It’s good to live in Massachusetts. If you like good food, good music and good sports, we’ve usually got you covered.
If you’re into breathing, we’ve definitely got you covered; Massachusetts has a strong historical environmental record and investment in clean energy innovations.
A “power dialogue” forum last week at Boston University featured State Sen. Marc Pacheco and DEP Commissioner Martin Suuberg, who outlined the past and future of our energy infrastructure, including implementation of the federal Clean Power Plan.
It’s no surprise that Massachusetts is in a prime position to be a star when the Supreme Court (hopefully – and hopefully soon) takes its collective foot off the brake and allows full implementation of the Obama administration’s roadmap to reducing carbon pollution from power plants and ramping up our renewable energy industry. We have always been at the forefront, as the speakers described based on decades of firsthand experience, of implementing federal regulations; we passed our own Global Warming Solutions Act in 2008, and are a member of RGGI, a market-based cooperative that allows states to sell allowances of carbon emissions to the power sector, then use proceeds to invest into that power sector in a progressive way. All this has created a $10 billion clean energy economy here, worth 2.5 percent of our gross state product, according to Pacheco, which has in turn made us all healthier.
So we’re good, right? Unfortunately, no. Pacheco noted that we are “not on track to meet the requirements in the statutes that we’ve passed. The only way we’re going to do that right now is with some clean imported energy, much more lowering of our demand for energy, much more with energy efficiency and much more with solar.”
As the energy game nationwide gets more serious, states like California, New York, Maryland and others are beginning to surpass us.
The truth is that to be, and stay, among the clean energy elite, it takes work by everyone. That includes long-time residents, as well as newcomers.
Hello, GE.
Though a dialogue has not yet begun with the company on exactly what kind of environmental impact the tech giant’s presence will have on our energy future, Suuberg said he was optimistic about the example that the company could set.
GE has promised not to use all our energy, pollute the air or dirty the water (although we do love that, apparently). That’s obvious – that’s the law.
But what more will GE bring to the table in order to help make Massachusetts a better place? Already there have been protests to the financial incentives that helped to bring the company here, which may have been better spent on schools, transit or, you guessed it, environmental initiatives.
If GE wants to win the hearts and minds of the people of Massachusetts, it ought to make a serious and public effort to help us reach the environmental goals that we have set for ourselves. Be part of the solution to what many believe is the greatest threat to mankind, in a place where that solution lives already.
