SECOND OF 2 PARTS Almost exactly two years ago today, environmentalists were making a push for the Massachusetts legislature to advance a bill that was the predecessor of today's House Bill 912, An Act Relative to Forest Protection, now before the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture.  The bill they were advocating for had the same title, An Act Relative to Forest Protection, but a different number, House Bill 897; ultimately it did not advance beyond the House Ways and Means Committee. The contents of today's bill, H.912, are similar to the previous bill ..read more

FIRST OF TWO PARTS We should find out fairly soon if there's a chance the legislature will enact some major-impact environmental bills in the new year. Feb. 2, 2022, is Joint Rule 10 day, the deadline for most of the legislature's joint committees to issue reports on all bills assigned to them. Watch the Joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (JENRA).  If it issues favorable reports that day on House Bill 912, An Act Relative to Forest Protection, and House Bill 1002, An Act Relative to Increased Forest Protection, it could be a sign something signific ..read more

The next election for governor is almost a year away. Announced candidates include three Democrats, Harvard professor Danielle Allen, state senator Sonia Chang-Diaz and former state senator Ben Downing, and one Republican, former state representative Geoff Diehl, who's been endorsed by Donald Trump. Rampant is the expectation that Maura Healey, our attorney general, will be in the race as well. Healey would be considered the frontrunner, both in the primary and general elections, the moment she announced. Given how much Massachusetts likes having moderate Republican governors, like Baker and M ..read more

As long as the Jim Lyonses of the world are in the driver's seat at MassGOP it is hard to see how another Republican gets elected governor of Massachusetts. Shortly after our Republican governor, Charlie Baker, and his lieutenant governor, Karyn Polito, announced today that neither had a desire to run for governor in 2022, the Republican Party of Massachusetts put out a press release with this quote from Party Chairman Jim Lyons: "Our party remains committed to the America-First of agenda advocated by President Donald J. Trump, and it's clear to me that Charlie Baker was shaken by President Tr ..read more

Remember that company from Texas, Kinder Morgan, that proposed in 2014 to bring bountiful Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania to New England via a new pipeline across northern Massachusetts?   Remember how Massachusetts basically told Kinder Morgan to get stuffed?  (The list of influential politicians willing to support the plan had zero names on it.)  Remember how so many of our leaders questioned the rationale for the project: that we needed more natural gas and a new pipeline was required to deliver it?  Focus now on the present.  New Englanders are facing st ..read more

The administration of Governor Charlie Baker has decided to shut down the Massachusetts Community Tracing Collaborative the end of this year and turn over all COVID-19 contact tracing to local boards of health.  To facilitate the transition, the administration will award more than $15 million in grants to the local boards.  It was during the second month of the pandemic here, April 2020, that the collaborative was set up to limit the spread of COVID-19 by contacting persons who were likely exposed to infected persons and getting them tested. From April 2020 through nearly the end of ..read more

The Baker administration anticipated the grumbling that could follow in the wake of its announcement last week that it was going forward with a $35 million project to build a 785-foot-long pedestrian and bicycle bridge over the Mystic River that will link the site of the Encore casino in Everett to Assembly Square in Somerville.   Administration officials came to the Oct. 22 announcement ceremony armed with facts on how the bridge would help both people and the environment, and on how much it would do for communities deemed both Gateway Cities and areas deserving of "environmental ju ..read more

Federal authorities have made known the story of a longtime U.S. Postal Service employee who developed something on the side in the cocaine trade. The Office of Acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Nathaniel R. Mendell announced Oct. 22 that Shawn M. Herron, 44, a resident of Whitman, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and one count of theft of mail by a postal employee. A press release from Mendell's office states that Herron has been employed with the Postal Service since 2005 and has served as Supervisor of Customer Service at the Ca ..read more

SECOND OF TWO PARTS  On June 28, Governor Charlie Baker filed An Act Relative to Immediate COVID Recovery Needs, saying he wanted to "immediately put to use $2.915 billion of the Commonwealth's direct federal aid to address urgent hardships and challenges facing those that have been hard hit" by the pandemic, "including communities of color and low-wage workers." Line Item 1599-2032 in this bill, now designated House Bill 3922, calls for $400 million in grants to fund water and sewer infrastructure improvements, specifying that projects be undertaken to remediate "combined sewer overflow ..read more

The big problem that Massachusetts has always had with combined sewage overflows got a whole lot worse this year because of the many heavy rainstorms we've had. Combined sewer overflows occur mainly in older municipalities with partially antiquated sewage systems.  These communities have some old pipes that must do double-duty: carry both rainwater and sewage.   When there's lots of rain, wastewater system operators in these places have no choice but to mix untreated sewage with rainwater and send that noxious mix into natural waterways, such as rivers.  Otherwise, sewage w ..read more