WE COULD BE HEROES … nah. No David Bowie today.
They never fail to disappoint. Yesterday the House leadership refused to take up Rep. Kay Khan’s amendment to increase the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard by 3% a year, over the current 1%/year. As you know if you’ve been reading here, this is the central motivator of the growth in renewable energy in the states, the policy highway of how we get from here to there. And we need a 3% increase to actually grow beyond what’s already going to happen due to other factors, and get to 50% renewable by 2030 like New York, California and New Jersey.
And Bob DeLeo’s and Jeff Sanchez’s House booted it. Because you knew they would — in spite of the amendment’s co-sponsorship by 41 Reps:
Amendment #29 to H4738
relative to increasing the renewable portfolio standard
Representatives Khan of Newton, Balser of Newton, Barber of Somerville, Cabral of New Bedford, Connolly of Cambridge, Decker of Cambridge, DiZoglio of Methuen, Dooley of Norfolk, DuBois of Brockton, Ehrlich of Marblehead, Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, Fernandes of Falmouth, Garballey of Arlington, Garlick of Needham, Gentile of Sudbury, Goldstein-Rose of Amherst, Gordon of Bedford, Hawkins of Attleboro, Hay of Fitchburg, Hecht of Watertown, Higgins of Leominster, Holmes of Boston, Kaufman of Lexington, Keefe of Worcester, Koczera of New Bedford, Kulik of Worthington, Lewis of Framingham, Livingstone of Boston, Malia of Boston, Mark of Peru, Meschino of Hull, Murray of Milford, Provost of Somerville, Rogers of Cambridge, Rushing of Boston, Scibak of South Hadley, Smizik of Brookline, Stanley of Waltham, Tosado of Springfield, Ultrino of Malden and Vega of Holyokemove to amend the bill by striking out section 6 and inserting in place thereof the following section:
“SECTION 6. Section 11F of chapter 25A of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2016 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking out, in lines 16 and 17, the words “and (3) an additional 1 per cent of sales every year thereafter”, and inserting in place thereof the following words: – “(3) an additional 1 per cent of sales every year until December 31, 2018; (4) an additional 1.5 per cent of sales by December 31, 2019; (5) an additional 2 per cent of sales by December 31, 2020; (6) an additional 2.5 per cent of sales by December 31, 2021; and (7) an additional 3 per cent of sales every year thereafter.”
Perhaps this can be added back in committee with the Senate? If that’s possible, I don’t know why they wouldn’t just leave it in the House bill.
Speaker Bob DeLeo lives on a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean. I can’t imagine what keeps him from feeling urgency on energy and climate. I don’t know how else to tell people that moving quickly and aggressively on clean energy is the wise and prudent course of action, in the same way that exiting a burning building with all deliberate haste is the wise and prudent course of action. And given that it’s also a winner on jobs and public health … I just don’t get it. We could be heroes, folks.
There must be a political price to pay if this doesn’t go through. It may get messy. Again, remember that Sanchez has a progressive challenger in Nika Elugardo. What profiteth Sanchez to gain the world Ways and Means chair and lose his soul House seat?
Tremendously disappointing – happy to see my rep on that list, Brian Murray of Milford, I called him about this after the Senate bill passed.
The usual reason why one chamber would not include a provision that the other chamber’s bill did include is to increase conference committee leverage. The House would say in conference, “Ok, Senate, you want Provision X? Then give us Provision Y, which was not in your bill, in return.”
In this case, however, the House was not just employing that usual tactic. In addition, the House chose not to take the direct path to a conference committee. It did not take up the Senate’s energy bill and propose its own version. Instead the House acted on four bills, none of which the Senate has yet considered, even though the Senate has indeed acted on energy and climate.
In order for a conference committee to be appointed, one of the chambers must act on the other chamber’s bill (or bills). Otherwise, they’re just ships passing in the night.
This House strategy is getting to be familiar. They have used it already this session with health care and with education, forcing the Senate to act not just once (on its own bill) but twice (substituting the text it had passed for the version the House passed), which was necessary for a conference committee to be appointed.
The chair of the House energy committee, Tom Golden, said yesterday, preposterously, that the House approach was superior because having four separate bills allows House members “to focus on the issues at hand..”
This may all get worked out (although four separate House energy bills makes life even more complicated for the Senate), but it’s fair to say that now the House is willing to play chicken.
Also — under rules agreed to in early 2017 to speed up action, all conference committees must be appointed before July 18. (But this rule, like any other, can be suspended.)
This post paints a very one-sided picture. Not to pick on you, I’ve seen the same kinds of comments elsewhere.
If we do nothing the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) goes up 1% every year. Yesterday the House just voted to DOUBLE that rate to 2%. The Senate wants 3%.
A fair point of disagreement and certainly folks can voice their disappointment the higher number was not adopted, but the kinds of #climatefail comments I’ve seen make it appear like they CUT the RPS instead of doubling it.
And to criticize Jeff Sanchez who just ushered thru the most progressive House budget in many years seems counter productive.
The need for a 3% increase has been gone over, again, by Synapse Energy, and others. You need it that high to keep up demand for Renewable Energy Credits – otherwise they get cheap and you lose incentive to go green.
This has been gone over.
Read up: https://blog.ucsusa.org/john-rogers/massachusetts-energy-progress
Nah. When you have 80% of the legislature and veto proof override power you can pass whatever the frack you want. The fact that DeLeo consistently refuses to do so should show everyone else how retrograde he and his enablers on the Hill really are.
As for the Winthrop point, he’s childless Charley, and the only future date he cares about is Jan 2021 when his pensions vest and he can finally leave the hard work of legislating for corporations for the lucrative work of lobbying for them.
From what I’ve seen with Democrats on Beacon Hill, Charley, the opinions of the “business community” (AKA the owners, the 1%, the rent seekers, the rentiers) matter far more than the wishes of mere mortals like you and me in economic matters. Our legislators are quite progressive and liberal and blue when it comes to social justice issues, but economic issues are quite a different matter.. My hunch is that “business owners” were against this and so it failed.
They aren’t exactly liberal on social justice issues either. Dragging on Safe Communities Act and it was a real fight to get the transgender protection passed, and they didn’t seem to lift a finger to keep it off the ballot this fall the same way they kept the progressive initiatives off the ballot at the last minute. A lot of this has to do with the fact that right wingers vote in every election and always make their voices heard.
I work with and know a lot of transplants to MA that love going to rallies but have never called the statehouse and do not know their rep. They just assume they can vote D on autopilot and the first gay marriage state with Warren as it senator just must be progressives. Local activists always find out the hard way how bad it really is.
Excellent point. I remember moving here 17 years ago thinking there was no need for me to get involved with politics as this is a “blue” state no matter what…..then I watched Scott Brown get elected.
Shortly after that, I canvassed for Jim McGovern who had a Tea Party opponent as the Republican.