This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon’s Jennifer Smith is joined by Rusty Polsgrove, an organizer with Arise for Social Justice, and by John Walkey, director of climate justice and waterfront initiatives at GreenRoots, to discuss the role of environmental justice in climate legislation. They focus especially on the environmental justice community designation, and why environmental advocates wish it had a larger presence in the current climate bill.
Environmental justice in climate legislation
Posted inEnvironment
Advocates press for more emphasis on environmental justice populations
Environmental justice populations, broadly speaking, tend to be low-income communities and communities of color hit hard by the impacts of climate change. Getting to a clear definition in Massachusetts, let alone its policy implications, has been a long road through several climate bills.
Posted inBallot Questions
Lessons to learn from Oregon on psychedelics ballot measure
A group called Mass. for Mental Health Options has gathered the necessary signatures to put a question on the November ballot that would make it possible for Massachusetts residents to do the same. However, the measure in Massachusetts is much more expansive than the one that legalized psilocybin therapy in Oregon in 2020.
Posted inOpinion
It’s time to talk about what decarbonization will cost
We know how much carbon we emit, with reasonable accuracy. We know how much carbon we need to stop emitting. We know much about the carbon-free resources we need to procure. Now we just need to know the cost to the Commonwealth.
Posted inOpinion
Legalizing project labor agreements would be huge step backward
NO ONE WOULD tolerate a law that bans union labor from public construction. So why is it OK to shut out non-union workers? The House of Representatives has voted to […]
Posted inOpinion
Biden’s candidacy has to end
The only way the Democratic Party can win the upcoming elections is to be perceived as fresh, new, dynamic.
Is this fair? When has politics ever been fair? This is not about fairness but about reality.
Posted inPolitics
Democrats tiptoe toward toppling a leader they like
Stopping a Trump return to the White House is something all Democrats agree on. The difficult question they now face is, which of the imperfect choices before them offers the best hope of doing that?
Posted inOpinion
Don’t penalize people for being poor and lacking housing
The US Supreme Court ruled that a community may ban people from sleeping outside even when there is no adequate shelter or housing available. People may be fined or arrested for sleeping in a tent, on a bench, or even in their own cars.
Posted inRace/Racism
DiZoglio slams state agency on minority outreach
“If we are serious about expanding opportunities for underrepresented populations, we must do better,” State Auditor Diana DiZoglio said in a statement.
Posted inPolitics
Uber, Lyft drivers praise settlement, push for union
Days after Uber and Lyft agreed to boost driver pay and offer new benefits to resolve a years-old lawsuit, campaigners moved Tuesday to place on the ballot a measure that would allow those same drivers to unionize.
Posted inEnergy
Watching the sausage get made on Beacon Hill
The proposal didn’t follow the traditional legislative route – getting filed as a bill, vetted in a hearing before a committee, and then moving on to the full Legislature. Instead, the Healey administration broached the idea earlier this year but actual language didn’t emerge publicly until a climate bill was reported out of the Senate Ways and Means Committee midway through June.
Posted inOpinion
State’s aging gas infrastructure has to go
The majority of Massachusetts residents — 54 percent — would rather invest in new clean energy infrastructure than patch up the old gas system, according to a new poll commissioned by Rewiring America and Green Energy Consumers Alliance.
Posted inHousing
The senior struggle to age in community
MASSACHUSETTS SENIORS, particularly those who are low income, are often stymied in their hunt for later-in-life homes because of a mismatch between their specific demographic needs and the dearth of […]
Posted inThe Codcast
Aging in community
This week on the Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon’s Jennifer Smith talks to Amy Schectman, President and CEO of 2Life Communities, about the challenges of providing supportive and community-based housing for low-income elders.
Posted inOpinion
Municipal light plants want a piece of offshore wind, too
In Massachusetts, there are 41 municipal utilities serving customers in a total of 50 cities and towns and accounting for just over 13 percent of electricity usage.
Posted inBallot Questions
Ballot question fundraising and spending largely hidden from public view
In contrast to state election laws governing candidates for office, which require regular reporting throughout the year on campaign donations and expenditures, ballot question committees operate under relatively lax reporting requirements.
Posted inOpinion
How ‘right to shelter’ in Mass. differs from NYC
The widely different degrees of policy-making freedom in Massachusetts and New York provide a bracing lesson about the dangerous limits on state and local policymaking placed by consented-to judicial decrees.
Posted inOpinion
Mass. failing on the marijuana equity front
I spent my life focused on improving the lives of Black residents of our state, helping people who don’t have the same opportunities as others. I’ve always believed the best way to do this is through building wealth in our communities, and so economics has always been a major part of my life.
Posted inEducation
Political Notebook: Celtics win = end-of-school loss for Boston students | The definition of a publicity stunt
The Celtics victory celebration ended up raining on the parade of the Boston school students last day of classes, which were abruptly canceled. Meanwhile, the Mass GOP has a selective view of what qualifies as a publicity stunt at the US-Mexico border.