SUGGESTIONS FOR ACTION – Pick one or many!
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Comment Periods
Comment periods are deadlines for submitting comments regarding important proceedings that shape our energy future, land use, and other key decisions made by state and federal agencies. Please take part and make your voice heard.
Actions
TAKE ACTION: Non-Pipeline Alternatives Working Group
The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities’ (DPU), through its order in D.P.U. 20-80, requested that the natural gas distribution companies (also known as local distribution companies (LDCs)) engage with stakeholders to develop a Non-Pipes Alternative (“NPA”) framework.
The LDCs want to gather input from a wide range of people with different viewpoints to ensure the NPA framework meets customer needs while maintaining safety and reliability as the gas system changes. The companies have hired a team of consultants (E3, Apex, and Efficiency for Everyone) to lead the stakeholder input process. There are multiple ways for interested individuals and organizations to participate
If you wish to submit a public comment, please use the “Contact Us” form at the bottom of this page. Written comments from group members and the public will be uploaded on a regular basis.
TAKE ACTION: Green Justice Coalition’s triple win pledge
Historic federal funding from the Biden Administration will yield at least $9 billion for Massachusetts to invest in needed infrastructure including climate mitigation, pollution reduction, transit, public buildings, water and sanitation, and other projects that will make Massachusetts cleaner, greener, and more equitable.
The Green Justice Coalition’s triple win pledge is part of a campaign to uplift our communities by ensuring the public infrastructure we need is built with strong project labor agreements. With PLAs, we can achieve a triple win in the green economy. Our state can ensure fair wages, benefits, training, and safety on public construction projects while creating strong career opportunities that increase equity in Massachusetts.
The Triple Win:
- ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Build the infrastructure we need to advance environmental justice and create a just transition to a sustainable climate future.
- ECONOMIC JUSTICE: Advance family-sustaining, union career pathways by investing in “earn while you learn” registered apprenticeship training programs.
- EQUITY: Provide access and opportunities for people of color, women, and working-class Massachusetts residents through targeted outreach and recruitment programs, child care options for workers, and provisions to promote the use of MBEs and WBEs.
TAKE ACTION: Help get an Indigenous Peoples Day bill passed in MA!
For decades, Christopher Columbus has been celebrated as a “hero” who “discovered America.” Indigenous people have made it clear that in truth he and his men were responsible for the enslavement, rape and murder of countless Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean, and that the lands where he arrived were invaded, not “discovered.” Since the 1970s, Indigenous people have asked that Indigenous Peoples Day should instead be celebrated on the second Monday in October as a positive day to learn about and honor Indigenous history and peoples. States such as Maine and Vermont already celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day, as do an increasing number of cities and towns in Massachusetts, from Holyoke to Northampton to Provincetown and Aquinnah, Westford, Medway, Somerville and Cambridge. The time has come for the entire state of Massachusetts to stop celebrating Columbus and instead honor Indigenous Peoples Day. An Act establishing an Indigenous Peoples Day will make that happen.
Please take a moment today to contact the Committee the bill is in right now to move our bill forward.
TAKE ACTION: Local control over the permitting and siting of energy facilities and infrastructure.
The politicians on Beacon Hill are considering once again legislation to remove existing local control over the permitting and siting of energy facilities and infrastructure.
This includes handing ” green” energy” generating projects ( solar, wind, anaerobic digestion) over 25 MW to a revamped state energy siting board. The threshold has been 100 MW.
A vote in the Massachusetts House and Senate could take place any day.
Your voice against the loss of local control is urgently needed.
Please call the offices of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House, as well as the offices of the chairpersons of the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee (TUE). Send emails, too.
Your own state senator and representative need to hear from you, also. Ask all your friends to do the same.
Tell Beacon Hill you oppose any change in the rights of municipalities to oversee the locations and permitting of industrial solar and wind facilities, and associated transmission, distribution, and other infrastructure.
Please also ask your select board and planning board to send letters of opposition. Their letters will be very important, too.
Phone calls, emails, and letters can all be brief, just a sentence or two.
In your emails, use as your subject line: I OPPOSE LOSS OF LOCAL CONTROL!
Here is the contact information:
Senator Karen Spilka, Senate President
Phone: (617) 722-1500
Email: Karen.Spilka@masenate.gov
Representative Ronald Mariano, Speaker of the House
Phone: (617) 722-2500
Email: Ronald.Mariano@mahouse.gov
Senator Michael Barrett, Co-Chair, TUE
Phone: (617) 722-1572
Email: Mike.Barrett@masenate.gov
Representative Jeffrey Roy, Co-Chair, TUE
Phone: (617) 722-2030
Email: Jeffrey.Roy@mahouse.gov
To find the name and contact information for your state senator and representative, click here: https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator
Also -Please sign this letter asking your Senator and Representative to co-sponsor S1319/H2082 An Act Regarding Municipal Zoning Powers, sponsored by Representative Paul McMurtry and Senator Jacob Oliveira
This bill would make sure that municipalities can pass and enforce reasonable regulations for solar just as they are allowed to do for any other development. This bill does not encourage or discourage solar development. It protects citizens and municipalities who are often losing court cases while trying to uphold their zoning bylaws. This bill protects the longstanding tradition and value of local control in Massachusetts, and would potentially protect tens of thousands of acres of forests, wetlands and farmlands from large solar projects are deemed locally as inappropriate.
Find the bill here: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/S1319 https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/H2082
Background and fact sheet for this bill is here:
S1319/H2082 Background and Fact Sheet
Solar Fact Sheet.March 16 2023.pdf
More information is here: https://communitylandandwater.org/ and https://www.savemassforests.com/
TAKE ACTION: Proposed legislation is imminently threatening our ability to have a say about whether our forests are clearcut for large-scale solar.
A new bill, H.4501, is quickly making its way through the legislative process. This bill intends to speed the construction of solar and other clean energy projects, in part, by consolidating management of the permitting and siting process into a single state permitting board.
If passed as is, this bill could take away our town’s right to approve or deny permits and siting for large-scale projects.
While we fully recognize the need to speed up implementation of true clean energy solutions, we are very concerned that this bill will essentially become a tool to fast-track large-scale projects that will be completely inappropriate, and ultimately devastating to our forests, our drinking water and our important ecological systems.
Please take 5 minutes now write and/or call:
Senator Michael Barrett (Chair of Senate Telecommunications Utilities and Energy committee): Mike.Barrett@masenate.gov, (617) 722-1572
Representative Jeffrey Roy (Chair of House Telecommunications Utilities and Energy committee): Jeffrey.Roy@mahouse.gov (617) 722-2030
Michael Judge (Undersecretary for Energy from the Coalition for Community Solar Access): Michael.judge@state.ma.us or Michael.judge@ma.gov
If writing an email, don’t forget to include your name, address and phone number at the top.
Phone calls are generally more impactful.
TAKE ACTION: Tell ISO-NE to Stop Sending Our Money to Fossil Fuel Peaker Plants!
Our regional energy grid operators, ISO-NE, continue to operate a “forward capacity auction” that guarantees power plants funding into the future. This year’s auction guaranteed $780 million out of our electric bills to fossil-fueled power plants. Around $350 million of that is earmarked for fossil fuel generators who are only activated an average of 12.5 days a year!
It’s time to move the transition to clean energy along instead of continuing to operate the energy market with rules that were made when fossil fueled electricity was just getting started.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) now has to approve ISO-NE’s forward capacity auction results – but we believe that these results violate ISO’s mandate. So we’re submitting this comment to FERC.
TAKE ACTION: Stop Project Maple!
As part of the Stop Project Maple campaign, we’re working on getting local-level elected officials from across the state to sign on to a letter to Governor Healey – asking her to deny any state permits if Enbridge files the project with FERC. Project Maple would expand the existing Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) gas transmission line spanning New York, Connecticut, Mass, and Rhode Island. The plans outlined in their bid for customers included replacing segments of transmission pipeline with wider diameter pipeline, running pipeline “loops” (parallel pipelines) along segments where there is room, and expansion of capacity of existing compressor stations.
This is a huge expansion of gas capacity at a time when the state has mandates (and less and less time) to halt the use of gas altogether.
This campaign to is for folks to get elected local officials – whether Mayors, city councilors, select board members, health board members, green committee members – you name it – to sign on so we can present the letter to Maura Healey on May 1st.
Please ask your group’s members to send an email to their local officials to sign on by April 25th, and Cc: Nisha Swinton of Food and Water Watch, who has graciously acted as our organizer on this effort. Reach out to everyone you know!
» More information and a sample letter to your local officials
TAKE ACTION: Massachusetts ratepayers should not fund burning trees for energy.
The good news is that the biomass bills we’re supporting got an extension from TUE, so there is still time for them to be reported out favorably or included in a climate bill.
The bad news is that a different bill that has emerged from TUE has language that (1) increases subsidies for biomass facilities under the APS, and (2) eliminates a biomass study that was mandated by the 2021 Climate Roadmap Law.
It’s time to contact TUE again!
ORGANIZATIONS ONLY: Please sign your organization on to this letter by Wednesday, March 13th.
INDIVIDUALS: Contact your legislators with this message:
Massachusetts ratepayers should not fund burning trees for energy. Please ask TUE not to include sections 8 or 22 of H.3216 in any legislation going forward. Instead, please incorporate the policies of S.2136 /H.3210 and S.2137/H.3211 into the Committee’s climate legislation.
TAKE ACTION: Put Gas in the Past!
We have a win, but the fight’s not over! The Senate members of the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy Committee (TUE) voted favorably on the Put Gas in the Past Bill, a huge step forward. Thank you for your tireless efforts: signing petitions, lobbying, and contacting key members! (Read more about why this bill is still needed here)
But it’s not over yet! The House members of the TUE Committee extended their deadline for making a decision on the bill. This means we have more time to build support. We need your help again! Take action: your legislator needs to cosponsor the bill to show it has strong support.
Contact your State Senator and Representative and Urge them to co-sponsor H.3237
Here are the details of the TUE Committee’s actions in a statement by the Put Gas in the Past Campaign: While this is an encouraging start, the bill hasn’t passed yet.
We can ramp up pressure on the TUE Committee by getting more co-sponsors. Massachusetts needs leadership on climate change and affordable energy now. That’s why a broad coalition of organizations is urging legislators to co-sponsor H.3237. The bills propose the crucial step: permanently halting the expansion of large new gas pipelines. Gas expansion locks us into combustible fuels. We need to move away from polluting sources like gas to protect our climate and health.
Take action today!
- Contact your State Senator and Representative and Urge them to co-sponsor H.3237
- Share this message! Spread the word and encourage others to contact their legislators.
TAKE ACTION: Submit a comment to ISO-NE
ISO-NE (Independent System Operator – New England, the regional power system operator) has somewhat of a rolling public comment process, so you can always submit comments for them to pass on to the board. Please submit written comments to the board regarding Fix the Grid’s demands! You can email comments to legal@iso-ne.com. If you submit a comment, please note these asks:
- Ask that ISO-NE respond specifically and publicly to your comment, and all the comments submitted, the way state and federal agencies do.
- Request that ISO-NE publish the comments received, and notify them that you consent to having your comment be shared publicly (assuming you do).
- Bcc me (mireille@slingshot.org) when you submit your comment so we can track comments and compile them!
TAKE ACTION: Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline
After many years of delays and a fatally flawed Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) written by a member of the American Petroleum Institute — a clear conflict of interest — the Army Corps of Engineers is finally taking public comments on this dangerous violation of the sovereignty of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The pipeline also endangers the Missouri River, which affects the health and wellbeing of 17 million people downstream.
We have another chance to demand that the government shut the pipeline down.
DAPL will worsen climate change by pumping thousands of gallons of oil to market every day it is in operation. A toxic spill would endanger the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of people living downstream. Yet construction of the pipeline was exempted from the requirements of the Clean Water Act.
As a matter of sovereignty, honor, and respect for the Standing Rock Sioux Nation, we must demand that DAPL be shut down. Now. Shutting the pipeline down will also protect crucial water supplies for millions and reject the increase of greenhouse gasses responsible for disastrous climate change.
Send your comments to the Army Corps of Engineers by clicking here. You can sign and send a pre-written comment, or write your own. Either way, they must hear from you today about the Dakota Access Pipeline!
TAKE ACTION: Stop Private Jet Expansion
Hanscom Field is already the largest private jetport in New England. If the proposal to triple the private jet capacity moved forward, private jets enabled by Hanscom would cancel out 70% of the greenhouse gas reductions from all the solar PV installed in Massachusetts (based on a 2.5 hour flight). This is a statewide issue. The proposed development is simultaneously destructive to the climate and to the remedies we are trying to put in place.
It is also an environmental justice issue: a single private luxury jet trip to Asia generates more CO2e than a typical family in India generates in an entire lifetime.
We appeal to Governor Healey to apply her leadership and authority to renounce expansion of private jet capacity at Hanscom – or at any airport – and thereby send a message to Massport, and every other airport owner, that such expansions are antithetical to the drastic and unprecedented steps we are now called upon to take to reduce CO2 emissions.
Take action and send a message today!
» Contact BEAT to get a yard sign to show your support!
TAKE ACTION: Tell Mass DEP: Don’t Trash New Bedford!
Parallel Products of New England, d/b/a South Coast Renewables, LLC, wants to build a massive trash plant in the Business Park, next to a residential community. Municipal solid waste (MSW) and Construction and Demolition (C&D) materials from other cities would be processed 24 hours/day, 7 days/week and be delivered via industrial trucks and trailers, amounting to approximately 386 trips per day. According to the Conservation Law Foundation, MSW can contain dangerous, toxic substances, and these sites affect water quality, air quality, produce smoke & dust, and create pest infestations.
The City of New Bedford has long suffered from numerous hazardous waste sites and its residents have born a large brunt of the health impacts as a result. The city is already the 6th most overburdened town in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with Ecological Hazards. For the safety, security, and well-being of the citizens of our communities, we oppose this project in our city. The odors, noise, pests, and increased traffic in an already congested area caused by this facility will negatively impact lives and the value of properties, posing an unacceptable risk and nuisance to the local residents and surrounding communities. It’s time to start prioritizing people and the planet over pollution and profits.
Take action and send a message today!
TAKE ACTION: Say No to Carbon Waste Dumping in Forests
The U.S. Forest Service is planning to allow carbon waste dumping in national forests.
We can’t allow the nation’s forests to be used as a dumping ground for fossil fuel companies and other industrial polluters. Not only would carbon storage require the buildout of dangerous pipelines, injection wells and roads — it would also pose potentially deadly risks to people and wildlife. Carbon dioxide leaks are highly hazardous and can lead to suffocation and even death.
We need to stop this dangerous proposal in its tracks. Tell the Forest Service to scrap its upcoming proposal to allow carbon waste dumping in U.S. forests.
Take action and send a message today.
TAKE ACTION: Call FERC and Demand They Reject the GTN Xpress Pipeline Expansion
The GTN Xpress Pipeline expansion is on the agenda for the monthly FERC commissioners meeting this Thursday. This project is inconsistent with Washington’s and Oregon’s laws that require decreasing climate emissions by 95% and 80%, respectively, by 2050. GTN XPress would raise state emissions making these targets even harder to reach. In a collaborative motion, the Attorney Generals of Washington, Oregon, and California are calling on FERC to issue a denial.
Take action and send a message today.
TAKE ACTION: Tell ConocoPhillips’ CEO Ryan Lance to stop the final investment in Willow before it’s too late.
As ConocoPhillips nears its decision on whether to fund the Willow oil drilling project in the Western Arctic, it’s become increasingly clear that the impacts of drilling in the Arctic simply won’t stay in the Arctic.
The rapidly melting Arctic has its own challenges. Due to melting permafrost, ConocoPhillips plans to mechanically freeze the ground to move forward with drilling. In fact, the very pipeline that will carry that oil has begun to sink and break as the ground beneath it melts.
But there’s more. The Willow project will directly threaten critical habitat for birds that travel throughout the country. And we could lose more than migrating birds if ConocoPhillips moves forward. With unprecedented forest fires in Canada, heat bubbles in Texas and unheard-of tornadoes in California, a rapidly warming Arctic has been failing to regulate our climate and made extreme weather events more common across the planet.
Take action and send a message today.
Support New Massachusetts Forest Protection Bills
We are asking for support from you and our lawmakers for two bills that we submitted this Massachusetts legislative session — H894 and H904. The goal of these bills is forest protection for climate change mitigation, biodiversity protection, and the many benefits of natural forests for the public. Please call or e-mail your legislators and ask them to co-sponsor these bills. You can find your legislator here:
https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator
H894 calls for a logging moratorium on all Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) state forests and watersheds, and on all Division of Fisheries and wildlife (DFW) wildlifemanagement areas, except in an emergency situation.
H904 An Act relative to increased protection of wildlife management areas would expand the system of nature reserves on public Wildlife Management Areas under the control of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, and make them permanent.
Tell EPA to Issue Strong Limits On Coal Plant Water Pollution
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently proposed strengthening water pollution standards for coal-fired power plants. Coal plants are one of the biggest toxic water polluters, dumping millions of pounds of heavy metals, chlorides, nutrients, and other harmful pollutants into our nation’s water bodies every year. Let EPA know you support strong limits on coal plant water pollution!
If finalized, these standards would eliminate over half a billion pounds of pollution every year. Eliminating this pollution will make it safer to fish and swim in rivers and lakes around the country while safeguarding drinking water sources for millions of people.
TAKE ACTION: Call on Your Legislators to Take Action to Advance Equitable Climate Policy by Co-Sponsoring H.3150/S.2117
Please take action today to accelerate clean energy and equity: call on your legislators to co-sponsor H.3150/S.2117 an Act Advancing Clean Energy, Equity, and Innovation within Municipal Utilities!
»Write a personalized letter to your legislators using MCAN’s action network template here!
In order for us to meet our climate target in a just and equitable way, we need all communities across our Commonwealth to rapidly accelerate the use of clean energy, like wind and solar, while supporting environmental justice communities in making the transition to a clean and efficient energy future.
»Be a part of this critical work – write a letter today!
TAKE ACTION: Stop gas companies from mixing hydrogen with methane and calling it “green”
The gas companies’ latest gambit to keep us dependent on natural gas (aka methane) for many more decades involves installing new pipes designed to carry a 7-12% hydrogen/methane mix. The gas companies claim that this is an essential part of their plan to “decarbonize” as required by the Massachusetts Next Generation Roadmap law. At best, the effect will be minor (a 10% or so reduction), well short of the reductions required by the law, and the hydrogen in the mix is not a clean or low-cost fuel either.
»Read the report and follow the action toolkit!
We need FERC to be replaced by FREC, a Federal Renewable Energy Commission!
Senators Warren and Sanders need to hear from us! They both endorsed FREC while running for President in 2020. Now they need to see that this idea is backed by thousands of us around the country and that we want them to give visible support to it by introducing FERC to FREC legislation!
You can sign on to our petition by clicking on this link. You may also personalize the petition by adding your own comment and experiences with FERC.