After years of deliberations, negotiations and regulatory rollout – and some well-publicized “agita” in the corner office – a septet of Massachusetts cities and towns can now significantly limit the use of fossil fuels in building projects.
Vicinity Energy touted the launch of its carbon-free “eSteam” service to Boston commercial developers including the $1-billion Fenway Center lab project, as it begins converting its Cambridge cogeneration plant from gas to electric power.
Gov. Charlie Baker has signed a major climate bill into law, despite “agita” a controversial section gave him.
The message from the top House climate negotiator was clear Sunday: the ball’s in your court, governor.
The recent record-setting heatwave should serve as an alarming reminder that climate change is already threatening us. Without federal action, state and local leaders must keep building decarbonization standards uniform across the state.
Gov. Charlie Baker is asking state legislators to exempt multifamily housing developments from a proposed 10-town natural gas ban pilot program aimed at gathering data on how to shrink the real estate industry’s carbon footprint.
One of the lead authors of a proposed pilot program that would let 10 municipalities ban natural gas in new residential, retail and office buildings says the program is vital to figuring out the best way to transition new construction to green energy.
The controversial proposal for a 10-town gas ban “demonstration program” survived in a revised form that exempts labs and adds new housing production requirements.
A proposal is moving through the State House to let Cambridge and several of the wealthiest Boston suburbs ban natural gas use in new buildings. It’s the wrong idea at the wrong time and could hurt housing production where it’s needed most.
A new analysis of Greater Boston’s apartment market shows just how environmentally damaging development policies in the region’s suburbs are – something no natural gas ban can solve.
The news is dire. We immediate action to address the monumental threat of climate change. But Massachusetts must be strategic about how we tackle this challenge, and avoid well-intentioned but deeply flawed ideas.
Lawmakers took the first steps Thursday on the road to a compromise offshore wind and climate bill as House and Senate leaders publicly detailed some of the issues they expect to spend part of the next three months hashing out. And as negotiations begin, the stakes are high for the real estate industry.
Frustrated with what they see as foot-dragging on the part of the Baker administration, lawmakers could grant cities and towns the power to require that new buildings be built without natural gas connections.
Gov. Charlie Baker still is not on board with the climate policy bill overwhelmingly passed by the Legislature twice in about a month, but this time he has sent it back with proposed amendments he says would make the legislation more palatable.
Attorney General Maura Healey has struck down a Brookline ban on natural gas hookups in new buildings that could have set a precedent for other municipalities looking to require more environmentally friendly building techniques, but which real estate groups warned could kneecap commercial development.
Banning natural gas in new construction is a quick way to kill the economic miracle that has transformed the Boston area over the past half century from a rusting backwater to one of the planet’s top metros.
