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June 8, 2016: Making of the MA House Energy Bill
With apologies to “A Visit from St. Nicholas” poet Clement Clarke Moore.
Twas the day of formal session, and all through the House Not an official was stirring, not even Rep. Straus.
Just the day prior, the caucuses met Not many amendments… but really, just not yet!
In fact, in just 12 hours, there were sixty-one Some were for gas, and some were for sun
2,000 megawatts of offshore wind we demanded Banning the gas pipe tax [1] got some Reps reprimanded!
(Thanks for going to the mat on that one, Rep. John Rogers! Rep. Lyons proved pipelines are bipartisan bothers)
Shout-out to Rep
Michigan Budget Passes Legislature with Flint Supplemental
Earlier this month in a legislative session that went until the early hours of the morning, both chambers of the Michigan Legislature passed the budget for 2017. Included in the budget omnibus bill is $114.3 million in emergency supplemental funding for solutions to the Flint water crisis. As late as the week before, it looked like there was a good possibility that the Legislature would adjourn for summer recess without passing funding for Flint.
The State Senate passed $128 million in emergency funding for Flint with a 34-3 vote in early May. For weeks, the Senate bill languished in the House
Fixing Gas Leaks With Stronger Laws
During the special hearing on Kain v Department of Environmental Protection that I attended on my first day at Cleab Water Action, David Ismay of the Conservation Law Foundation highlighted fixing gas leaks as an accessible method to reduce Massachusetts’s emissions. Since that hearing, I have been focusing a lot on gas leaks. And for good reason— there are over 20,000 leaks across Massachusetts, heating up our planet and making it difficult to reach our climate goals.
Massachusetts has done some great work so far. In 2014 the state passed “An act relative to natural gas leaks,” a solid
My First Task: Enforce Our Climate Laws?
At Clean Water Action, interns hit the ground running. That was my conclusion after traveling to the Massachusetts State House to witness a special hearing on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling on Kain v Department of Environmental Protection--on my first day, before I even had a chance to use the bathroom at CWA. This court case refers to the state’s lack of adherence to the Global Warming Solutions Act, a state law passed in 2008 that mandated a 25% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2020 and deeper reductions by 2050. When the state failed to issue the necessary
Will State House Lawmakers Ever Stand Up for Flint?
It was a dark, cold January day, shortly after Michigan officials had finally admitted that the people of Flint had been exposed to poisoned water running through their taps. We drove from Lansing to St Michael’s Church in Flint for an organizing meeting. Local activists, people from the non-profit community, and even experts who had run door-to-door canvasses in response to Hurricane Sandy, were all there to do something about the water crisis that is still being ignored by our state government.
It is hard for me to write about what happened in Flint. The most important voices of this tragedy