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Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is ramping up her environmental focus, with a focus on climate change, toxic substances, and the environment.
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Environmental justice advocates are calling for more action from Healey, specifically around holding polluters accountable and investigating environmental racism.
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Healey has prioritized legal action against major oil and gas companies and has advocated for stronger climate policies at the state and national level.
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Healey has also launched a new environmental justice division within her office, aimed at addressing the disproportionate impact of environmental harm on low-income communities and communities of color.
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EJ advocates are calling for Healey to go further by taking action against polluting industries in Massachusetts and investigating the impact of environmental racism on communities of color.
By GBH News | February 02, 2023
Maura Healey has been governor for less than a month, but she’s already made it clear that she plans to make environmental issues a top priority. Among other things, she’s called for Massachusetts to “lead the world” in its response to climate change, created a first-in-the nation cabinet-level climate chief position to tackle the problem, and promised to make climate innovation a linchpin of the state’s economy.
According to some of Massachusetts’ more aggressive environmental advocates, though, Healey still needs to do much more — and to do it quickly. They want her to intervene to stop several projects that advanced under her predecessor, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, and cast her willingness to do so as a test of how deep her commitment to environmental transformation really is.
In one of those projects — known as the Western Massachusetts Natural Gas Reliability Project — the energy provider Eversource plans to build a new, five-mile pipeline linking an existing station in Springfield to a yet-to-be-constructed facility in Longmeadow. That proposal, which has already elicited strong local opposition, has yet to receive a final go-ahead from state regulators. But two other controversial projects in Eastern Massachusetts are much further along…
Opponents, though, contend the project should be relocated to nearby Logan Airport, which they claim will use a significant amount of the energy it provides. They also warn that the substation’s current proximity to water creates a perpetual flood risk, and say that if new construction to safeguard the site is required in the future — a scenario state regulators have already discussed — Eversource’s customers will end up footing the bill.
Read more from GBH News.
