June 24, 2008
MA Statehouse Compromise Will Boost Renewable Energy, Cut Global Warming Pollution, Science Group Says
MA Statehouse Compromise Will Boost Renewable Energy, Cut Global Warming Pollution, Science Group Says
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (June 24, 2008) — The Massachusetts Legislature is expected to pass a compromise energy bill this week that will bolster the state's leadership role in reducing global warming and promoting renewable energy sources, such as wind, biomass, and solar, according to analysts at the Cambridge-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). After several months in conference committee, the reconciled Green Communities Act incorporates many of the best elements of separate bills passed by the House and Senate.
"Most of the provisions in this bill will move Massachusetts to the head of the class on clean energy policy," said John Rogers, manager of UCS's Northeast Clean Energy Project.
The pending bill will strengthen the state's renewable electricity standard, which will require local utilities to get at least 15 percent of their electricity from new renewable sources by 2020. The bill also will substantially increase the state's "net-metering" policy, which allows small renewable energy producers to sell their excess energy back to the grid at retail rates.
In addition, the bill will promote electricity efficiency programs that help stabilize or even lower energy bills, and update and tighten state building codes to encourage energy efficiency in homes and workplaces.
Among the bill's more innovative aspects is a pilot program requiring utilities to enter into long-term contracts with renewable energy developers, Rogers said. Long-term contracts, he explained, help foster more renewable energy development by providing entrepreneurs the stability they need to obtain financing. "Long-term contracts with wind farms and other renewable energy projects will benefit consumers, our state's growing clean energy industry, and the planet," he said.
The bill does include some troubling provisions, Rogers noted, including one overly limiting renewable energy imports into the region and another supporting coal gasification as an "alternative energy" source without requiring strong safeguards to avoid increasing global warming emissions. Coal-fired power plants are the nation's largest source of carbon dioxide.
"Providing this kind of incentive should be a non-starter for coal-fired power plants that don't capture and sequester a big part of their carbon dioxide emissions," Rogers said. "Climate science tells us that we need to act now to reduce our global warming emissions to have a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst consequences of climate change, so we can't afford to move backward."
According to "Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast," a 2007 report by UCS and more than 50 scientists and economists, global warming will substantially change critical aspects of Massachusetts' character and economy if emissions continue unchecked. By the end of the century, the report found, summers in Massachusetts could resemble summers today as far south as South Carolina.
"The Massachusetts Legislature understands what's at stake and has taken important steps to move us mostly in the right direction with this new bill," said Rogers, who represented UCS in the Massachusetts Climate Coalition, a group of science and environmental organizations that promoted the bill. "Strong energy legislation can help reduce global warming pollution, save consumers money, increase our energy independence, and keep our air and water clean."
To read the full text of the bill, go to: www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/185/st02pdf/st02768.pdf.
For more information on Massachusetts' state renewable electricity standard, go to: www.ucsusa.org/res.
For more about global warming's effects on Massachusetts and the rest of the Northeast, go to:
www.climatechoices.org/assets/documents/climatechoices/
massachuetts_necia.pdf.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading U.S. science-based nonprofit organization working for a healthy environment and a safer world. Founded in 1969, UCS is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also has offices in Berkeley, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
