If power on Beacon Hill is measured in terms of share of the state budget, Ian Bowles is a nobody. The state’s secretary of energy and environmental affairs oversees agencies […]
Power portfolio
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Catching the wind
More than 10 years ago, New England set out on the road to develop dynamic, competitive wholesale electricity markets that would create incentives for private investment in diverse sources of […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Wemmick was right
given charles dickens’s penchant for outrageous character names, the hero of Great Expectations falls a little short. I’m not talking about narrator Philip Pirrip, whose “infant tongue could make of […]
Posted inState House News Service, Transportation
Washington may frown upon South Coast Rail
What would Peter Rogoff say about the $100 million deal the Massachusetts Department of Transportation recently signed with rail freight company CSX Transportation, giving the state ownership of 30 miles […]
Posted inEducation, State House News Service, Transportation
Transit authority’s student pass may hold lessons for MBTA
If Chicago is a guide, the forever cash-strapped MBTA may be sitting on a rich vein of untapped revenue—area college students. The Chicago Transit Authority’s U-Pass is mandatory for the nearly […]
Posted inUncategorized
Nine questions for Mass GOP Chair Jennifer Nassour
COMMONWEALTH: Has there been a surge in GOP registrations since Brown’s victory?NASSOUR: We don’t have the registration numbers, but what we do have is an uptick in interest. We have […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
Mystery solved
Tucked deep inside an April report by Boston’s Climate Action Leadership Committee is a photo of a wharf seemingly under water. There is no explanation with the photo—indeed, no mention […]
Posted inEducation
Boston charities set ambitious education goals
When the kindergarten and first-grade chorus members from the Haynes Early Education Center in Roxbury closed the program with an uplifting rendition of “We Are The World,” they might as […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, State House News Service
Nuclear: Obama on board but not Patrick
President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick see eye-to-eye on most energy issues—except nuclear power. Obama is on board, but Patrick isn’t in any hurry to catch up. Nuclear power […]
Posted inEnvironment
Energy efficiency drives reinvention of Bay State company
The roots of East Walpole-headquartered Hollingsworth & Vose Co. extend back to the 18th century and to a product as basic as rag paper. But today, this old-line manufacturing firm […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
Cheap, clean energy stirring interest in Holyoke
Cheap, clean electricity is putting the city of Holyoke on the map.Holyoke, one of the poorest cities in Massachusetts, hasn’t attracted any significant business development in a long time. But […]
Posted inEnvironment
8 questions for Tom King, president of National Grid-US
cw: Why does National Grid make a portion of your salary contingent on meeting a company carbon-reduction target?king: National Grid is committed to taking a leadership role in addressing climate […]
Posted inHealth Care
Overexposed
Gov. Deval Patrick in April took the unprecedented step of rejecting double-digit rate increases being sought by most of the state’s health insurers for their small business plans. It was […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Just plain ugly
Bill Pedersen is a principal at Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates in New York, a powerhouse architectural firm known for designing tall towers across the globe. He personally oversaw the design […]
Posted inPolitics
Deval on the defense
Four years ago, the Democratic Party reached a new apex in Massachusetts with the landslide election of Deval Patrick as governor. And the demographics seemed to portend further happy days, […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment, State House News Service
Who’s the real environmentalist?
The elegant, lazy motion of wind turbines once appealed to Eleanor Tillinghast. Generating energy takes a heavy toll on the natural world, so it stood to reason that Tillinghast, a […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
The big bet
The south shore community of Milton is planning to borrow $6 million to build a large wind turbine on town land. Normally, a project of that magnitude in such a […]
Posted inEconomy, Environment
Seeing green
The air was thick with anticipation as US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar stepped to the microphone, even though the news he was about to make had already leaked […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics, State House News Service
41 munis, but no new ones since the 1920s
There are 41 municipal electric companies scattered across Massachusetts that charge, on average, 21 percent less for their power than the four investor-owned utilities that serve the rest of the […]
Posted inUncategorized
Saying sorry
Rick Boothman still thinks about a malpractice case he won 30 years ago. Fresh out of law school, Boothman represented a surgeon who had been sued by a former patient. […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
Attitude adjustment
After his family moved from Massachusetts to San Francisco in 2008, Will Anastas noticed a big change in his trash. The family of four went from producing five bags of […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The Shirley Sherrod he knew
By Michael Jonas It is a mild understatement to say there is plenty that initial media reports and the Obama administration had wrong about Shirley Sherrod. But the lessons involve more than just the unconscionable […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Mohl on Broadside with Jim Braude
Friday, July 23, 2010 Here is a link to CommonWealth editor Bruce Mohl’s appearance on Broadside to talk about the gambling impasse on Beacon Hill. The host of Broadside, a […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
In gambling showdown, greed is king
By Michael Jonas News that things are getting testy among legislators trying to reach agreement on an expanding gambling bill is hardly surprising. When it comes to jockeying for position in […]