Senator Barrett Met With Constituents in Lincoln
Approximately 55 Lincoln residents, including town board members, and officials from Waltham, Bedford and Lexington came together to meet with Senator Mike Barrett. The Senator gave us background on some of his priorities and the workings of Beacon Hill as it begins this session with a new governor. A large part of the meeting was devoted to questions from the participants and the Senator’s answers. (Informal notes by Joan Kimball, Chair LDTC)
Senator Barrett
Beacon Hill:
Senator Barrett began with the “good news” of the election of Governor Maura Healey and her work to get good people for the executive branch. It takes time and filling positions is proving to be very difficult. In the legislature over 6000 bills have been filed, and as the two branches begin to work together, there is some jockeying to determine the rules which could slow down the process.
As the co-author of the innovative Climate Change Act of 2022 (often called the Climate Change Road Map), the Senator is very much concerned with reducing carbon. He was very pleased that towns in his district—including Lincoln, Lexington, and Concord— are among the 10 towns that are taking part in an innovative program to build new structures all electric. He also focused on:
Cars: EVs are taking off and these cars are the future. The Senator believes that a quiet tipping point has been reached and that car manufacturers are stepping up.
New buildings: Electrification is slower than with cars. A recent study showed—to the surprise of many—that electricity is cheaper than fossil fuels. The builders can save money by building with electricity and pass their savings to their customers.
Retrofitting older homes to get off fossil fuels: It is more difficult to retrofit older homes. There are two ways to bridge the transfer from fossil fuels to heat pumps: (1) volume—the economics and scale and (2) subsidies.
With carbon pricing, natural gas could become more expensive. Currently the price of fossil fuels is basically subsidized by taxes. And we do need to move toward honest pricing of fossil fuels. The senator believes we must green our housing stock.
Currently 32% of homes use oil or propane. Whereas both oil, propane and natural gas are polluters, oil and propane are filled in tanks. Natural gas requires pipes, and often these pipes are leaking. A new working group is wrestling with the problem of how to justify spending more money to fix leaking pipes when we are trying to get rid of fossil fuels. (One suggestion was to look into using those pipes to distribute thermal heat.)
Rising sea level: the MBTA facilities must be protected from rising water and erratic weather. Seaport, Boston’ new development was built at sea level at a time when our oceans are rising. The bankrolled builders knew it, the corporations who first bought the buildings knew it, and they plan to sell these buildings to new buyers. FEMA, our federal tax dollars, will have a lot of expenses all over the country. Senator Barrett hopes that real estate industry will pick up the costs, but it will require a lot of citizen pressure.
Special Recognition:
Barbara Slaytor Recognized for Service
As part of the meeting, Senator Barrett presented outgoing Lincoln Democratic Town Committee Chair, a Citation from the MA House of Representatives prepared by Representative Carmine Gentile. The Citation honored Barbara for all the work that she has done for Lincoln and wider region and for democratic principles.
Questions from the floor(summary):
Climate Change:
What is happening with S 2082, the bill that would change the governance of Mass Save?
Currently there are two towns, Framingham and Lowell, who are working with utility companies (Eversource and National Grid) to look at heat pumps more regionally, although most residences statewide are individual. Currently, if a person wants to update their furnace, they go to their gas company who does an audit, often resulting in taking out the old gas furnace and putting in a new, less polluting one. However, if we desire to turn to heat pumps, the fact that gas utilities drive the enterprise is unfair. The bill also would be fair to utilities. The Senator believes that the system must change. No hearings have been scheduled, yet.
Hanscom Field Expansion:
What is happening and how might climate change problems be averted?
In the midst of Covid—with an increased interest in private jets for isolation from the virus--private developers approached MassPort and proposed a plan to build 27 more hangers. Hanscom is one of the two airports that have financial deficits. MA port was interested.
This proposal was jarring to those concerned with climate change. Air traffic is very polluting and fossil fuel jets are very noisy. Senator Barrett has an innovative solution, one that does not impact the EJ communities of Chelsea and East Boston. Cape has an order in for 85 electric planes (built by the Israeli firm Eviation with a distance of 250 miles), and Senator Barrett has proposed that the effort not be to stop jets, but to require that they be “clean and green.” We are 2-3 years away from electric planes. The Senator has been meeting with developers and MA Port on this idea.
Criminal Legal Reform:
What is the prognosis for key bills on Beacon Hill this year? These bills include a moratorium on building new prisons, changes to life without parole; expand medical parole.
The senator is a cosponsor of the moratorium bill, that restricts the building of new prisons, but does not preclude the retrofitting of existing prisons. These bills are all likely to go to the Committee on the Judiciary. The moratorium passed last year and has a likelihood of passing again. Mike is both sympathetic to the other bills, but is aware that life without parole had its origins in being an alternative to the death penalty. He does not know where the governor, a former prosecutor in the AG’s office will stand.
Housing Choice Act:
Is there anything that precludes a town adding “affordable” criteria to their own zoning changes? Did Lexington?
Gary Taylor from the Lincoln Planning Board said that Lincoln has a bylaw that for a proposal over 5 units, 15% must be affordable.
Senator Barrett said that ever since JFK and LBJ, democrats have been talking about affordable housing, but we as a nation have built very few. Charlie Baker took a big departure from the “affordable” approach—as different as night and day—and decided not to focus on affordable housing (in opposition to other leaders, such as Mayor Wu, who wants to increase 15% to 20%) but rather to focus on creating a huge volume of any kind of housing. Baker believed in the “trickle down” effect: If we flood the Commonwealth with units, there will be more housing of all cost levels. In other words, rather than concentrate on affordability, concentrate on sheer volume. The Housing Choice Law focuses on towns that are connected to the MBTA and would allow owners in new designated zones to create plans as a matter of right. However, this doesn’t mean that just anything can be built.
In Lexington (the town did not include affordability), because the buses run down Massachusetts Avenue, change in zoning affects the center of town. The center is historic and a historic commission will have a lot to say about what gets built. There are also other bylaws that will come into play. In theory, there could be more development. Most of the area is already in use in Lexington: the owners can decide if a different type of building would be more productive, and then the plans would go through the town boards.
In sum, Housing Choice gives the right to build, but it is not a mandate to build. Towns can rezone and hope that the quantity idea works.
Light pollution:
Will the Dark Sky initiative pass this year? Proponents of this initiative see the damage caused to the natural world by office and municipal office buildings having lights on all night. What is the status?
The Senator supports this legislation which is aimed at reducing lighting in municipal buildings. It died in the House last year.
Everyone applauded and thanked Senator Barrett for sharing critically important information with us.
Senator Barrett has represented Lincoln since 2012. He is coauthor of the Legislature’s groundbreaking 2022 climate change law. Currently, he is Assistant Majority Leader and serves on the following committees:
Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, Chair
Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, Vice-Chair
Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs
Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight
Senate Committee on the Census
Joint Committee on Housing
Joint Committee on Tourism, Arts and Cultural Development
Contact Information:
Email: Mike.barrett@masenate.gov
Chief of Staff: Brendan Berger: Brendan.berger@masenate.gov
