Clearing the Air on Natural Gas

June 16, 2016

Synapse Principal Economist Liz Stanton's OpEd on natural gas pipelines was recently featured in CommonWealth Magazine.

Want to know how Massachusetts can lower electric bills while safeguarding the health of not just our own children but everyone else's children, too? By following our existing state and federal environmental laws and continuing to lead the nation by setting the standard for the clean energy economy.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's May 17, 2016, decision is unequivocal. Our 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act requires annual limits on each category of the Commonwealth's emission of greenhouse gases. When taken together, these limits must be sufficient to bring our 2020 emissions to 75 percent of 1990 levels. Moreover, the Supreme Judicial Court instructed the Baker Administration to enforce these legally mandated reductions with binding regulations "to attain actual, measurable, and permanent emission reductions in the Commonwealth," including setting 2030 and 2040 emission targets that will get us to 20 percent of 1990 emissions by 2050.

That's the future we've already chosen. Continue reading.