State Rep. Garrett Bradley (D-Hingham)
Why is a Democratic state representative from suburban Boston filing a bill to let Kinder Morgan build a fracked gas pipeline through conservation land 150 miles away?
As Christian Schiavone reports for the Patriot Ledger, Bradley has outraged fellow Democrats and anti-pipeline activists by filing a bill to override conservation protections and let Kinder Morgan build a fracked gas pipeline on protected land in southern Berkshire County:
Bradley’s district includes parts of Hingham and Scituate and all of Cohasset and Hull. State Sen. Benjamin Downing, D-Pittsfield, and state Rep. William Pignatelli, D-Lenox, whose districts include Sandisfield, told The Recorder newspaper, of Greenfield, that they refused to file the bill on behalf of Kinder Morgan.
Pipeline opponents on the South Shore and Western Massachusetts blasted Bradley for filing a bill involving a pipeline far outside his district. Rachael Brennan of Weymouth said Bradley’s decision to file the bill flies in the face of growing opposition to a different project, proposed by Spectra Energy, that would include pipelines in Weymouth and Braintree and a compressor station near the Fore River in North Weymouth.
“We’re very confused and very angry,” said Brennan, co-leader of the Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station. “Why is he doing this even in the wake of all the opposition in Weymouth?”
First – wow, things are going worse than I thought for Kinder Morgan. Your big play here is to get a rep from all the way across the state to try to screw over the district where you want to build your pipeline? Real savvy, guys. Bravo.
Back to Bradley. His claims he’s trying to lower energy costs are laughable – our fracked gas dependence is exactly what’s driving up our electricity bills. Deepening our addiction will only worsen the problem and keep killing our climate. There’s also the question of whether Massachusetts even needs a new pipeline – there are strong suspicions this is an export pipeline.
So what’s Bradley really up to here? 
Check out this comment on the article left by political consultant and rural strategist Matt Barron:
What is interesting is that Rep. Bradley has pocketed $800 in 2014-2015 from Brian Hickey and Neil O’Brien, the Beacon Hill lobbyists for the Coalition to Lower Energy Costs, the front group that is pushing the Kinder Morgan pipeline (see below). Talk about special interests buying influence. Every ratepayer will pay through the nose for this pipeline so that the gas can be exported from the Canadian Maritimes over to Europe where it will fetch a price four times higher than in the U.S.
5/1/2015 Hickey, Brian
9 Park St. Suite 500 Boston, MA 02108 Legislative Agent
Brian Hickey & Associates $200.00
5/1/2015 O’Brien, Neil Thomas
P.O. Box 1296 Melrose, MA 02176 Legislative Agent
BRIAN HICKEY & ASSOC $200.00
4/27/2014 HICKEY, Brian
9 PARK STREET, STE500 Boston, MA 02108 LOBBIEST
BRIAN HICKEY & ASSOC $200.00
4/9/2014 O’Brien, Neil T.
9 Park Street Boston, MA 02108 LOBBIEST
BRIAN HICKEY & ASSOC $200.00
No one is suggesting a quid pro quo here and $800 is, I’m sorry to say, not a lot of money in state politics these days. That goes both for legislators getting hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in contributions and for lobbyists like Hickey giving more than $100,000 over the years. Small contributions like this are just the cover charge to get in the door. This is where I should remind you this paragraph is defending Bradley.
But when Bradley is sticking his nose in business all the way across the state, he deserves to face questions about whose best interests he’s really looking out for here – his constituents or his lobbyist friends?
If you oppose new and expanded fracked gas pipelines, go like FANG on Facebook
might bear some looking into:
Thornton Law Firm
Mr. Bradley is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School. Prior to joining Thornton Law Firm, Mr. Bradley worked as an Assistant District Attorney in the Plymouth County D.A.’s office and is currently serving in the State Legislature as State Representative for the Third Plymouth District. Mr. Bradley is a member of the Massachusetts and the New York Bar.
Mr. Bradley is a member of the Public Justice Foundation and has been named in Boston Magazine’s Outstanding Young Lawyers, Massachusetts, 2010. He has also been named as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the American Trial Lawyers Association and is a member of Million Dollar Advocates Forum.
Practice Areas
Complex Financial Fraud
Whistleblower Litigation
Class Action Litigation
are personal injury lawyers, however.
If you can’t get the locals to support your bill, get somebody with some juice.
Rep. Bradley is a member of the Speaker’s leadership team, which KinderMorgan is hoping makes up for the fact that Hingham is not in the Berkshires.
A similar episode last year — unbeknownst to Cape lawmakers and at the behest of wealthy Cape landowners including Robert Kraft, Rep, Michael Costello, a Democrat from Newburyport and the Chair of the Financial Services Committee, got an amendment adopted to prevent the operation of an oyster farm in Mashpee. The farm, you see, might have interfered with the landowers’ view of Nantucket Sound. Costello’s plan to create a “marine sanctuary” where the oyster farm was being proposed fell apart after the Globe exposed it. Rep. Costello, having decided not to see reelection in November, is now a principal in his own lobbying firm.
A bit of good news on the Kinder Morgan bill — Amendment 97 to the state constitution requires a 2/3 roll call vote on any bill that transfers conservation land, so this one cannot become law through the oft-preferred clandestine route.
There is nothing better as a blogger than when the comments are superior to the original post. WAY BETTAH. BY FAHHH.
To read the text and follow the bill’s progress, link is here.
If Rep. Bradley represents “leadership” on this, then we will need a very big broom indeed. Good work Matt Barron.
I’m of the (perhaps naive) view that Democratic legislators can be great on some issues, pretty good on others, and counterproductive on a few. When that happens, I think we can work on them to evolve, at least to the point of being neutral.
Look at gay rights. Even pretty recently, we had the vast majority of elected Democrats who were great on some issues, pretty good on others, and counterproductive on marriage (and other LGBTQ issues). We didn’t argue to vote them all out of office. We worked to educate them, to provide political cover for them, to make it easier for them to favor progressive policies in this area.
Same for this guy. Is he a DINO, or does he just stink on this energy and environment issue, or somewhere in between? Before serving him an eviction notice, can we get him to move in our direction?
Where my parents live, the price of natural gas is low enough that it is driving significant conversions away from fuel oil for home heating. That cant happen here– where there is an even greater reliance on inefficient fuel oil– because supply constraints keep the price of gas high.
Those high prices keep the price of electricity up as well, because power generation has shifted away from nuke, oil, and coal. Advocating restrictions on gas therefore seems to me to operate as a penalty for making this shift (away from nuke, oil, coal) in the past, and seems like a crappy policy. The result is that utilities that are able to switch back to oil for power production now do so.
Unclear why environmentalists are essentially carrying water for the fuel oil industry.
I think it is for two reasons. First, it’s starting to look as though gas and oil may be equivalent in terms of greenhouse effects once all the leaking methane is taken into account. So that while gas looks better in theory, in practice not so much.
Second, climate-change activists want to see the growth in renewables continue. Cheap gas threatens that, potentially.
I’d add that there are a lot of leaks and inefficiencies in the system. If you fixed those you’d have a stronger case for natural gas on two fronts.
Frankly I have been expecting the Baker administration to broker a deal along those lines with respect to the pipeline. As in, back the pipeline in exchange for a plan to plug leaks and an agreement for NH and Maine to stop blowing gas out the window.
Because this really amounts to encouraging the use of fuel oil for heat and electricity generation. I guess the thing that it does that is “good” is that it keeps the cost of electricity very expensive relative to the rest of the country, and thereby encourages usage reduction in the form of conservation and the continued growth of solar and wind locally.
In other words, kind of like a regressive Pigovian tax to support the green power development. Put another way, “we want your electric bill to be as high as we can possibly make them because its good for you in the long term.”
But: we dont support increased supply because NG causes increased electric bills is “a deliberate untruth uttered with the intent to deceive.”
It is certainly true that higher prices will depress consumption, and it may be true that a few environmentalists understand that and say they are okay with that.
But that is only a small part of my reply to your question, i.e., How can environmental advocates “carry water for the fuel industry.”
If the climate impact of NG is equal to that of oil, and if massive subsidies of NG are harming renewable, why shouldn’t environmental groups oppose the NG?
They are advocates for environmental quality, after all, not Pareto efficiency. (Although prices that incorporate some of the externalities could be more efficient.)
You haven’t said so, but I assume we are talking about pipeline expansion. There’s a pretty ripe economic case to be made against the take-or-pay contracts that required for that.
Environmental groups would no doubt prefer a true Pigovian tax, the proceeds of which could be distributed in ways that are progressive. (As in, tax-and-dividend.)
But these organizations are not in charge of things and must be willing to accept the good over the perfect. You will find many enviros supporting things like low-income rate subsidies in utility rate proceedings, even though those boost demand.
here’s what the Conservation Law Foundation is saying.
The key paragraph is this (emphasis mine):
The new pipeline is not needed.
Is that true? I was under the impression that, for the most part, folks still use fuel oil because there isn’t a natural gas delivery pipe in the road right in front of the house. Some is legacy inertia, a few probably due to fear of whole-house explosion, and perhaps some because they’re going to leapfrog from fuel oil to air source heat pump.
My understanding is that the cost-benefit analysis of converting from fuel oil to natural gas heat has historically been really good. It’s only the very recent cratering of the price of oil that may have changed that, though gas remains cheap in MA, so I bet it’s still more economic to convert to gas. Of course, if you haven’t done a bunch of energy efficiency in your home, you ought to do that first, then re-run the numbers!
After an afternoon on google, I think I am wrong. Withdrawn.
I think your comments are a good model for the rest of us. A common sense thought thrown out as a question. A few responses from others and your own research. And then changed your mind.
Changing our minds is a sign of strength, not weakness. This article isn’t just about changing our minds, but it shows the importance of it: http://www.vox.com/2015/8/20/9179657/tetlock-forecasting
…that this fracked gas is being offshored.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/two-national-energy-board-approved-lng-projects-hinge-on-us-permits/article25995937/
Offshoring this mess will drive domestic prices up. Spectra Energy and Kinder Morgan will get between $12 and $14 per dekatherm for this gas on the European and Asian Markets; while the price domestically is closer to $3. Both companies are using MA as a pass through to Canada to a free trade zone in Goldboro, NS.
Please like us at Fore River Residents Against Compressor Station on Facebook or go to nocompressor.com for all of the latest on Spectra Energy and Kinder Morgan.