ACTIVISTS OPPOSING the Hanscom Airfield expansion proposal are calling recent recommendations to utilize sustainable aviation fuels “a disingenuous greenwashing campaign” as lawmakers leading on the issue maintained that the governor and Massport must put a stop to the plan.
The Massachusetts Port Authority proposal, which has faced years of opposition, would expand the Lawrence G. Hanscom Field located between Bedford, Lexington and Concord by adding 17 new hangars. The publicly-owned airfield holds the most private jets in New England, and an October 2023 report found private jets from the field accounted for an estimated 106,676 tons of carbon emissions over an 18-month period.
Activists on Tuesday aired concerns about increased carbon emissions from private jets that serve the wealthy. They drew attention to a Massachusetts Sustainable Aviation Fuel Workgroup report, which recommended that the state advance the implementation of SAF, a type of jet fuel made from renewable sources.
The working group report suggests that SAF has “the potential to dramatically reduce life cycle aviation emissions … and avoid indirect impacts on forests and croplands.” It also recommends creating a Massachusetts and New England Regional SAF Hub “to secure buy-in from key stakeholders, facilitate information sharing, and identify priority short- and long-term initiatives that build SAF momentum.”
But a new report from the D.C.-based think tank Institute for Policy Studies claims that utilizing SAF in this project or others will not help Massachusetts reduce greenhouse gas emissions and is not a “feasible” way to reduce emissions at scale.
“SAF won’t help the Commonwealth reduce emissions. Period. It will not scale at the pace of climate change. It is a diversion of money and attention in this moment,” Chuck Collins, co-author of the think tank’s report, said Tuesday.
“Hypothetical future use of SAF should not serve as a green light for expanding aviation. We find that SAF solutions provide minimal or negative greenhouse gas reductions,” the report says. It calls studying SAF “logical” but suggests “proposals to drive production or consumption of SAF through economic policy or subsidies do not make financial sense, as SAF currently and for the foreseeable future increases GHG emissions.”
Massport maintains that the renewable fuel “represents one of the most immediate and effective tools available today to reduce aviation’s climate impact and enable emission reductions without compromising reliability or safety.”
The agency is “committed to reducing aviation-related emissions and promoting more sustainable practices across all our facilities, including Hanscom Field,” Massport said in a statement to the News Service. “We understand there are a range of opinions, and we’re committed to continuing the conversation with our neighbors to find the right balance between environmental goals, airport operations, and economic growth.”
Lincoln resident Alex Chatfield criticized the focus on SAF in the midst of opposition to the Hanscom project.
“If Massport thinks that we will be distracted by the supposedly bright, shiny object of SAFs and accept the North Airfield project, because someday, a few decades from now, some highly expensive and still environmentally damaging but differently produced fuel is being sold there, they have badly underestimated our determination to stop this project,” Chatfield said.
Secretary of Environmental Affairs Rebecca Tepper in 2024 rejected a draft environmental impact report filed by Runway Realty Ventures and North Airfield Ventures to expand the Hanscom airfield. The developers are expected to submit a supplemental draft environmental impact report to address environmental and community impacts and concerns by the end of the year, Chatfield said.
“There is no way you can put in a whole bunch of essentially garages for private jets and still claim ever again, at least in the living memory of those of us in the room, to be concerned about climate. This is it. This is the inflection point for Massport,” Sen. Michael Barrett said during a State House briefing.
“The same in some ways is true for the Legislature and executive branch, also. It is going to be very, very difficult for your elected officials to make the case that we prioritize fighting climate [change] if this particular deal goes down,” Barrett continued.
Activists on Tuesday delivered another letter to Healey calling on her to put a stop to the project, after conservation and historic preservation groups delivered a different letter and petition to her in April.
Barrett recalled the decision of former Gov. Frank Sargent in the 1970s to reject the Inner Belt project, which Barrett said would have decimated neighborhoods in Somerville, Cambridge and Boston.
“Sargent took a look at that seeming inevitability and said, ‘Not on my watch – that is a bad decision. I’m thinking about the future, and I can see that this would get it wrong,'” Barrett said. “So we’re asking our current governor, who’s done so much good work on other issues, to appreciate that there is a precedent for her saying just, ‘No, not on my watch.'”
A petition created by the Stop Private Jet Expansion at Hanscom or Anywhere group, which calls on Healey to stop the expansion plans, has more than 14,500 signatures.
“It’s a matter of political will,” Rep. Carmine Gentile said. “Massachusetts has pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050. How can we take that goal seriously if we greenlight projects like this? We can’t,” Gentile said. “How can we tell working families to switch to electric cars, to insulate their homes, take the T while letting the ultra rich burn jet fuel to [take] quick flights to the Caribbean? That would be a moral failure.”