasting the bill as “a feel good exercise” and “window dressing on the issue of climate change.”
“With the state’s economy on the brink of a recession, it would have been more productive to use today’s session to work on issues that will help employers create more jobs, rather than once again adding to the cost of doing business in Massachusetts,” according to the statement.
But a nationwide business coalition is pushing back, arguing that good environmental policy is good economic policy.
Although Associated Industries of Massachusetts called the Senate’s Global Warming Solutions bill a “disaster” and the “last nail in the coffin” for manufacturers in Massachusetts, Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), a national association business and environmental industry executives, countered that, “It’s an economic disaster if we fail to take action.”
“AIM is not the only voice of business,” said Berl Hartman, co-founder of E2. “We are the voice of business that looks at the economic issues involved. We think that the global warming bill and the targets that are set are required to strengthen the economy.”
Hartman said the bill’s provisions to invest in green jobs, invest in innovation and establish a public-private partnership with venture capitalists would help businesses thrive.
Senators filed 22 amendments to the bill, including a Sen. Michael Morrissey amendment to nix the 20 percent and 80 percent benchmarks, opting instead to call to reduce emissions to 1990 and to let EOEEA develop its own additional targets. The amendment, which was blasted by environmental activists, was ultimately not adopted.
Hartman said the relatively stagnant rate of Massachusetts’s emissions between 1990 and 2004 stems from stagnant population growth and a shift in the economy from manufacturing to service jobs. Frank Gorke, executive director of Environment Massachusetts, said a third factor was a switch from oil burning power generation to the burning of natural gas.
Other business and energy interests charged that the bill would damage the Massachusetts economy, with John Quinn, executive director of the Massachusetts Petroleum Council citing “a potential supply catastrophe” if the bill is implemented. Quinn, in a statement, said similar policies in California have led to “a pitched battle with elements of the environmental community that argue that this standard could lead to a biofuels mandate resulting in a significant worsening of Green House Gas emissions.”
AIM, using slightly more conciliatory language, reiterated its concern about the bill in a statement issued today while the Senate debated the bill.
“While reducing green house gasses is a noble cause, the entire cost of solving this global problem should not fall on the back of Massachusetts, while other states and nations continue to emit many times what we emit, while selling their products here in the Commonwealth,” John Regan, AIM’s Executive Vice President-Government Affairs, said in a statement.
The bill passed today was redrafted by the Senate Ways and Means Committee to strike out language requiring waste collection vehicles and other heavy trucks to be retrofitted with the "best available" technology to cut back on diesel emissions. Sen. Jack Hart filed an amendment to reinsert that language but the amendment was rejected.
