With the Biden administration bringing climate action back to the federal level, the fossil fuel industry is ramping up its efforts to deny, distract, and delay. But all politics is local, so to see how the industry will defend itself, let’s look at a case study: Massachusetts. It’s considered one of the most liberal states, home of notable national progressive figures. So why are advocates in the state running into such staunch opposition on climate policy?
Well apparently it’s because Republican Governor Charlie Baker, who recently vetoed a climate bill that’s been amended and is back on his desk, is swayed by gas and utility lobbying and front groups who have been quietly working with the housing industry for a decade to destroy climate action in the commonwealth.
The question of why climate legislation is running into fierce opposition is the subject of a new report from the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. They analyzed over a thousand pieces of testimony and four thousand lobbying visits related to the 53 key environmental bills introduced in Massachusetts between 2013 and 2018, and found that 90% of the public’s testimony in legislative committees was in favor of the bills. But there was little legislative success. Why?
The report points to key opposition coalitions — including electric and gas utilities, other fossil fuel industry groups, traditional power generators, and even the real estate industry — pooling their sizable resources to outspend advocates of clean energy by more than 3.5 to 1.
While utility and fossil fuel involvement is sort of par for the course, it stands out that the three real estate groups, NAIOP (commercial real estate brokers), the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, spent a combined $2.6 million lobbying opposing climate and clean energy bills between 2013 and 2018.
So now, even though all-electric buildings are already saving consumers money, and using gas for heating will raise prices and make it impossible for the state to reach its climate goals, Gov. Baker may continue to resist signing a bill to electrify buildings.
And it probably has something to do with the lobbying done by the Mass Coalition for Sustainable Energy, which is basically just a front group from the gas pipeline company Enbridge and the gas utility Eversource that gets its funding from, you guessed it, an assortment of business and builder groups, including NAIOP.
With fossil fuels, utilities, power generators, and the real estate industry as the four walls, they’ve built a house of climate denial in Massachusetts.
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