Governor Baker signed the climate bill (H.5060), titled An Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind, into law on Thursday August 11, 2022. The act combines and modifies provisions from the House’s proposed offshore wind...more
On August 11, 2022, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed into law An Act driving climate policy forward. After months of heavy legislative activity involving a wide range of stakeholders in the clean energy and...more
Yesterday, the Baker administration announced that the Transportation Climate Initiative is dead in Massachusetts, at least for now. This is not a surprise, particularly after Governor Lamont’s statement that there is no...more
Chapter 8 of the Acts of 2021, An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy (the Climate Act), signed by Gov. Charlie Baker on March 26, 2021, includes new energy and water efficiency standards...more
Much of the recent news about climate-influenced building codes has come out of California, where the California Energy Commission announced adoption of revisions to its Building Energy Efficiency Standards, also known as the...more
Maine, Massachusetts, and Maryland all passed legislation this summer that expands the raison d’etre of state utility regulatory bodies to include addressing the impacts of climate change. These efforts mark an emerging trend...more
In This Issue. President Biden signed an executive order addressing climate-related financial risks; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) finalized a rule applicable to national banks and federal savings...more
While much attention has been paid to the ambitious climate change mitigation requirements in "An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy," the comprehensive climate change legislation recently...more
On March 26, 2021, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed Chapter 8 of the Acts of 2021, An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy (the Act), into law, cementing the Commonwealth's status as...more
It’s not always the case, but my speculation about the Massachusetts climate bill was correct. On Friday, Governor Baker signed it into law. If I haven’t succeeded in making this clear previously, I want to emphasize that...more
In January, when Governor Baker vetoed the Legislature’s effort to go big on climate, my colleague Zach Gerson made clear that the bill was not even “mostly dead.” I am pleased to say that Zach’s diagnosis was correct. The...more
The program will include a multi-jurisdictional cap-and-invest program and aims to address environmental justice and equity concerns. On December 21, 2020, the Governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut,...more
Sometimes, “mostly dead” is just a pause before successfully storming the castle. On July 14, Governor Baker vetoed the climate bill that passed the Massachusetts Legislature on July 4 with overwhelming support... I couldn’t...more
Governor Baker announced on Friday that, as part of his FY 2020 budget, he would be proposing to increase the real estate excise tax in order to fund the Global Warming Solutions Trust Fund. The Governor stated that, in the...more
Governor Baker has sent some mixed messages to the environmental community in his first term. After promising during the campaign to increase environmental spending to 1% of the state budget, he’s made essentially no progress...more
Last Friday, Governor Baker issued Executive Order 569, “Establishing an Integrated Climate Change Strategy for the Commonwealth.” EO 569 will advance climate policy in Massachusetts in a number of important ways. It also...more