DPU Decision: Done Doggedly Denying Climate Disaster

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Today we talk about the Department of Public Utilities decision that happened in December, where they made some decisions about the future of gas in the state of Massachusetts. We also discuss a little bit of environmental history in Massachusetts, the reality of distributed environmental justice, and how Massachusetts compares to other states.

Jordan Berg Powers, Jonathan Cohn, and Anna Callahan are joined in this episode by Jess Nahigan from the Sierra Club of Massachusetts. This is the audio version of the Incorruptible Mass podcast, season 5 episode 40. You can watch the video version on our YouTube channel.

You’re listening to Incorruptible Mass. Our goal is to help people transform state politics: we investigate why it’s so broken, imagine what we could have here in MA if we fixed it, and report on how you can get involved.

Two action items from this week's episode:
1) Call for just siting policy!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/holistic-smart-and-just-siting-for-transforming-our-grid-siting-reform-now-with-environmental-justice?Source=Sierra

2) Email your reps to stop expanding gas!
https://www.sierraclub.org/massachusetts/take-action-for-environment

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Transcript

Hello and welcome to incorruptible Mass. We are here to help us all transform state politics because we know that we could have a state and state laws that reflect the needs of the vast majority of the people who live here. And so today we are going to be talking about the DPU decision that happened in December.
That's the Department of Public Utilities, where they made some decisions about the future of gas in the state of Massachusetts. And we have a wonderful guest from the Sierra Club and we're going to be talking about whether new pipelines are going to be created. We're going to be talking about what their decision was, a little bit about the history of this decision, as well as things like distributed justice andMassachusetts as compared to other states.
And also, we'll talk a little bit at the end about how you can help to make us a more environmentally sustainable place. But before we do all that, let me have my two fantabulous co hosts introduce themselves. I will start with Jordan.
Jordan Berg powers. He him. I am really glad that we're having this conversation.
I think, again, I'll just remind people there is not a lot of places that have these types of conversations that sort of connect some of the bigger picture issues. People just say climate change and let it go. But I'mreally excited about this type of conversation because you're not getting it any other place.
Thanks. And Jonathan. Yeah, Jonathan Cohn.
He, him, his. I'm an activist out of Boston, has been active in a number of issue and electoral campaigns here in Massachusetts for a number of years now and really looking forward to having this discussion today. And I'm Anna Callahan coming at you from Medford.
She her and been a longtime environmentalist since college and really has been one of my absolute top issues for my entire life. So I'm always excited when we can talk about environmental and climate change issues. And I am so excited to introduce Jess Nahigian from the Sierra Club of Massachusetts.
Jess, do you want to give us a little introduction, both to yourself as well as to the Sierra Club? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.
Jess Nahigan I use she they pronouns. I'm the state political director for the Sierra Club Massachusetts Chapter.
The Sierra Club is the oldest grassroots environmental organization in the country, and the Massachusetts Chapter is the local chapter. We have 80,000 members and supporters here in Massachusetts, and our mission is to explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Amazing.
I love how simple that sounds. Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Wow.
That is words that people can understand and really relate to. So I would love it, Jess, if you could give us a little bit of a rundown of what this decision was and why it's important. Can you clarify what decision we're talking? Yeah.
Yes. So in December of last year, the department of Public Utilities, which is our public utility commission here in Massachusetts, it basically oversees all of the investor owned utilities, or actually all the utilities,more broadly municipal, too. And so that could be know Everstorech or national grid or those types who you pay your bill to.
Essentially. That commission came out with a decision that was a pretty big deal and really kind of first in the country in laying out some principles that very strongly said, like the gas and natural gas and methane,which know what a large percentage of our energy comes from Massachusetts and is a fossil fuel, that that is not in our future, that we need to move away from it. And you would think, if you're fairly on board with, yes, we need to get off fossil fuels, you would think that this would be something that we'd all decided was a good idea.
But it's know, this is really the first place in the country where this decision has been made. And it sets out a series of principles, essentially, that the department of public utilities is going to be using as it considers all future sort of energy proposals made by the utilities. And I'll say it comes on the heels of sort of a two year investigation into what sort of principles or what the Department of Public utilities should be looking at as it considers whether to approve the construction of new infrastructure, because the Department ofPublic Utilities essentially oversees our utility rates.
So utilities bring a proposal for the infrastructure they want to build and how much it's going to cost and how much they want to charge ratepayers for it. And then the Department of Public Utilities scrutinizes it and says yay or nay. And so it basically sets out a series of principles that they're going to use when looking at those proposals and shaping the future of our energy system.
So there are a number of investigations like this that are underway across the country, and Sierra Club is engaged in many of those. We worked with a lot of advocates here in Massachusetts, and other advocates are engaged, too, in other states. But, yeah, so this is really precedent setting, in a sense.
These processes are going on elsewhere in the country. And to have a decision similar to the oneMassachusetts made in other places would be really incredible. So quickly, I want to tag in on kind of when you noted this being a part of a multi year investigation, this outcome was not a foregone conclusion given the process.
If you want to highlight a little bit about the saga surrounding that. Yeah, definitely. So Maura Healy, when she was attorney general, her office opened the investigation into what the future of gas looked like.
And the Department of public utilities essentially pawned off the work of the investigation to the utilities to basically say, like, tell us what you think the future of gas looks like. And they hired a consultant that came back with numbers that were completely unrealistic. And we submitted a lot of fact based testimony on why these were unrealistic.
They came back with numbers that were completely unrealistic. Not about methane. They couldn't make the case for continuing methane, but they said, well, there's this stuff called renewable natural gas, which is basically just natural gas, but it comes from like, landfills and places like that.
Between that and maybe hydrogen, which I could go into a long reason why that's not a viable solution.But we'll still need the pipelines. So we should still keep building the pipelines and maybe those gases will continue to be used.
We were really concerned, actually, but thankfully, with the new administration coming in, they reexamined those numbers that had been submitted and determined what we had determined, which was that they were faulty in a number of ways, and said, basically, look, if you think these are really viable solutions, you can run pilots on these new gases as solutions, but you can't do it on the ratepayers dime.So they are forcing essentially the investors to make a bet. They're forcing their hand essentially saying,you think this is a good investment? Okay, put your money up and we'll see what happens.
So we'll see if they'll actually do that. But I think it will be telling as to whether or not the utilities truly believe those are viable solutions. So it sounds like they're finally looking at all of the money that we're putting into new pipelines and replacing pipelines and all of that and looking at how much that just puts us unable to stop using fossil fuels.
Can you talk a little bit about pipeline construction and what DPU kind of said about that? Yeah, definitely. Ithink underlying all of this is a question. Now, we all pay utility bills, right? And we have collectively a lot of money that we spend on our energy infrastructure.
And the question is, how are we going to use that money and what are we going to be putting that money into for the future, for the energy infrastructure of the future? And so, yeah, we are continuing right now to consider very large new pipeline projects. There's one that's under consideration out in Springfield, in Long Meadow, a $54 million project. And we're also continuing to put money into the replacement of pipes, which is good in some ways because gas leaks are a problem and we have an old system, but once we put in a replacement pipe, that's a 20 year investment.
And so it's much better to just repair pipes rather than fully replace them. It's much less expensive. And so,yeah, I think we need to be redirecting this money that we have been spending on all these pipelines andpipes towards clean energy solutions and our clean energy future.
Amazing. It's amazing that we went from the Baker administration to the Healy administration and everything changed. Yeah.
And I want to say it did take a year for them to come out with this decision. And there has been a lot of advocacy more broadly about getting off of fossil fuels and getting off of gas. And I think it takes all different angles.
Right. I think that that advocacy, I think it would be incorrect to say that it had no effect. It definitely had some sort of effect on giving the political cover for maybe people who want to do this to actually be able to do.
I want to tag in. So we have that new docket ruling decision from the Department of Public Utilities, and that's going to guide some of their own processes. But then what are the next steps that would need to happen in other spaces? So, for instance, are there things that are follow up from that, that other aspects of the executive branch would need to do or say things that the legislature needs to do in terms of passing policy? Because I know when I was, I actually committed myself to reading the ruling before, and there are various areas where they note, like, things that should happen, but that aren't in the statutory power of the DPU to do itself.
Yes, absolutely. So there are a couple of places where they directly call out laws that need to be changed.And I'm happy to say that we saw in one of the House omnibus bills that just came out a couple of weeks ago from the legislature.
So this is a draft piece of legislation. Nothing is final yet. But some of the things, like, at least one of the things that was directly called out was in that legislation.
So that's a really good sign. That means they're paying attention to some of the changes that need to happen. And then there's other things where the DPU sort of says it's not within.
We currently don't really have the authority to consider this or to do this. And so there are other places where the exact statutory change isn't quite identified. But it's a much larger picture like system transformation and transformation of the DPU's powers that are needed.
And I could talk about where that might be the case in a couple places. So, for example, we have a program called the gas system Enhancement program that has spent hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars replacing pipelines. And there needs to be a statutory change about how that money is being used.
Instead of replacing leaky pipes. We need to be statutorily redirecting that money. And so what that looks like, I think is still up to the legislature.
There was a commission that had some recommendations. But I think we're going to still see what the legislature's vision exactly is on that. And then they said, we don't have the authority.
We can scrutinize pipelines. We can require you. When you submit a proposal for a pipeline.
We can require that you also submit a fully thought out proposal for an alternative to a pipeline. Like how would you meet the need without a pipeline? They're saying we can require that. We can't just say no to new gas.
It's not within our authority. What the DPU essentially said. And so we still need to push to give the DPU power and or to put into statute a halt to continuing the expansion of these projects.
Absolutely. If you don't mind if I take a little turn. I want to talk about something that has always been a little bit of a pet peeve for me.
Which is I'm a city councilor in Medford. And two thirds of our emissions in Medford come from buildings.And so when I think about buildings I know that it's very common that elected officials at the local level they go straight to making new buildings net zero.
And then they have a victory lap. And they're like, woohoo, we did it. I'm always thinking about existing buildings.
Like 99%. 99 and a half percent of all the buildings in Medford are every year are not new. And so I'm really thinking how do we retrofit existing buildings? It's such a huge hurdle that we're going to have to overcome somehow.
And I'm wondering if you have a way to sort of work this into the DPU decision and talk about how it fits in there. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things the DPU directs utilities to do in the decision is to propose what they call decommissioning pilots.
These are pilot projects. And the utilities have to propose them. I think by 2026 or something.
They're like required to so these are basically pilot projects where they would take a certain area somewhere in their territory and propose what decommissioning the gas system in that area looks like.Right. Because you can imagine it's kind of a complicated thing, because even if one person is still on the system, you have to keep the whole system in place just to make sure that one person can get gas.
So actually going at, like, area by area, or even a block by block sort of level, I think, is the next direction that we're headed in. And I'm hoping and we'll still see sort of what the legislature proposes. But I believe the direction that we should be heading in.
Right. Is to redirect the money that we're spending instead of replacing those pipelines. If you've got really leaky old pipelines in a certain area, that's a perfect place to just take out the pipeline completely and make all of those buildings electric.
Right. And you can redirect the money that you would have spent replacing that pipeline to making all those buildings electric. So I'm hoping that is the direction we are.
You. Yeah. Jonathan? Yeah.
The one thing I also wanted to. Anna, do you have any other things on the kind of building issue that you want to tag in on? The thing I also wanted to follow up with that we had recently talked about before. To follow up from this, when we're talking about kind of how to get energy from a to b, is about how things get cited in Massachusetts, the process for different energy facilities, a process that often has intersected with different issues around environmental injustice, because of which communities tend to bear the burden of the pollution of the energy system.
But I know that there's been a big push in recent years to do some change around energy citing,particularly as it relates to, relates to both stopping bad things, but also help expediting good things, and wanted to see about how all of that work kind of intersects with the discussion that we were talking before about when it comes to kind of what we shouldn't be building more of. Yeah. So, like you said so eloquently, we have a really long history in our state, in our country, in the world, probably, honestly, off putting pollution, treating communities as disposable, and putting all of our pollution and all of the burdens of our pollution on a very specific set of communities.
Right. People in what we oftentimes call environmental justice communities, but oftentimes black or brown communities, communities that may have historically had less political power to fight against the projects. As we build out our energy future, we have to be mindful of the new infrastructure that we're putting in and making sure that we're not repeating those mistakes.
And so we do need to be speeding up infrastructure and the build out of infrastructure. And the sort of balance here is we're speeding it up. And also we're making sure that we need to make sure that the outcomes of where that infrastructure is cited are not repeating the same harms of the past.
And so there's a lot of conversation right now about the citing process. And I think while process is important and making sure certain voices are at least taken into account is important, it's even more important, like what the outcomes of those processes are. And so that's why the environmental justice table is advocating for a tool that they call cumulative impact assessment to basically screen out, basically,instead of evaluating every single project based on how much pollution that individual project is going to add to the community, doing a full analysis of how much existing pollution is already there, and whether that project is going to add pollution to an already polluted community and screening those communities out from the get go.
So that's one really important piece. I think the other really important piece is community engagement.Really early in the process, oftentimes the process we see is developer comes up with a project idea, they file for permits, they hold a couple of public hearings that are basically just like we present it to you.
We hear you check the box. We did public feedback. Right? And unsurprisingly, oftentimes feedback isn'tincorporated because they've already decided what the proposal is going to look like before they even do that.
Holding those feedback, those processes and those conversations before the proposal is fully baked, Ithink is another really important part and another piece that the environmental justice table and environmental allies are fighting for as we look at a reform of our citing process, because reforming our citing process is very much on the table. But these are really important pieces that any reform of our citing process has to include. I just wanted to make a quick.
Oh, no, you go first. Okay. Mine's basically a sentence is just to your point about how process alone is not enough to correct kind of different injustices.
Just reminds me of the one way I always like describing bad process is being akin to a comment box on an open. Like simply having that is not going to change an outcome. It needs to be something much more,much more deliberative and incorporated than that.
Yeah, I'll just go and just say, I just want to add to that by saying one of the things we face a lot, I'm on the zoning board is that the biggest example is just if you're a renter, you're not going to get notified. So a lot of times these projects happen and they'll say, we sent a notice, but they sent a notice to the person who owns the property, which is often a corporation who does not care, who's thousands of miles away. And so input is impossible from the people living the community because they're not even aware it's happening.
This happens a lot. I'll say the other thing, too, is just to think about this for folks who are listening, is it's not just that we've sort of, I think about this as like a yes and to the problem we've really dumped on it. So not only are we citing in certain places in certain communities who are sort of not able to access government or at least are purposefully left out of it because they aren't homeowners from the process, and so therefore they're poor, they have worse health outcomes.
They tend to be people of color. But then also because of the way we've set up our clean energy policy,they also can't access clean energy. So it's not like you can't put solar panels on most apartment buildings unless the person built it from the get go to have it.
Our policies around clean energy is basically to allow rich people to have it. Regular people will not in my lifetime, the way we're going, will be able to afford a different heating source. Right.
The way in which we've tilted these things is so towards that individual decisions by rich people to maybe get it or don't get it. So not only are we citing in the communities, but we're also not access. We're not allowing those same communities to access the benefits to a cleaner, better way to get around to do these things.
So I'd just like to know, it's sort of a both to, I'd love for you to sort of talk a little bit about how also Massachusetts is lagging behind other states and what's the picture like, what is already happening? I mean, I know what it could look like is a lot different, but what could it look like if we just kept up with other states? Yeah. So what would it look like if we kept up with other states? So I think the best example isCalifornia and Jordan. You're so right in that point about access.
And I think the way that we structure our sort of voluntary programs that are really benefiting rich people is part of the problem of why we're not moving faster. I think clean energy needs to be much more accessible. It needs to not rely necessarily on individual choice and navigating phenomenally complex bureaucratic systems.
And it needs to be paid for in a progressive way. And right now, that is just not what's know. California has recently put in a new rate structure.
And rates are really one of the biggest questions about how we're paying for this. So California put in a new rate structure that is actually progressively peered. So people pay according to their income, not according to their energy usage.
Wow. I know, right? And the policy that was worked out was not 100% baked when it was passed. And so they've had to walk it back and are sort of re-examining it to work out the kinks.
But I think the fundamental concept behind it is right, that we need to make sure we're paying for this in a progressive way and not in a regressive way. So I think we should be looking to states that are innovating on these issues and that are much farther ahead. I think we oftentimes, as Massachusetts, we like to think of ourselves as leaders.
But I can tell you, talking to people, there's always a question of, okay, well, who else has done this thing that you're know, sometimes we can't wait to have to look to other states for their leadership. We should be leaders. And the truth is, we're not at the moment.
What about renewables? Are we creating enough renewables here? In mean, we're not creating themenough anywhere, but we're not creating them enough in Massachusetts. For know, we have enormous potential for offshore wind here in Massachusetts and quite a bit of solar potential as well, especially when you look at our built environment. We have a very highly developed state.
There's not a lot of clear, open land where you can just put stuff here in Massachusetts the way there is in other states. But our offshore wind especially, is especially high potential. And I'm really happy to report that after many years, we finally have the first five offshore wind turbines producing power off the coast ofMassachusetts as of like two days ago, which is amazing.
Yes, it's actually happening. They're going to be part of like a 65 turbine project. That's our first project, and we have multiple other projects in the works.
But again, there's a lot of potential out there. And as soon as these projects get close to reality, all of sudden, out of the woodwork comes all of this opposition. And we know that these groups, many people,have genuine, real concerns that may not be based in fact, but are emotionally felt.
But many of these concerns that they're bringing are clean energy groups are hearing the exact same concerns all around the country. And there's actually documented evidence that this stuff is being spread online and sewed online by fossil fuel companies. So while they may not be directly cutting a paycheck to the people who are showing up in opposition, I can tell you they're making the fact sheets and the infographics and the know materials for the anti clean energy Facebook groups.
Right. And so it's something that we really need to be actively fighting back against, and we really need to actively be championing these projects if we believe in them. Well, we would love to hear from you.
And this will be our little wrap up. Unless anybody else has comments, how can people like regular people listening to this podcast, how can they get out there and really help the process of all of these changes? So there's a couple of things. One of them I mentioned earlier that we are sort of partway through the legislative process of creating bills that will change some of our energy policies.
We're really hopeful that there's going to be a lot of changes made to the way we distribute gas in this state, but it's not guaranteed by any means. And so we really need people to push on, saying, no, we don't want to continue gas. Even though the DPU made this ruling, the legislature ultimately has the power of the law behind them, and they can shape in many ways what the Department of Public Utilities is able to do and is able not to do.
So we can put a link out there for sending a message to the leaders behind these energy bills, expressing your thoughts and expressing advocacy for getting off of gas and getting off of fossil fuels as quickly as wecan and in the most just way possible. And I'm trying to think, they're not scheduled yet, unfortunately. But The issue around citing is very live.
And we're going to be holding mass power forward coalition we work with, in partnership with the EJ table, is going to be holding some webinars on citing and citing reform. And so once those dates are posted,encourage people to attend those and to sign. There is a petition, actually, which I will also encourage people to sign, advocating for a just citing process like the one we've talked about here, that is concerned with outcomes and not this process.
And of course, don't forget, you can always join the Sierra club, and then they will send you all of this lovely information over email. I assume that you give people opportunities to engage. So that's another fantastic thing to do.
I just want to say, also, just really to end with all this, that climate change is real and we don't treat it like it is.And I say that all the time because I think a lot of times people say, oh, I believe in climate change, but then they don't. They act like it'll be okay, and these are the things that will make it okay.
It's not going to be magic. We can at least address the warming in ways that are thoughtful immediately right now. And these are those things, right? We need these things to happen because climate change is real.
Climate change being real isn't the end. It's like, oh, I believe, all right, that's good. No, now we have to do these things.
So I always like to say that because I think it's really important, because we're not acting like climate change is real. We like to look down on people who like, oh, it's not real. Look at these conspiracy theories, these flat earthers.
But most of us are acting like flat earthers. We are not acting like climate change is real. So I just want to say these are things.
We need you to act. We need you to call, we need to do something. We need to act like this thing is happening and it's a real and present danger.
Absolutely. Thank you so much to everyone. Thank you, Jess.
And we, of course, look forward to chatting with all of you next week. Bye. Thanks.