A crossing arm came down on a school bus in Freetown, Massachusetts, as a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) train passed by, reported ABC 6.
The incident reportedly occurred March 25, when a school bus transporting Freetown Lakeville Regional School District students stopped at the painted roadway railway crossing line to check for oncoming trains, as required by law. As the driver began to move forward, the crossing bells and lights came on.
The school bus driver reportedly reversed as the crossing arms hit the front of the bus. The train passed by about 45 seconds later. No one was injured at the time of the incident.
According to the news report, MBTA officials discussed the incident at a board meeting on March 27, claiming it resulted from human error.
The district said via the article that the bus company, which was not named in this writing, is in contact with the MBTA regarding the incident.
A school bus transporting 10 students in Sherbon, Massachusetts, veered off the road after the driver suffered a medical emergency.
The Sherborn Fire and Rescue Department released a statement Thursday confirming that the crash occurred when the school bus driver was dropping students off from school.
The driver, who was not identified at this writing, had reportedly come to a complete stop and was driving slowly when they experienced a medical emergency, causing the school bus to crash into trees.
There were no other injuries reported. All the students were checked by medical professionals at the scene and released to their parents shortly after. The school bus driver was transported to a local hospital, and their condition was unknown at this report.
A student told local news reporters that the school driver hit the curb before crashing into a pole and then a tree. Neighbors witnessed the incident and rushed to help evacuate the students.
The Sherborn Fire and Rescue Department posted photos of the scene on their social media. The incident remains under investigation.
A crash involving a Waltham school bus in Massachusetts sent six students to the hospital with minor injuries.
The Waltham Police Department released a statement via social media confirming that officers had responded to a rollover incident involving a school bus on Friday morning.
According to police, the bus was transporting students to Waltham Public Schools northbound on Lexington Street just before 8:30 a.m., when it struck a white van that was attempting to make a left turn East onto Beaver Street.
Police stated that the van rolled over onto a third vehicle on Beaver Street, that was stopped for a red light.
According to local news reports, there were 34 students and a driver from the Waltham Dual Language School on the school bus at the time of the incident. A total of 37 people, including those in the other vehicles, were involved in the crash.
Six students and the operator of the white van were transported to local area hospitals for minor injuries. Their current condition is unknown. According to the police, the incident is still under investigation to determine charges, if any.
Environmental and community advocates in Massachusetts argue that making too much room for biofuels in a pending state plan to decarbonize heating systems would slow the transition from fossil fuels and cause more pollution than a plan that prioritizes electric heat pumps.
As the state works on the creation of a Clean Heat Standard, a report released last month by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility raises questions about the effects using biodiesel in fuel-oil heating systems could have on air quality and public health, saying there is not enough information available about the pollutants released in the process.
Advocates say there is no such uncertainty about electric heat pumps, which create no direct emissions and should therefore be heavily favored in the new state policy.
“We absolutely think the thumb should be on the scale of electrification,” said Larry Chretien, executive director of the Green Energy Consumers Alliance. “If they give credit to biofuels, it ought to be conditional.”
Oil heating is much more prevalent in the Northeast than in the rest of the country. In Massachusetts, 22% of households are heated with oil, as compared to less than 5% nationwide. Moving homes and businesses off oil heat, therefore, is an important element of the state’s plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, which sets a target of reducing emissions from heating by 93% from 1990 levels in that timeframe.
The process of developing a Clean Heat Standard began when then-Gov. Charlie Baker convened the Commission on Clean Heat in 2021. In 2022, the board recommended the creation of the standard, which was also included in the state’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2050, released later that year. A stakeholder process began in 2023, and in the fall of that year the state released a draft framework for the standard that included the expectation of issuing credits for some biofuel use.
Open questions about public health
The program is expected to require gas utilities and importers of heating oil and propane to provide an increasing proportion of clean heating services like home heat pumps, networked geothermal, and other options, or buy credits from other parties that have implemented these solutions.
Whether the other options that qualify as clean heat will include biofuels — fuels derived from renewable, organic sources — has been a matter of contention since the idea for the system was first raised.
Climate advocates have tended to oppose the inclusion of much, if any, biofuel in the standard. Though biodiesel creates lower lifetime greenhouse gas emissions than its conventional counterpart, the recent Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility report contends that there are many unanswered questions about how burning biodiesel impacts public health.
“Given the sheer amount of doubt, there’s more research that should clearly be done before these fuels are subsidized by the state government,” said report author Carrie Katan, who also works as a Massachusetts policy advocate for the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, but compiled the report as an independent contractor for the physicians group.
The physicians’ report notes a study by Trinity Consulting Group that found significant health benefits to switching from fossil diesel to biodiesel for building heating. The physicians’ report, however, questions the methodology used in that study, claiming it cherrypicks data and fails to cite sources.
Katan’s report also notes that the health impacts of biofuels can vary widely depending on the organic matter used to create them, and points out that most of the research on burning biofuels is focused on the transportation sector.
Climate advocates also argue that embracing biofuels in a Clean Heat Standard would unnecessarily prolong the transition to electric heat pumps while encouraging the continued burning of fossil heating oil. Typically, a heating oil customer using biodiesel receives a blend that is no more than 20% biofuel. Providing credit for that fraction of biofuel would therefore improve the economics of the entire heating oil system, contrary to the overall emissions reduction goals of the policy, Chretien said.
“We’re trying to create a system that is rewarding steps towards greenhouse gas reduction,” he said.
Making the case for biofuel
Advocates of biofuels, however, say they are confident that existing science makes a solid case for the health and environmental benefits of biodiesel.
“There’s a decades-long body of work showing the overall benefits to public health of biofuels, specifically biodiesel,” said Floyd Vergara, a consultant for Clean Fuels Alliance America, a national trade association representing the biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel industries.
Vergara, who was involved in the Trinity Consulting study, called out in the physicians’ report, also defended the methodologies and sourcing of that paper.
Further, he said, though biodiesel is typically limited to 20% in current blends, it is quite possible to run a heating system entirely on biofuel, with just a few tweaks to the equipment. These conversions could yield immediate reductions in emissions, he said, rather than waiting for the slower process of replacing thousands of heating oil systems with electric heat pumps.
The difference could be particularly acute in low-income or other traditionally disadvantaged neighborhoods, where many residents can not afford to make the switch to heat pumps, he said.
“You’re getting those benefits immediately, and you’re getting them while the states are pursuing zero-emissions technologies,” he said.
State environmental regulators expect to release a full draft of the clean heat standard for public comment sometime this winter.
Two community-based geothermal pilot projects, each led by equity-focused nonprofits, have advanced to the second phase of funding through a U.S. Department of Energy program.
Blacks in Green, a community organization based in Chicago, and Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Boston-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting an equitable transition to clean energy, were included last week in a set of five projects across the country that have been awarded a total of more than $35 million from the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office to implement geothermal installations.
The five project teams advancing to the next phase of the DOE project were among a cohort of 11 projects participating in the initial phase of the program, where coalitions selected project sites, assessed geothermal resource and permitting needs, conducted feasibility analysis and local engagement, and identified workforce and training needs. The selected projects’ range of sizes, technologies, and innovations will provide potential templates for other communities considering implementing geothermal systems.
Three of the five projects are located in urban or suburban areas; two are in rural communities. The other three recipients are the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan; the University of Oklahoma, for a project in the town of Shawnee; and GTI Energy, for a project in Hinesburg, Vermont.
Tapping into Chicago’s alleys
Blacks in Green, located in West Woodlawn, a predominantly Black community on Chicago’s South Side, serves as the lead for a coalition which was awarded $9.9 million for its Sustainable Chicago Geothermal pilot. Other coalition partners are the City of Chicago, University of Illinois, The Accelerate Group, Citizens Utility Board, Climate Jobs Illinois, dbHMS, GeoExchange, and Illinois AFL-CIO.
The pilot, also located in West Woodlawn, utilizes alleys to circumvent the need for vast open plots for subterranean loop fields that form the heart of a geothermal array. Locating the bulk of geothermal loop lines in alleyways also sidesteps the underground congestion of existing utility infrastructure typically located underneath city streets.
It’s among an assortment of elements in the Sustainable Square Mile approach that advances BIG’s vision for energy justice through clean energy and microgrid/VPP systems owned and managed by the community, said Naomi Davis, BIG’s founder and CEO.
“BIG launched in 2007 with a goal of increasing household income and community resilience against the harms of climate crisis at neighborhood scale using the new green economy — so we’re grateful for this chance to make it manifest,” Davis said in a news release.
Along with installation of the needed infrastructure within the multiblock footprint, year two of the West Woodlawn project will focus on community outreach and job programs. Once construction is complete, the geothermal system will provide heating and cooling, not to mention lower utility bills, for potentially more than 200 households.
“The Sustainable Chicago Geothermal project will be a transformational investment in the West Woodlawn community. The effort to eliminate harmful emissions from homes and businesses, while lowering energy burden, has proven to be a community-wide challenge, and requires a community-wide solution,” said Andrew Barbeau, president of The Accelerate Group and principal investigator of the Blacks in Green project, in a news release.
The need to reconstruct the alleyways after installation of the geothermal array also presents the opportunity to replace asphalt or concrete with permeable pavers. This would work to promote climate resiliency through mitigation of urban flooding, a persistent occurrence in many of Chicago’s South and West Side communities, said Nuri Madina, the director of Sustainable Square Mile, who serves as point person for the pilot.
“All of our programs are designed to create multiple benefits,” Madina told the Energy News Network in September.
A first-of-its kind project in suburban Boston
Home Energy Efficiency Team, commonly referred to by the acronym HEET, in partnership with Eversource Energy; the city of Framingham, Massachusetts; and engineering consultant Salas O’Brien; was awarded $7.8 million toward construction of a utility-based,community-scale geothermal system.
“We are honored to receive this funding from the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office as part of the Community Geothermal Heating and Cooling initiative, and to show how geothermal energy networks can be interconnected to increase efficiency, build resilience, and decarbonize at the scale and speed we need to achieve our climate goals,” said Zeyneb Magavi, executive director for HEET, in a news release.
The proposed plans by HEET and its partners would connect to the first Framingham geothermal network, which was commissioned earlier this year. Once approved by the state Department of Public Utilities and upon completion, it would represent the first utility-owned community geothermal network to connect to an adjacent operational loop, establishing guidelines for the interconnection and growth of geothermal networks.
“This innovative project not only showcases Framingham’s commitment to sustainable energy solutions but also sets a precedent for other communities across the nation. By harnessing the natural heat from the earth, we are taking a significant step towards reducing our carbon footprint and promoting renewable energy sources. Our collaboration with HEET and Eversource exemplifies the power of partnerships in driving forward clean energy initiatives,” said Framingham Mayor Charlie Sisitsky in a news release.
“So instead of feeding natural gas into these buildings, we could feed geothermal water,” Magavi said. “And then we could meter that and sell that. It’s no different than when you pay your water bill.”
Massachusetts environmental advocates hope a provision in the state’s new climate law could be a final blow to a proposed expansion of private jet facilities at a suburban airport.
Opponents say adding 500,000 square feet of hangar space at Hanscom Field, a general aviation airport that serves private and corporate aircraft in a town 20 miles outside of Boston, will inevitably mean more flights — mostly private jet travel to luxury locations — which will increase climate pollution with minimal public benefit.
“This is an industry that is highly polluting and yet serves only a very narrow slice of the public,” said Alex Chatfield, a local social worker and an activist fighting the project.
The expansion plans have been in the works since 2021, but progress slowed in June after state regulators rejected the planners’ first environmental impact report. Since then, state lawmakers passed a new law requiring state agencies and boards, including the state port authority, to consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in their decisions.
The measure does not directly prohibit the Massachusetts Port Authority from proceeding with projects such as the Hanscom plan, but it does leave the agency vulnerable to legal action should it forge ahead without being able to show it weighed the likely greenhouse gas emissions against the benefits of the plan.
Much-needed hangars
The expansion plan started with Massport, which oversees operations at Hanscom as well as Boston’s Logan International Airport and Worcester Regional Airport. In 2021, the agency released a request for proposals to develop “much-needed hangars” at the airport, said Massport spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan. A plan submitted by North Airfield Ventures and Runway Realty Ventures won the bid.
The proposed facilities would be built on 47 acres of land, some of which is already owned by the developers and some of which would be leased to them by Massport. The project comprises 17 new hangars, the rehabilitation of a historic Navy hangar on the site, and fuel storage facilities.
Planners argue the development would be environmentally beneficial, because the structures would be designed for net-zero energy use and built to LEED Gold standards, and buildings and equipment would be electrified whenever possible. They also claim the additional capacity would help cut down on emissions from so-called “ferry flights,” in which a plane hangared elsewhere flies to Hanscom to pick up passengers and then returns to its home airport at the end of the trip.
Opponents, however, argue that more hangars will inevitably mean more flights. These flights, they say, are likely to be private jet travel to luxury locations, generating emissions for the benefit of just a privileged few. One report, by Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, found that 31,600 private flights departed Hanscom during an 18-month period in 2022 and 2023, and that roughly half of those were bound for high-end vacation destinations like the Bahamas, Palm Beach, and Nantucket.
“It’s very well known that private jets are the most polluting form of transportation per passenger ever devised,” Chatfield said. “It is on a scale that is really hard to imagine.”
State environmental regulators are also skeptical. The state response to the developers’ first environmental impact report, referred to the “fanciful nature of the proponents’ ‘ferry flight theory,’” pointing to a study that found only 132 ferry flights actually occurred at Hanscom rather than the 3,500 developers claimed. Regulators also suggested new hangars at Hanscom were unlikely to attract planes to relocate, and therefore would not reduce what ferry flights do occur.
The developers can resubmit their environmental impact report, addressing the state’s concerns. One of the founders of North Airfield Ventures said the company declines to comment on its plans at this time.
Factoring in climate impacts
In the months since the state’s order was released, legislators created another obstacle for the project.
As Massachusetts attempts to reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions, an ongoing mundane-yet-important challenge has been the fact that some crucial state agencies and boards have lacked the authority to factor climate impacts in their decisions. These bodies were founded well before the climate crisis became such a pressing public policy question, and thus their rules never required or authorized them to consider greenhouse gas emissions or other climate impacts in their decision-making.
In recent years, attempts have been made to integrate climate change mitigation into more statewide policies and processes. A climate law enacted in 2021 requires the administration to set greenhouse gas reduction goals to be realized by the state’s three-year energy efficiency plans, which were initially intended only to reduce the cost and quantity of electricity, gas, and oil used. The same bill instructed public utilities regulators to consider greenhouse gas impact as part of their decisions.
“The department up to that point had just focused on reliability and affordability,” said state Sen. Michael Barrett, chair of the legislature’s committee on telecommunications, utilities, and energy, and one of the main authors of both the 2021 and 2024 climate bills. “I have wanted to reorient state agencies that don’t seem to have gotten the memo about climate change being an existential crisis.”
The latest bill included more such provisions, authorizing the Board of Building Regulations and Standards to give preference to building materials that boost emissions reductions, and requiring Massport to consider the greenhouse gas impacts of its decisions.
“I hope that Massport appreciates that what is done today on climate is inadequate, and I hope it also appreciates that the policies have changed,” said Barrett. “I don’t pretend to be able to predict particular outcomes on particular projects, but I do know that Massport needs to take this seriously.”
Bourne Intermediate School in Bourne, Massachusetts, will host a “Stuff A Bus” event on Dec. 7 to collect toy donations for local children this holiday season.
Bourne Public Schools released a statement announcing the “Stuff A Bus” event that will take place on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bourne Intermediate School.
Residents are encouraged to drop off unwrapped gifts or gift cards for children of all ages. Bourne bus drivers and District staff will collect the donations, which will be distributed only to children within the Bourne community.
According to the release, “Stuff A Bus” is sponsored by Bourne Public Schools bus drivers, as an opportunity for community members to support disadvantaged children.
The following commentary was written by Daksh Arora, a project engineer at GameChange Solar, content director for the MIT Energy Conference 2025, and a fellow at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
States like Massachusetts must take the lead in advancing the United States’ climate goals, especially under the incoming Trump administration. While the Biden Administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 made significant strides, the U.S. is still on track to achieve only 66% of its greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030.
With the potential for further setbacks, such as a possible second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, states like Massachusetts must step up to drive the deployment of clean energy and climate solutions.
The “Direct Pay” provision in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a game-changer for municipalities, state and local governments, and other tax-exempt entities to access federal clean energy tax credits. This provision allows entities such as nonprofits, schools, tribal governments, and municipal utilities to receive tax credits directly from the IRS, rather than relying on tax liability to claim them.
Before the IRA, only private entities could benefit from these credits, putting public entities at a disadvantage in developing clean energy projects. The Direct Pay provision has no cap on government spending through 2032, offering new opportunities for public sector investment in clean energy. Furthermore, IRA also increases the maximum available tax credit for certain clean energy projects, from 30% to 50%, with the potential for up to 70% or more for projects in energy or low-income communities, or those using American-made materials, helping overcome financial barriers that previously slowed public clean energy development.
To claim direct pay, eligible entities must complete their energy projects before receiving payment from the federal government, which will occur the following year. While the tax credits will lower overall project costs, upfront capital is still needed to finance projects before the refund arrives.
To help address this, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $27 billion program established by another IRA provision, provides increased green bank financing, supporting an equitable green financing ecosystem across the U.S. The IRS just finalized the direct pay rules and it would be really difficult for the next administration to repeal it.
City governments like in Somerville and Cambridge can use direct pay to supplement the costs of deploying renewable energy infrastructure such as solar panels and storage technologies on public lands and buildings; electrifying vehicle fleets; and building out electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Direct Pay is also a significant shift that allows public power entities, like the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to directly own renewable energy projects instead of relying on complex public-private partnerships. This makes it easier for NYPA to scale up clean energy projects by bypassing the need for third-party ownership structures that were previously required.
Regardless of this question, investing in public capacity is a net win for the environment as direct pay not only levels the playing field between for-profit and tax-exempt entities but also shifts energy generation ownership from private to public and nonprofit sectors, enabling more consumer-focused management of energy assets. States like Massachusetts should ensure that benefits from the IRA reach low-income and marginalized communities.
Massachusetts just streamlined the process for building solar and wind farms, transmission lines, and other energy infrastructure to help meet its climate goals by 2050. The state can do more by working to help communities understand the types of investments eligible for direct pay and how to secure financing for clean energy projects, making access to this funding easier and more efficient. The state can also lead by setting an example by deploying climate solutions at scale and ensuring utilities maximize the federal clean energy tax credits by regulatory oversight.
A woman in Plymouth, Massachusetts, was arrested after nearly hitting a child while illegally passing a school bus.
According to a statement issued by the Plymouth Police Department, on Nov. 22 at approximately 8:45 a.m. officers received a report of a motor vehicle that had utilized the caller’s circular driveway to pass a school bus while it had its red lights activated.
A video provided by the caller clearly showed a white SUV using the driveway to pass the lawfully stopped school bus while it was picking up students. According to authorities, further review of the video showed the SUV nearly striking the caller’s 10-year-old son.
Officials state that as a result of the follow-up investigation, Plymouth Police arrested 59-year-old Brenda Mello on Nov. 29, charging her with failure to stop for school bus, reckless operations of a motor vehicle, and assault by means of a dangerous weapon.
Mello was reportedly expected to be arraigned in Plymouth Court on Wednesday.
WOBURN, Mass. — Today, Beacon Mobility announced TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles, a Woburn-based transportation industry leader for the public and private sectors, as the newest member of the Beacon Mobility family. TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles have been serving communities, businesses, and institutions across the Commonwealth for nearly 35 years with a focus on consulting, planning, and managing commuter programs and providing high-quality transportation services. With this acquisition, Beacon Mobility now serves its transportation customers through 27 companies in 25 states nationwide, including six companies in Massachusetts.
“TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles have been faithfully serving Massachusetts communities for over three decades and we are pleased to welcome them to our growing family of transportation companies,” said David A. Duke, Chief Development Officer for Beacon Mobility. “This organization not only provides a host of important services to the public and private sectors, but also has a dynamic and talented consulting team with expertise in data analytics and transportation efficiencies. We look forward to working with their teams during the transition as we strive to deliver comprehensive and essential transportation services to the Commonwealth and New England.”
“Since 1990, thanks to our incredible employees, we have delivered safe, reliable, and innovative transportation options to a variety of public and private sector clients,” said Cindy Frené, President and Founder of TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles. “We are proud of what we have accomplished and look forward to the new opportunities that will be realized as part of the Beacon Mobility family.”
“TransAction’s talented team is ready to support and strengthen transportation initiatives across different sectors,” said Michele Brooks of TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles. “As we continue to grow our operations and portfolio, we are thrilled to join the Beacon Mobility team and look forward to our future partnership.”
Founded in 1990, TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles operate out of their facility in Woburn and offers a range of shuttle services and transportation programs. TransAction currently provides shuttle services for a variety of clients, that include municipalities, hospitals, developers, universities, and employers. The managed services and consulting options can collect and analyze data, research and evaluate options for clients, and make recommendations on implementation.
The TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles team is comprised of nearly 130 highly skilled employees and operates a fleet of more than 100 vehicles ranging from vans to shuttle buses and includes accessible services.
About TransAction Associates and Corporate Shuttles
TransAction has been an industry leader and a trusted name in transportation for nearly 35 years. TransAction Associates focuses on consulting, transportation planning, and managing commuter programs. The TransAction Corporate Shuttles division officially spun off in 1995 to provide reasonably priced, high-quality transportation services with an emphasis on safety. Working with TransAction means clients get an experienced leadership team committed to delivering a standard of excellence on every project from planning to marketing to operations. To learn more, visit: https://www.transactiontransportation.com
About Beacon Mobility
Beacon Mobility is a growing family of transportation companies committed to serving the diverse needs of their customers. Now operating 27 local brands in 25 states, their experienced, compassionate, and dedicated team takes pride in their ability to create customized, mobility-based solutions that empower people to get where they need to go. To learn more, visit: https://gobeacon.com/
A trailblazing regional greenhouse gas partnership on the East Coast is considering possible changes or expansion that would allow it to keep building on its success — and the stakes grew higher last month with the reelection of Donald Trump.
The 11-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, established in 2005, is the country’s first regional cap-and-invest system for reducing carbon emissions from power generation. Since 2021, administrators have been conducting a program review, analyzing its performance since the last review in 2017 and weighing potential adjustments to make sure it continues to deliver benefits to member states.
The role of such programs is more crucial as Trump’s pledges to roll back federal climate action leaves it up to cities, states, and the private sector to maintain the country’s momentum on clean energy over the next four years. In RGGI, as the regional initiative is known, states have a potential model for scaling their impact through collaboration.
“RGGI has not only been an effective climate policy, it’s been an extraordinary example of how states can work together on common goals,” said Daniel Sosland, president of climate and energy nonprofit Acadia Center. “It is a major vehicle for climate policy now in the states, more than it might have seemed before the election.”
How RGGI works
RGGI sets a cap for total power plant carbon emissions among member states. Individual generators must then buy allowances from the state, up to the total cap, for each ton of carbon dioxide they produce in a year. The cap lowers over time, forcing power plants to either reduce emissions or pay more to buy allowances from a shrinking pool.
States then reinvest the proceeds from these auctions into programs that further reduce emissions and help energy customers, including energy efficiency initiatives, direct bill assistance, and renewable energy projects. Since 2008, RGGI has generated $8.3 billion for participating states, and carbon dioxide emissions from power generation in the nine states that have consistently participated fell by about half between 2008 and 2021, a considerably faster rate than the rest of the country.
“It has really thrived and been really effective across multiple administrations,” said Jackson Morris, state power sector director with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “RGGI is a winning model. It’s not theoretical — we’ve got numbers.”
Currently, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont are part of the program. Virginia joined RGGI in 2021, but in 2023 Gov. Glenn Youngkin repealed the state’s participation, a move immediately challenged in court; a judge ruled last month that the governor lacked the authority to withdraw the state from initiative, though a spokesman for the governor has declared the state’s intention to appeal.
There is widespread agreement that RGGI will endure despite likely federal hostility to climate measures. There was no attempt to take direct action against it during Trump’s first term, nor has there been any concerted industry opposition, said Conservation Law Foundation president Bradley Campbell, who was involved in the founding of RGGI when he was commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Supporters also note that the program has historically had broad bipartisan support: Participating states have been led through the years by both Republican and Democratic governors and legislatures.
Politics has had some influence over the years, though only at the margins. New Jersey, a founding member of RGGI, left in 2011 when Chris Christie was governor, but returned in 2020 following an executive order from his successor. Pennsylvania joined in 2022 through an executive order from the governor, but its participation is now being challenged in court.
Still, RGGI’s foundations are solid and will remain so, experts said.
“The basic infrastructure has weathered the political winds over the decades,” Campbell said.
Looking forward
Nonetheless, RGGI will need to make some carefully thought-out program design decisions during its current review to make an impact in the face of falling federal support for decarbonization.
One question under consideration is whether to maintain the existing trajectory for the overall emissions cap for the program — a reduction of 30% between 2020 and 2030, then holding steady thereafter — or to continue lowering the limit after 2030.
The RGGI states are also contemplating a possible change to the compliance schedule that would require power generators to acquire allowances worth 100% of their carbon emissions each year, and certify compliance annually. The current system calls for certification every three years, and only mandates allowances equivalent to half of carbon emissions for the first two years of each period.
The program is looking for ways to appeal to potential new participant states that have less aggressive decarbonization goals than current member states without watering down the program’s overall impact on decarbonization, said Acadia Center policy analyst Paola Tamayo. Acadia suggested possible program mechanisms such as giving proportionately more allowances to states with more stringent emissions targets to incentivize tighter limits.
“At this point it is critical for states to maintain a high level of ambition when it comes to programs like RGGI,” Tamayo said. “There are different mechanisms that they can implement to accommodate other states.”
The program review is expected to yield a model rule some time over the winter, though updates may be made into the spring as the RGGI states receive and consider feedback on how to accommodate potential new participants.
States will also need to maintain and strengthen their own climate policies to magnify the impact of RGGI, Campbell said. He pointed to Massachusetts, where Gov. Maura Healey needs to show “bolder leadership,” he said, and Maine and Vermont, where the Conservation Law Foundation has filed lawsuits in an attempt to compel the states to meet their own carbon reduction deadlines.
“It’s especially important that the states that have strong emissions reduction mandates speed up the implementation of their climate laws,” he said. “State leadership on these issues is going to be more important than ever.”
Tri-Town senior citizens in Massachusetts celebrated an early Thanksgiving dinner at Old Rochester Regional Junior High School with the help of 50 student volunteers, reported Sippican Week.
According to the news report, a Thanksgiving dinner was held on Sunday where nearly 250 senior citizens joined and enjoyed the event.
It was the 31st rendition of the annual event and school administrative assistant Toni Bailey said via the article that it was one of the largest held.
The event was reportedly funded by the Tri-Town community. Donations were raised for the turkey and other thanksgiving specialties and local farms donate apple pies and cider.
The school’s principal, Silas Coellner, said the event also provides a great learning experience for the student volunteers.
In years past, volunteers for the event had reportedly been eighth graders only; however, this year seventh graders joined them.
Students helped senior citizens find their seats, served them food, refill their drinks and clear their plates. After the meal was finished, dozens of gifts and prizes that were reportedly donated by the community were raffled off to guests.
“The kids love it, and the seniors love it” said Coellner via the article.
A Massachusetts university is developing technology that aims to use lasers to drastically cut emissions and energy use from Maine’s paper and pulp industry.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently received a $2.75 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to help ready the industrial drying technology for commercial use.
“We are all excited about this — this is potentially a groundbreaking technology,” said Jamal Yagoobi, founding director of the institute’s Center for Advanced Research in Drying.
In Maine, the paper and pulp business generates about 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, roughly half of the state’s industrial emissions. Much of these emissions come from the process of drying mashed, pressed, and rolled wood pulp to yield paper products. The emissions come mainly from three major operations across the state; three additional facilities contribute smaller amounts.
These plants’ emissions will need to be addressed if Maine is to reach its goal of going carbon neutral by 2045. Furthermore, each of these plants is located in an area with an above-average population of low-income residents, according to data assembled by Industrious Labs, an environmental organization focused on the impact of industry. And two are located in areas with a higher-than-average risk of cancer from air toxins, suggesting a correlation between their operations and the incidence of cancer in the area.
At the same, the paper and pulp industry remains economically important to Maine, said Matt Cannon, state conservation and energy director for the Maine chapter of the Sierra Club.
“It’s got real union jobs — the paper industry is still very important to our community,” he said.
Worcester Polytechnic’s drying research center has been working on ways to dry paper, pulp, and other materials using the concentrated energy found in lasers. The lasers Yagoobi’s team is using are not the lasers of the public imagination, like a red beam zapping at alien enemies. Though the lasers are quite strong — they can melt metal, Yagoobi says — they are dispersed over a larger area, spreading out the energy to evenly and gently dry the target material.
Testing on food products has shown that the technology can work. Now, researchers need to learn more about how the laser energy affects different materials to make sure the product quality is not compromised during the drying process.
“For paper, it’s important to make sure the tensile strength is not degrading,” Yagoobi said. “For food products, you want to make sure the color and sensory qualities do not degrade.”
Therefore, before the system is ready for a commercial pilot, the team has to gather a lot more data about how much laser energy is incident on different parts of the surface and how deeply the energy penetrates different materials. Once gathered, this data will be used to determine what system sizes and operating conditions are best for different materials, and to design laser modules for each intended use.
Once these details are worked out, the laser technology can be installed in new commercial-scale drying equipment or existing systems. “This particular technology will be easy to retrofit,” Yagoobi said.
Industrial sources were responsible for about 1.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States in 2023, about 28% of the country’s overall emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating processes, often powered by natural gas or other fossil fuels, are responsible for about half of those emissions, said Evan Gillespie, one of the co-founders of Industrious Labs. Many industrial drying processes require high temperatures that have traditionally been hard to reach without fossil fuels, giving the sector a reputation as hard to decarbonize, Gillespie said.
“The key challenge here is: How do you remove natural gas as a heating source inside industrial facilities?” said Richard Hart, industry director at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. “The scale of what is happening in industry is enormous, and the potential for change is very powerful.”
To make the new technology effective, industry leaders and policymakers will need to commit to reinvesting in old facilities, Gillespie noted. And doing so will be well worth it by strengthening an economically important industry, keeping jobs in place, and creating important environmental benefits, he added.
“There’s often this old story of tensions between climate and jobs,” Gillespie said. “But what we’re trying to do is modernize these facilities and stabilize them so they’ll be around for decades to come.”
Nearly a year after Massachusetts regulators laid out a vision for the state’s evolution from natural gas distribution to clean energy use, lawmakers are coalescing around legislation that would start converting principles into policy.
The wide-ranging climate bill includes several provisions that would allow utilities to explore alternatives to gas and empower regulators to place more limits on the expansion and continuation of natural gas infrastructure, changes that supporters say are critical to a successful transition away from fossil fuels.
“This bill is a major first step in empowering [regulators] to do something rather than just rubber stamping the utilities’ plans,” said Lisa Cunningham, co-founder of ZeroCarbonMA.
Natural gas is currently the primary heating source for half the homes in Massachusetts, a number that needs to drop if the state is going to meet its ambitious climate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, advocates and state leaders say. In 2020, the state department of public utilities opened an investigation into the role natural gas utilities would play in the transition to cleaner energy. In December 2023, the department issued a lengthy order concluding that the state must move “beyond gas” and outlining a broad framework for making the shift.
Lawmakers attempted to start turning these general ideas into binding law earlier this year, but the legislative session closed at the end of July before the Senate and House reconciled the differences between their versions of a climate bill. Legislators returned to work this fall and hammered out an agreement, and the Senate passed the resulting bill last month. The House speaker has said the body will vote when it returns to formal session later this year. The bill is generally expected to pass and be signed into law.
“A lot of people were skeptical we’d get a bill at all, but I’m happy with where this bill ended up,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director for climate nonprofit Acadia Center. “It shows a step toward that needed urgency.”
At the heart of the bill’s energy transition provisions is a change to the definition of a natural gas utility that allows the companies to also provide geothermal power. Networked geothermal — systems that draw heat from the earth and deliver it to a group of buildings — is widely seen as a promising alternative to natural gas, and both National Grid and Eversource have pilot projects in the works. However, current law prevents the utilities from pursuing such projects without specific authorization from regulators. The climate bill would remove this barrier, making it easier for gas companies to explore new approaches to business.
“The gas utilities deeply need a new business model that can help them step into the future,” said Audrey Schulman, founder of climate solutions incubator HEETlabs. “That allows them to potentially evolve.”
This definition change supports other provisions aimed at slowing the expansion of natural gas use in the state. The bill would end the requirement that natural gas utilities provide service to any customer in their service area who requests it, with few exceptions. Under the new law, utilities could decline these requests when other alternatives are available.
The bill would also allow regulators to consider the impact of emissions when deciding whether to approve requests to expand natural gas service into new communities. In 2023, the state approved a request to bring gas service to the central Massachusetts town of Douglas. Regulators at the time noted that the decision works against the state’s goal of phasing out natural gas, but said the law gave them no choice but to approve the plan. Provisions in the climate bill would untie regulators’ hands in such cases in the future.
“The [Department of Public Utilities] can consider the public interest, including climate, it doesn’t have to say yes to more gas service,” said Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy at the Environmental League of Massachusetts. And the inclusion of geothermal in gas utilities’ definition means “now there’s also something else to offer the customers.”
Another major element of the bill would reform the state’s Gas System Enhancement Plans program, which encourages utilities to repair or replace pipes in the state’s aging and leak-prone natural gas distribution system. Clean energy advocates have often argued that these plans are problematic, investing billions of ratepayer dollars into shoring up a system that is increasingly obsolete. The climate bill would allow utilities to choose to retire segments of pipe rather than fixing them.
“For the first time ever they are able to look at a pipe and say, ‘You know what, this is not worth the cost,’” Murray said. “We don’t want ratepayers shouldering the burden for a lot of stuff that’s not going to be useful in five to 10 years.”
Environmental advocates praised the bill’s gas provisions, and are already focusing on what more there is to be done. Several would have liked to see a more aggressive phasing out of Gas System Enhancement Plans, with a specific end date. Others champion an expansion of a pilot program that allows cities and towns to ban fossil fuel use in new construction and major renovations.
“There is no reason why communities that want to enact this via home rule petition should be restricted from enacting the will of their constituents,” Cunningham said.
In the meantime, advocates are ready to see the climate bill turning into reality.
“There’s a lot of good stuff in there that will do a lot of good for the commonwealth,” Boyd Rabin says.
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