Healey fails on the Environment
Today's Boston Herald highlights the Romney-Healey administration's failure to clean up our environment. Not only did the dynamic duo pull out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and propose legislation that would allow power plants to further pollute our air as the story points out, but they've also completely abandoned our parks.
We're dead last in the country in state and local spending under these two despite a repeated pledge to bring "world-class parks" to Massachusetts.
Check out the Conservation and Recreation Campaign for more information on the sorry state of affairs.
posted by Shawn Hartman @ 11:37 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Where are you getting your information that the Romney-Healy administration pulled out of the RGGI? From the RGGI website:
Currently, seven states that include Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont are participating in the RGGI effort. Legislation was signed in April, 2006, that requires Maryland to become a full participant in the process by June 30, 2007. In addition, the District of Columbia , Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, the Eastern Canadian Provinces, and New Brunswick are observers in the process.
As for why we aren't signed on, perhaps you need to ask the Democrat-controlled state legislature. (Let's just call it the DCSL from now on, as I think we'll be referring to that body quite a lot). See here, from MassPIRG's website:
Yesterday evening, during the last formal legislative session of the year, six more state Representatives endorsed the Global Warming Bill, S.B. 2516. That puts the total number of supporters at 84 in the House and 27 in the Senate—a majority in each chamber.
Despite majority support for the bill, however, the Massachusetts legislature failed to take up the Global Warming Bill during the 2006 session. The Global Warming Bill would have mandated that Massachusetts join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which has already been endorsed by eight other Northeastern states (VT, CT, NY, MD, ME, NH, NJ, DE). RGGI is designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the Northeast by capping emissions of carbon dioxide from power plants in 2009, with a mandate for subsequent reductions.
As for your comment about being "dead last" in spending, the only reference I could find to that was one statement in a Boston Globe article which mentioned a ranking by Governing Magazine. I couldn't find any data on Governing Magazine to back up that statement, although perhaps it is in one of their reports that are for sale. Without that information, it's difficult to fully understand the ranking -- for example, I imagine MA would have a lower percentage of state owned land than HI -- how does that affect our ranking?
A couple of other articles (these were all linked to on the Conservation & Recreation Campaign website, placed us 34th and 2nd. Of note, none of the gubenatorial candidates came out in support of the Trustee's $40M proposal (has that changed since?), and department spending has been increasing.
This fact sheet was also available on the C&R website. Given our declining tax revenue, would you still call for increased spending? What area should we draw from, or should we raise taxes? You can't just take these issues in isolation, call for increasing spending on each one, and think that is legitimate public policy.
Then you have those enviromental leaders like Ted Kennedy looking to promote ideas like alternative fuels. Oops, unless those things like windfarms which would really help the enviroment interfered with his view from the beachfront down at the compound on the Cape.
I think the prime example of this one party state (DCSL) hypocrisy was back when uber Liberal Muike Dukakis was berating the Republicans on environmental issues that is until the nation was shown the sh^t filled Boston Harbor that the LIBERALS themselves have been pouring crap into for decades..
Do as we Liberals say......
I give R-H credit for one thing, environmentally.
Enforcements by the state against known polluters who have not cleaned up badly contaminated properties have increased, including a few state run cleanups. That is good if you live next door to one.
more parks, would be even better.
as some folks clearly need to get out more.
FELIZIDADES NUEVO GOVERNADOR DEL ESTADO DE MASSACHUSETT ES UNA PERSONA DIGAN DE SU CARGO COMO EJECUTOR DE LAS LEYES ANTIMIGRANTES QUE MI PUEBLO ESTA SUFRINDO ULTIMAMENTE LO FELICITO POR LLEVAR UNA MORAL DIGNA DE RESPETO POR LAS LEYES DE DIOS NUETRO SALVADOR Y PONERLO COMO SER HUMANO QUE SERA PUES BIEN VENIDO Y ESPERO TRAIGA SOLUCIONES PARA TODA SU CUMUNIDAD EN CUALQUIER PARTE DE SU LINDO ESTADO GRASIA Y QUE DIOS LO VENDIGA Y LO CUIDE A USTED Y TODA SU LINDA Y APRESIABLE FAMILIA USTED VIENE CON VALORES CONSTRUCTIVOS PARA LA HUMANIDAD Y SU PUEBLO QUE LO ADMIRAMOS EN CALIFORNIA SI ALGUN DIA CORRE PARA PRESIDENTE DE LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS DE AMERICA MI ESPOSA Y YO VOTAREMOS POR USTED GRASIAS AMIGO DE MEXICO Y MASSACHUSETTS
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