I have been hoping for years that Congress and the Massachusetts Legislature would do something meaningful to help solve the climate crisis. I’ve joined others in writing letters, talking to legislators, attending rallies and signing petitions.
While I have chosen to remain hopeful, I have often despaired — fearing nothing significant would happen. Now, in the last few weeks, both the state and federal governments have approved major climate bills! The climate movement succeeded in getting many significant, positive measures included. At the same time, the fossil fuel industries, with their lobbyists and money, limited what was accomplished.
On the last day of the legislative session, our Massachusetts Legislature held an intense, 23-hour, overnight session that included approving “An Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind.” The governor has now signed this far-reaching, important climate bill. It will lead to more electric cars and busses, more offshore wind energy, more energy efficient buildings, and reduced polluting emissions in the commonwealth. Importantly, it removes dirty biomass energy from the state’s list of “clean electricity” sources that are eligible for subsidies.
Activists statewide played an indispensable role in advocating and keeping the pressure on to get this legislation passed — acting as individuals, through local and statewide organizations, and as part of statewide climate coalitions. The Springfield Climate Justice Coalition was a major leader in the successful fight against biomass.
In Massachusetts, 37% of our carbon emissions are from transportation; 30% are from heating buildings; and 20% are from the electric power sector. This bill addresses each of these. It provides increased rebates for purchases of electric vehicles and appliances, bans the sale of new gas and diesel passenger vehicles after 2035, requires the MBTA to buy only emission-free buses starting in 2030, and adds more EV chargers.
It allows some municipalities to ban the use of fossil fuels in new building construction and major renovations. (Unfortunately they approved only a small pilot, limited to 10 municipalities.) It takes significant steps to expand the development of offshore wind power and promotes solar installations paired with farming, livestock and pollinator-friendly plants.
The Legislature failed, however, to provide adequate funding for many important climate measures, and omitted many other positive proposals — declining to create a green bank, improve air quality monitoring, and provide more extensive building efficiency measures.
The federal bill is called the Inflation Reduction Act, but is actually the largest climate bill ever passed in the United States. It provides $369 billion to incentivize renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is expected to result in U.S. emissions being reduced 40% by 2030! This is huge and absolutely necessary (although still insufficient to meet the 50% reduction by 2030 that the U.S. committed to at the last UN Climate Conference).
It is funded by a 15% minimum tax on corporations with over a billion dollars in profits, savings from the government being able to negotiate Medicare drug prices, enhanced IRS tax enforcement, and a 1% fee on corporate stock buybacks. It will extend Affordable Care Act premium reductions, expand Medicare benefits, and create new manufacturing jobs.
What’s problematic are the giveaways to the fossil fuel industry and the neglect of environmental justice communities. These are so severe that the Climate Justice Alliance, Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Center for Biological Diversity all opposed the bill. The new law requires that the federal government offer new fossil fuel drilling leases on public lands and waters as a prerequisite to putting any solar or wind energy projects on public lands, and is part of a deal to speed up pipeline permitting. Funding that will benefit environmental justice communities has been cut by two-thirds from earlier Democratic proposals.
Varshini Prakash, the prominent environmental and social justice activist (and former UMass Amherst student climate activist) who co-founded the youth-led Sunrise Movement, tweeted, “This isn’t the bill my generation deserves but it is the one we can get. It must pass to give us a fighting chance at a livable world.”
While there are encouraging elements in both the state and federal bills, neither meets the magnitude of the crisis humanity faces. Their passage shows the growing power of the climate movement, but also reveals the need to now make that movement far stronger and large enough to win the even bolder actions needed to keep our beloved Earth inhabitable.
In addition to the action at the state and federal levels, there are now climate advocacy groups focused on municipal action in many of our local cities and towns here in the Valley. They could use your support if you are not yet involved. If you want to be involved locally and can’t find a group, please let me know and I’ll try to connect you.
Russ Vernon-Jones of Amherst was principal of Fort River School for 18 years and is a member of the Steering Committee of Climate Action Now (CAN). The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at russvj@gmail.com. He blogs regularly on climate justice at http://www.russvernonjones.org.