For Immediate Release - August 1st, 2024
Contact:
Claire Karl Miller, (they) (781) 775-1429, claire@uumassaction.org UU Mass Action
Jess Nahigian, (617) 460-6351, jess.nahigian@sierraclub.org, Mass Sierra Club
Dan Zackin, (203) 802-7464, dan@betterfutureproject.org, 350 Mass
Climate Justice Advocates Disappointed and Angry
Boston -- Running the clock down to the very last moments, the Massachusetts legislature adjourned without passing any climate policy. Despite having since January of 2023, a full 19 months, the Senate and the House did not pass their respective bills for conference committee till this summer, leaving little to no time for negotiations. Senators and Representatives alike often had mere hours to read bills and amendments before voting on them.
“Floods don’t wait, heat waves don’t wait. This is a failure of leadership in Governor Healey, Speaker Mariano and President Spilka in adjourning without passing robust climate and environmental justice policy. For 18 months we have advocated to make it illegal to over-pollute communities of color and low-income communities, for a halt on gas expansion, and they just left the building having done nothing,” said Claire Karl Miller with Unitarian Universalist Mass Action.
Additionally, how to retire and stop expansion of the fossil fuel gas system in the Commonwealth has been hotly debated. The heating of buildings and homes with clean, renewable, electric energy is one of the most critical elements of climate policy for Massachusetts to meet its climate goals.
"This is outrageous. This session was a chance to make serious progress slowing the expansion of our dirty and expensive methane gas system, but instead, legislative leadership got tied up in political spats and chose not to extend the session and finish the job," said Massachusetts Sierra Club Director Vick Mohanka. “Our members are deeply disappointed. We set out to win critical protections for environmental justice communities, reductions in plastics pollution, improved air quality, and the transition away from unhealthy, expensive methane gas. Instead, we saw the least productive session in Massachusetts history. Because of this, ratepayers are going to spend more than $34B unnecessarily on gas pipelines."
“Only the gas utilities and their friends, the gas workers, have gone home winners from this legislative session, said Cathy Kristofferson of the Pipe Line Awareness Network for the Northeast. “Governor Healey's Dept. of Public Utilities asked for legislative action to accomplish their envisioned future beyond gas but the legislature has failed to deliver. Their failure is bad news for ratepayers, everyone who breathes polluted air and all our hopes for a livable climate.”
“This lack of action puts our legislature and governor to the right of the national democratic party. It aligns them with the fossil fuel industry, the national Republican party, and climate deniers like Donald Trump,” said 350 Mass Legislative Coordinator Dan Zackin. “There is still time for Governor Healey to act via executive order and be a climate champion, but that time is running out.”
For the past week and a half, climate justice advocates have been storming the halls of the Statehouse singing and chanting to ensure a robust bill with environmental justice and halting the expansion of gas would happen.
Mass Power Forward is coalition of more than 200 grassroots organizations, congregations, businesses and groups working together for climate and environmental jsutice.
# # #