Roughly two months after its introduction, GreenWorks (H. 3987) passed the Massachusetts House with a unanimous vote on Wednesday. Although the bill makes a number of important investments in clean energy programs, it places special emphasis on climate adaptation and resilience. To achieve these goals, it authorizes the state to borrow $1.3 billion, which will be allocated to cities and towns through a competitive grant program.
How will GreenWorks fare in the Senate? Senate leaders have been mum on the subject. When asked about the bill, Senate President Karen Spilka stated “We will take a look, I will discuss this with my chairs and the other senators.” Tim Cronin of the Climate Action Business Association nicely summarized the dizzying of array of potential scenarios in his July 23 piece, noting that the Senate’s options range from holding the bill up in committee and using it as a bargaining chip to passing it with only minor revisions. Cronin concludes “What will happen after it leaves the House is anyone’s guess.”
There are, however, a number of pending bills that provide some interesting insights into the Senate’s priorities when it comes to climate adaptation. Some suggest GreenWorks, which authorizes the issuance of bonds to support its main provisions, is on a collision course with Governor Charlie Baker’s proposal (S.10) to use a real estate transfer tax to fund state adaptation programs. However, as I noted last week in a opinion piece in CommonWealth, these two financing approaches are not mutually exclusive and there may be administrative and, now that the bill is in the Senate, political benefits to a multipronged financing approach.
In addition to the transfer tax proposal, a number of other Senate bills directly address climate adaptation and resilience. For example, S. 433 creates a thirteen-member commission to advise the legislature on the funding and implementation of climate resilience projects. Establishing a “climate-ready” commission seems like relatively low-hanging fruit, although some of the commission’s primary responsibilities (e.g., determining whether and how the state should fund adaptation projects) will no longer be relevant if a GreenWorks-type bill is adopted. The Senate may be behooved to rework the proposal and create a commission that focuses on overseeing the implementation of state adaptation programs, as opposed to simply exploring climate risks and brainstorming new funding ideas.
S. 79 requires state agencies to consider and address any climate-related risks in permitting, financing, and capital decisions, including deliberations over the siting of critical infrastructure projects. Additionally, it creates climate risk training programs for local boards and establishes a climate risk projections dataset to help guide state agencies.
Whereas GreenWorks spurs local government investment in hazard mitigation projects, S. 79 bolsters the state’s authority to oversee new building projects. I do not anticipate the Senate will choose to marry these two governance approaches in a single bill. After all, the House version of this bill (H.481) had little direct bearing on the GreenWorks debate, at least to the best of my knowledge. This said, the unfettered development of flood prone areas, like the Boston’s Seaport District, suggests it is only a matter of time before policymakers demand greater consideration of climate risks in permitting and building decisions.
Time will tell whether these proposal, or any of the other climate adaptation and mitigation bills not discussed above, impact the GreenWorks debate. History suggests GreenWorks is unlikely to emerge from the Senate unchanged. The Senate, which has always been incredibly active on climate adaptation and mitigation issues, will no doubt want to put its stamp on what may eventually become a national model for adaptation policy. Whatever the outcome, the next few months are going to be a wild ride for state environmental policy. Buckle up.
Rob A. DeLeo is an associate professor of public policy at Bentley University. He is the son of House Speaker Robert DeLeo.