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Mon Jan 30, 2012 at 14:14:56 PM EST
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(Spin it 'round again, DeLeo. - promoted by eli_beckerman)
The Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy was in the news last week on three bills that I am following: the Expanded Bottle Bill, the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act, and the Muni Choice bill for municipal power choice. |
| scott_laugenour :: Spinning the Bottle Bill and Wind and Munis |
| Expanding the bottle bill to require deposits and to encourage recycling and redemption of water and sports drink containers, is the right thing to do for the budget, for the environment, and for expanding green job-creating infrastructure. I support the expanded bottle bill. Last week, however, the House Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, John D. Keenan, was quoted in the Boston Herald in a candid admission that the $22 million that the expanded bottle bill was forecast to generate in the governor's budget would not be included in the House's budget proposal because House Speaker De Leo did not wish for it to be considered.
The committee acted on the Wind Energy Siting Reform Act last week. The bill was relegated to a study, which means that it is dead. I oppose this bill primarily because wind energy siting permits in towns would have been expedited by a 3-5 member appointed town panel. I support expediting such permitting processes by bringing proposals before annual town meeting voters, who are the true voices of the community for major projects such as wind energy installations. Secretary Sullivan declared at a Sep 2011 public hearing before the joint committee in Hancock that wind installations would not be placed in communities that didn't want them. Town meetings are where this should be decided.
The committee gave a favorable report to the Mass Muni Choice bill, which I support. With the ongoing development of clean renewable energy that can be locally generated (read: wind and solar), it is good policy to allow municipalities an option to own and provide power to their communities, which is what this bill does. |
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Green Mass Group is an online forum for Green thought and collective action in Massachusetts. It is a community forum for justice, sustainability, democracy and health in the Commonwealth and beyond.
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| Quotes |
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty--power is ever stealing from the many to the few... The hand entrusted with power becomes... the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.
--Abolitionist Wendell Phillips, 1852
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Then and Now
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Then...
"Last year Evergreen, a Massachusetts company, agreed to establish their first-ever United States based manufacturing facility here in Massachusetts. They did so, or are doing so, at Devens. They have now agreed and chosen to triple their size at Devens. Their next phase of expansion, right here in Massachusetts, a signature company in a signature sector, and we congratulate all of the folks at Evergreen and look forward to continuing to work with you...
We made a personal commitment to Evergreen for the sake of Evergreen, but also because we wanted to show that there are ways in which state government, in working together with private industry and with the utility companies, could begin to create a different kind of environment, a different kind of business climate here, to grow that sector, and it is happening. It's happening. Evergreen is one of the most prominent examples, but there are a whole host of examples."
--Governor Deval Patrick, April 7, 2008, boasting about state investment in Evergreen.
and Now...
"Evergreen Solar Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection yesterday, completing a stunning reversal of fortune for a high-flying alternative-energy company that once seemed to herald a new era for the Massachusetts economy... At its peak, Evergreen employed roughly 900 people locally and attracted more than $50 million in state support, as its stock price soared above $100 a share.
Yesterday, Evergreen's stock closed at 18 cents. The company shuttered its manufacturing plant in Devens earlier this year and now has only 85 employees left. Massachusetts is one of its top creditors, owed $1.5 million in rent."
--Erin Ailworth, Boston Globe, August 16, 2011
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