2025-04-01 00:00:00 - Senate Committee on Climate Change and Global Warming
2025-04-01 00:00:00 - Senate Committee on Climate Change and Global Warming
SEN CREEM - Senator Comerford was going to be a little late. Senator Lovely is here, Senator Barrett is here, and so I think we should get started. Thank you all for coming. So, Massachusetts has always had a bold climate ambitions. Regardless of who's been in power in in Washington, we've sought to move forward on renewable energy, clean heat, electric vehicles, and many other policies. For the last four years, we were lucky to have a strong federal partner on our efforts, and during the Biden administration, Congress passed two major laws establishing tax credits for EVs, renewable energy, investing money in heat pumps, public EV charging, solar panels. Much of that funding was expected to flow through state governments, boosting our efforts to make energy greener, affordable, and more accessible. There were many grants to Massachusetts, but it doesn't count the millions more that have been awarded to Massachusetts and organizations, including to public and private high education institutions, cities, towns, climate startups, non-profit, farmers, research institutions like Woods Hole.
The Biden administration also made important strides on climate through regulatory policy, approving permits for offshore wind, adopting new energy efficiency standards, and setting vehicle efficiency and emission standards that would accelerate the transmission to EVs. But that was then, and that was in the past, we now find ourselves in a completely different world when it comes to federal climate policy. In the first few months of the Trump administration, many of those grants and tax credits and nearly all of those regulatory advances are under threat. The Trump administration is working to rescind climate grants wherever it can. It's withdrawing support for offshore wind industry, pulling back on regulatory accelerate, the transition to electric vehicles, it's even questioning the regulatory finding that underpins the environmental protection agents, sees authority to regulate green gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The federal climate retrenchment will make it harder for us to achieve our ambitions. There's no sugarcoating that, but we're not powerless, far from it. We're not going to sit back,186 and we're still going to go forward in Massachusetts.
We may have to change our course to recalibrate our plans194 to reflect a lack of financial or regulatory support from the government, but we're still pressing for reaching our net 0 emission. The first step in our course correction is figuring out where things stand. The problem with that is what you might figure out today may be different tomorrow, but we need to look at a moment in time. What funding will we have or receive? What won't we? What tax credits will Congress repeal? What might survive? Again, it changes from day to day. We might not yet have those exact answers because of the shift,234 but today's hearing is the beginning, it's an opportunity to assess where things stand at the federal241 level, where things are headed, at least for the moment, and what contingency plans are available to us, and how do249 we move forward with or without the federal government. So, we're thankful today that we're going to hear from Mass DOT, we're going to hear from the Executive Office of Energy Environmental Affairs about areas of climate policy where state government plans to press ahead on its own. Representatives from the Attorney General's office will update us on the status of lawsuits she's filed to ensure the federal276 climate funding keeps flowing to Massachusetts, and they'll discuss280 other legal developments relating to federal climate policy and regulations.
We are really pretty darn lucky that we have Andrea Campbell as our AG. Local experts on offshore wind and electric vehicles are going to walk us through the federal federal policy changes in those areas and their expected impact in Massachusetts, and they will recommend actions we can take to make progress on both fronts. We will hear from an advocate who is proposing alternative ways of financing climate investment in the absence of federal support and from local non-profit organizations that spent the last few months grappling with. Our hope is that listening to today's hearing will leave not only with a hard no sense of the damage the Trump administration is doing to our climate efforts, but also, and more importantly, with an understanding of how Massachusetts can push forward. Mass law requires us to reach net 0 emissions by 2050, that hasn't changed. And if we're going to comply, we can't have time to beat in despair, we have to work immediately. So with that, I would like to introduce the first member of our panel, and thank you all. We have four wonderful panels with great people speaking today. So, the first panel, as I said, was the executive branch and Catherine Antos, Undersecretary of decarbonization and resilience in Executive office of383 energy and environmental affairs, and I believe I see her. Yes, please, Katherine.
KATHERINE ANTOS - MASSACHUSETTS EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS - Good morning, Chair Creem, Vice Chair Barrett, and members of the committee. Thank you for convening this hearing on this important topic and for your partnership in advancing Massachusetts climate leadership. My name is Katherine Antos, and I serve as the Undersecretary for decarbonization and resilience for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. I also oversee EEA's participation with the federal funds and infrastructure office or FFIO as a member of the Federal Funding Advisory Committee, where we collaborate and strategize as an administration to pursue and secure federal funding with a specific focus on addressing climate change and the development of clean energy. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on the status of our federal437 climate funds, potential changes439 in federal policies, and how this may impact our climate work. As you know, EEA and our agencies receive significant federal funding, both through competitive and formula grants, to support many of our policy priorities. Collectively, these funds lower costs for consumers, reduce exposure to harmful pollutants, especially those in environmental justice communities, create thousands of jobs, and protect clean air and water.465
At the direction of Governor Healey and Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, EEA has identified and worked to secure federal climate funds473 that have been threatened for elimination by the Trump administration. We have established a team of agency personnel dedicated to the endeavor of ensuring Massachusetts receives competitive and formula grant funding with a focus on funds that have been awarded. Many of these are funded through the infrastructure investment and jobs act and the inflation reduction act. These grants represent a significant investment in our clean energy transition and our economy. We secured these funds through agreements with federal agencies, and those agreements should be honored by the new administration. The status of our federal funds fluctuates daily as you noted n your remarks and as the Trump administration makes significant changes across the federal517 government at an unprecedented pace. These changes to programs and grants often come unannounced and in an uncoordinated manner. Our Secretariat has experienced a disruption to several federally funded accounts and has been working with the Attorney General's office to restore our ability to draw down suspended funds.
Massachusetts, both on its own and as part of applications with other New England states has been awarded over $1,100,000,000 in climate funds that have experienced some547 level of disruption since January. Several were temporarily suspended, but thanks to the collaborative work with the554 Attorney General's office, access has been restored for most of these grants. These grants included cutting edge innovative clean energy projects,562 like the US Environmental Protection Agency's $156,000,000 award567 to our Department of Energy Resources for Solar for All, which will expand the use of solar in low income and historically disadvantaged communities and lower energy costs for thousands of qualifying households. In addition, our Department of Environmental Protection was temporarily unable to access over $3,000,000 in critical diesel emissions reduction act formula funding. As you know, this program is incredibly important to help reduce diesel emissions by limiting exposure to diesel exhaust in older trucks, which is important for climate action and also important for improving human health and the environment. Since January, we have worked in partnership608 with the Attorney General's office to quickly identify and monitor the status of both competitive and formula grants, which616 led to successful lifting of these suspended funds.
But as I mentioned, this has been a rapidly evolving situation with the fate of some of our most important climate grants remaining uncertain. Of these climate grants, there are two where additional steps are needed to gain or maintain access. The first is the $389,000,000 from the grid innovation program for which we have received a conditional award agreement and are waiting on the US Department of Energy to finalize the award. It would fund the Power Up New England project to upgrade and expand two substations in Massachusetts and649 Connecticut so they can accommodate an additional 4,800 megawatts of power, which is enough to meet the needs of about 2,000,000 households. It would also support the659 development of the region's first multi day battery storage project in Maine. The second is $378,000 from the high hazard potential669 dam program. The Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA has placed reimbursements on hold as it implements a new manual review process for all reimbursement requests. This grant would fund the development of a risk prioritization tool for high hazard dams in Massachusetts, which is critically important as we consider how to prioritize the repair and also the removal of dams to keep our infrastructure resilient and to keep our communities and our property safe.
We continue to be vigilant and monitor our climate grants closely in partnership with the Attorney General's office to ensure we are aware of any impacts to the state budget and Massachusetts residents and can work quickly to gain, restore, and maintain access to federal funds. The federal administration is also reviewing and attempting to roll back bedrock environmental standards. It is unclear how the federal724 administration will go about doing this,726 and this process may take years and will face significant scientific730 and legal barriers. We are monitoring any federal regulatory proceedings and reviewing them for736 their implications on Massachusetts. Massachusetts law continues to require greenhouse gas emissions reductions and the protection of our natural resources. We have set the example that strong environmental protections can support a thriving economy. Our values and our commitments have not changed. We will continue to uphold our own laws to protect our residents and push back on federal threats to public health and the environment. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee, we look forward to continuing to work with the legislature as we analyze federal directives and policies, interpret their impacts on our state, and act accordingly in the best interest of Massachusetts residents. Thank you.
CREEM - Thank you. Do you have time to take a few questions?
ANTOS - I do, yes.
CREEM - Okay. So, I'll start. So, as we grapple with uncertainty at the federal level, maybe it makes sense to focus our attention on areas where we have a clean, independent authority to act. So what areas, if801 you could, of climate policy where the state can act entirely805 on its own make the807 biggest impact in reducing emissions during the current federal administration?
ANTOS - Well, thank you for asking that question. The good news is that the things that we can control, we are making significant progress. We are recognized as a national leader in terms of energy efficiency where we are working to reduce energy usage, which saves dollars, and also to support electrification. We have already met our goals in terms of installing heat pumps in households an entire year early. We also can continue in terms of transportation, we can continue to offer rebate programs and also support the deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and we are continuing to provide support for fleets to help them to electrify, so, those things are not changing. We are also continuing to move forward with clean energy procurements. Areas where we want to expand or look at additional tools in the toolbox that can help us to meet these goals, we look forward to working with the legislature when we introduce energy affordability and innovation legislation that is going to help to883 reduce emissions, reduce energy usage, and most importantly, reduce costs for residents and for consumers.
891 CREEM891 -891 So, we do look forward to getting an environmental bond. Will there be some897 things in the environmental bond bill that might be something we could do without the federal funding? We have been joined by Senator Becca Rausch, who chairs the Committee on Environment, so, I know she is very interested in this as well. So, thank you, Senator Rausch. Katherine, if you could, would the bond bill be something that we might be useful in doing our thing not tied to the federal government?
ANTOS - Yes, absolutely. The environmental bond bill is934 about what we can do with our state resources to build resilient infrastructure, which is going to protect us from more extreme weather events and other climate change impacts that we already are experiencing and we know we are going to continue to experience. A lot of what's in the bond bill is about how we make the best use of those resources and stretch those resources so that we can work with our communities to scale solutions. Now, just in terms of the963 climate grant impacts that I mentioned earlier, we have already received or already experienced some level of disruption of over $1,000,000,000 in terms of federal climate grants that have experienced some type of disruption. I want to be clear that we cannot expect to fill a gap of that order of magnitude. However, what we are committed to doing is as we continue to monitor the989 situation, making the best use of state resources to continue to advance our priorities and really working with you in997 terms of how we find those solutions and how we go about using the best use of state resources. So, the environmental bond bill will make critical investments that is going to help us to advance resilience and also move forward with reducing emissions reductions, focus on what we can do on the state side, as we also continue to fight for and maintain access to1022 federal grants.
CREEM - So, I have another, if the federal climate funding is harder to come by, is the administration, if you know, looking at an expanded role for the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank? Would that be something they could expand?
ANTOS - We are talking to other states who have deployed green banks or climate banks in different ways and really learning from what are the best ways we can utilize these resources. We're in conversation with the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank, and so we are absolutely committed to how both in the context of the Massachusetts Community Climate Bank and through other innovative financing mechanisms, we can really utilize finance as a way to take investments, take state investments, and really stretch those dollars to go even further.
CREEM - One more, and then I'll pass it on. But we seem, as legislators, hear so much from our municipalities. So, question is the state providing any assistance to1088 municipalities or public higher Ed institutions or non-profits that are working to access the federal climate1096 grants that they've been awarded? Is the state involved in trying to help with that front?
ANTOS - Yes, the state is involved. That's something that we are monitoring actively, and that's also an area that our federal funds and infrastructure offices is continuing to work closely with and collaborate with local governments and also other recipients of federal grant awards throughout Massachusetts. We know that this is critically important.
CREEM - This federal funds and infrastructure office, who chairs that? Is that someone new that the Governor has appointed to this?
ANTOS - Yes. So the Healey Driscoll administration, in their commitment to securing, federal funds, they stood up the federal funds and infrastructure office within the secretariat of administration and finance, and it is led by director Quentin Palfrey.
CREEM - Right, hut he was doing that before. Okay, I'm sorry, I thought maybe it was a new thing. Okay, I don't have any questions. Is there anybody on the committee that has any questions?
SEN BARRETT - Senator Creem, I have a question or two, Senator Barrett here.
CREEM - Sure. Senator Barrett.
BARRETT - Thank you. Incidentally, Senator Creem, I want to thank you and the members of this committee for making sure the Senate moves very quickly to work with the Healey folks and to assert leadership in the problem solving area. We obviously need a shrewd strategic plan to deal with the disruption from the feds, and it's good to see the Senate moving quickly on this front. Thank you, Katherine for appearing here today. A couple of questions. First of all, are there direct FTEs that are part of the staffing of the executive office of energy and environmental affairs dependent in whole or in part on federal monies? And if so, what is the prognosis for maintaining those staff positions?
ANTOS - Thank you for that question, Senator. Yes, we have for some time received significant federal support in large part through our formula grants that helps to administer our programs and does pay for either whole or in part, FTEs across the executive office of energy and environmental affairs. Our estimate is that they cover about 350 full time equivalents. Of those, there are only approximately 10 that have been identified as being very high risk because that was specifically funded through either the infrastructure investment and jobs act or the inflation reduction act. We are continuing to monitor that closely, and we are continuing to evaluate how we could use other state resources if needed. I will say at this time, the good news is is that none of those formula or competitive grants that are funding those positions have been suspended at this time, so we still have access to those funds. We are watching this very closely, and we truly appreciate your attention to this matter. And if issues do emerge, we look forward to working with the legislature on strategies to address these concerns.
BARRETT - You mentioned the 350 FTEs funded in whole or in part, and, first of all, thank you for clarifying that most of those at the moment are not at risk. But that's 350 FTEs out of how many for the department as a whole?
ANTOS - I would have to look up and get back to you with that exact number for the department as a whole because we've been fortunate in recent years to expand FTEs within departments, so I want to give you the correct number.
BARRETT - Okay. On another front, and then I'll yield to our other members of the committee, Senator Creem. I particularly appreciated your mentioning in your opening statements the importance of our continuing to decarbonize buildings and transportation. I just want to observe that it could be, I'm not saying it's an absolute lost cause, but it could be that we will see significantly less clean energy generation at least over the next two or three years than we had hoped for because of the President Trump's animosity toward offshore wind in particular. But our realization of1375 our goals, both our net 01377 goal by 2050 and then our1379 five year interim goals anticipate that we can compensate for our losing a little speed on clean energy generation by our moving forward vigorously in other parts of the overall dynamic, and that would include, of course, buildings and transportation. So, if we lose a little speed on offshore wind but can pick up the pace on buildings and transportation, we can still be making progress toward net 0 by 2050. That flexibility is something that I know the administration is aware of, and that the Senate is keeping an eye on. Can you talk a little bit about how1427 we're going to continue to move forward on maintaining subsidies for the purchases of EVs, and an adjacent program to make sure that we're installing chargers. It is important I know to Senators that that that EV subsidy program not be rolled back at the same time that the Trump administration is doing such harm to the EV programs federally, or I should say in the national government?
ANTOS - Yes, thank you, Senator Barrett. The federal administration has certainly created headwinds for meeting our climate emissions limits across sectors, noting energy and and also transportation, which is our largest source of greenhouse gas emissions within Massachusetts. I appreciate you calling out the important programs that we have in place that are not federally funded, that we're using our own resources within Massachusetts to continue to advance to support the transition of vehicles off of fossil fuels and towards electrification. As you noted, there are two major areas where we do this. First is the existing more EV rebate program, and we are continuing to do that, and thanks to the work of the legislature in recent years, we have expanded that program so that we now offer rebates at point of sale, and also for income eligible residents.
So, we're really making sure, and we will continue to evaluate how we can use those rebates in a way that is supporting the greatest need, and influencing those purchase decisions. So, that is one piece of it that we continue to have, and we have seen a significant uptick in the number of rebates that have gone out since those changes have taken effect, so, I thank you for that. The second piece is EV charging infrastructure, and this is critically important because when we look at what are some of the greatest challenges that exist as we think about how we can encourage electrification of both light duty vehicles, but also medium and heavy duty, it really comes down to the charging infrastructure. So, that's why we have an electric vehicle interagency coordinating council, they are currently working on a road map for charging to evaluate what those needs are with a particular focus on charging needs in urban communities and also rural communities.
Those are two ends of the spectrum where we know we need to make sure there is adequate charging infrastructure in place. We have used state resources to deploy those funds, we've used ARPA resources to deploy those funds, we will continue to do so. Also in Massachusetts, we're fortunate that our utilities through the make ready program have deployed significant resources to really get electric vehicle charging infrastructure in place. Finally, also, there is the private sector contributions to that, so what's happening on their own? My colleagues at Massachusetts Department of Transportation will speak more to the federal funding and what's happening on that front, but I really want to underscore that we remain absolutely committed to continuing to support vehicle electrification. It's important for our emissions, it's critically important for human health. A big part of that is looking at how do we continue the deployment of charging infrastructure where it is most needed and support fleets and light duty vehicles in that transition.
CREEM - Well, thank you so much. Senator Creem, I yield my time, but really appreciate your responses, Katherine. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Alright. Thank you. Senator Lovely. If anybody else has any questions, I guess not. Senator Lovely. I think it will move on. Thank you so much. We spent a lot of time asking you questions. Appreciate your testimony. The
SPEAKER3 - Appreciate it, Christine.
CREEM - Also from the executive department, we have Andy Paul, director of strategic initiatives at the Mass DOT.
ANDREW PAUL - MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION - Thank you, Chair Creem, and thank you to the members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide an update on the status of federal funding for electric vehicle infrastructure in Massachusetts. My name is Andy Paul, and I serve as the director of strategic initiatives within the highway division at Mass DOT. I oversee the implementation of programs aimed at decarbonizing the transportation sector, including the National Electrical Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant Program. As you know, Massachusetts has been working to expand EV infrastructure to support our climate goals and the transition to 0 emissions vehicles. The NEVI program is a critical part of this effort and aims to reduce range anxiety by requiring high speed DC fast charging every 50 miles along alternative fuel corridors. To date, Massachusetts has obligated approximately $50,000,000 in federal aid under NEVI. Another $13,500,000 in federal aid is expected in federal year 26 and remains unobligated. We currently have four active contracts in place, and our work is proceeding as planned.
In January, Mass DOT was awarded an additional $14,400,000 in federal aid under the CFI grant program. This discretionary program proposed to deploy level 2 EV chargers at select park and ride and MBTA transit parking lots. These chargers are intended to provide community based slower charging options for commuters and residents in areas adjacent to transit hubs, complementing the high speed charging along highways in the NEVI program. While we were excited to receive this award, all discussions at the federal level are currently on hold. This competitive CFI grant funds would have enabled Mass DOT to expand beyond our existing statewide EV charging plans. However, the current federal hold does not impact the broader NEVI funded EV infrastructure work, which remains on track. Despite these challenges, Mass DOT remains fully committed to expanding EV infrastructure and advancing the Commonwealth's climate goals. We continue to move forward with our NEVI program, this formula based funding allocated to all state DOTs has allowed us to proceed with implementation even in light of the recent federal suspension. We are advancing the program with existing obligations, staying in close communication with our federal partners, and adapting as new guidance becomes available. Thank you for the opportunity to provide this update, I welcome any questions from the committee.
CREEM - So did you opine on how much money is being held up?
PAUL - The $13,500,000 in federal fiscal year 26, which we wouldn't have access to until federal fiscal year 2026 has not been obligated. Then in addition to that, there's $14,400,000.0 in discretionary spending under the CFI grant program which is currently on hold.
CREEM - When would that have been available to us?
PAUL - We received award notice in January from the joint office of energy and transportation at the federal level, and they had scheduled meetings in late January and early February for kickoffs with all the award recipients. Both of those meetings were canceled, and we haven't received any communication. There'd be some procurement at the initial offset of the award, but once that procurement reaches a conclusion, those funds become obligated, and a grant agreement is signed between the state and federal government.
CREEM - And was there a plan on how to use those funds?
PAUL - Yes, it was a partnership between Mass DOT and the MBTA to complement the fast charging we were doing along the highways through the NEVI program. This was going to be community based charging. There were a number of MBTA parking lot facilities adjacent to their transit hubs as well1957 as Mass DOT park and rides along our highways, which was going to be utilized.
CREEM - Does the state have any obligations based on any contracts that they've already initiated that they were stuck with it if these funds don't come through?
PAUL - No, because we had just received the award notice in January and hadn't yet started the procurement for the CFI grant. For the NEVI funds in 26 that were not obligated, the $13,500,000, we still have the tasks in the first four years of the program funding that we're continuing to spend down on. So, haven't yet reached any milestone that would require triggering any additional funds beyond the $50,000,000.
CREEM - So, there was $50,000,000 that we already got?
PAUL - It was obligated through the Federal Highway Administration and is in the federal payment system. So, we continue to spend down on that $50,000,000 amount as we submit for reimbursements.
CREEM - Okay, I get it. Thank you for coming. I appreciate your working under this difficult circumstances of not knowing from day to day what's happening.
BARRETT - Could I ask a question, Senator Creem?
CREEM - Yes, I was just going through a few questions, I had a couple, and then I'll pass it on. The US Department of Transportation issued a memo in March ordering a review of competitive awards that aren't fully obligated. I think you were talking about that, involving equity requirements, climate consideration or bicycle infrastructure. Is that what you were mentioning?
PAUL - Actually, there was an executive order on January 21st, there was a subsequent memo later that week from the OMB, and then, on February 6th, there was a memo from Federal Highway specifically calling out the NEVI program. There may have been other subsequent communications as well in March.
CREEM - Okay. So might some bike infrastructures be involved in that as well?
PAUL - Our, bicycle, pedestrian, and transit infrastructure has, in some ways, bundled under our larger federal program. So, if you're doing an intersection project, it's not just considered a, say, a bike project, I think there would be some other cases where specifically, like, a bike trail or something that might be impacted, but that is not under my purview, but could get you a response for that.
CREEM - That's okay. So, the Massachusetts public agency, the MBTA, the $200,000,000 in federal grants for electric and hybrid transit buses and related infrastructure, is that what you're talking about, or is that project on track?
PAUL - I'm not referring to that project, and I believe that falls under the MBTA in their energy group, which is outside of the highway division.
CREEM - I'm asking the wrong person, right?
PAUL - Yes, sorry about that.
CREEM - That's alright. I take it, that's not a problem. Mass DOT continue to support investment of focused on streets, environmental justice, and bike safety without the federal support, or haven't you got there yet?
PAUL - No,2208 we have. Sorry. My connection broke up2210 a little bit, but would you mind repeating the question, Senator?
CREEM - So you're caught in the review process. Has Mass DOT continued to support, investment focus on, streets, environmental justice, and bike safety without the federal support? Would you be able to support that?
PAUL - Yes, we have other EV charging station contracts in place that we've continued to execute and implement since January, as well as along the Mass Pike, other park and ride and service plazas. We also have an upcoming service plaza contract, which will be, obviously, a partnership between the private sector and public sector, those contracts include requirements to include EV charging. In other clean energy focused areas, we're leveraging our state right away for solar purposes to identify where there might be opportunities for implementing solar along our right away. We just had two sites recently installed at park and rides that are going live early this year. There's also heat pumps and leveraging existing utility incentive programs, that could be a way of optimizing funds outside of the federal. Then I think, though, the primary focus has been really advancing as quickly as we can these NEVI funds, with the NEVI funds at certain milestones, in the February 6th letter from Federal Highway, they say, until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments. We want to continue to reach more milestones for more charging stations throughout the Commonwealth in order to help reassure that the funds that we do have obligated are not at risk.
CREEM - Right. So you have plans to continue the process with or without the federal funds?
PAUL - Yes.
BARRETT - Thank you, Senator Creem. Thank you, Mr. Paul, very much for appearing before us. We talked earlier about the two buckets of money, the NEVI dollars, which are aimed to do level 3 fast charging, the competitive grant monies, which are currently delayed, which will have to do with level 2 chargers at Mass transit nodes. The Mass Pike chargers come under a third bucket, I understand. There, I would like to under understand better the business model. We haven't talked yet about the private sector's role that there's, I know you made a general reference to the public private partnership, and I think you have in mind the renewal or the refreshing of a service plazas along the Pike and perhaps a couple on 128 or I-95 too. Can you talk about the expectations for the private sector? We just need to understand that to what degree taxpayer money is going to be involved or perhaps the degree to which these are going to be profit making ventures, and, such that charges are folded into the operation of restaurants and convenience stores on the same site. Is it a possibility that that packaging where the convenience stores, the restaurants, and the chargers might be all in a bundle where essentially the private sector would take the risk, the entrepreneurial initiative here, and operate those chargers with a minimum of government subsidies at any level, but with the intent of having an ongoing business. Just help us understand the business model approach beginning with the chargers on the Pike and then perhaps expanding.
PAUL - Sure. I think some of the implementation that folks maybe have seen on the Mass Pike has evolved. There was originally a vendor that approached Mass DOT about providing the charging stations at no cost, but I think that comes with some risk. In that case, in 2023, that provider ended up defaulting and not being able to maintain reliable charging along the Pike. So, Mass DOT stepped in and purchased new chargers to continue on through the remaining life of the service plaza contracts, which sunset in January of 2026. So, we're under the process right now of procuring a new service plaza contract, and that vendor would come in and have to meet minimum requirements for providing charging at those locations. So, I think the service plazas are somewhat unique where we have direct contractual relationships where we can build in performance metrics that they need to meet. Off Pike and Off Plaza, I think closely relates to the NEVI program, and we are partnered with three different developers on the implementation of NEVI. In a lot of ways, the vendors that we're working with are looking to, the NEVI program requires five years of service at a minimum of 97% uptime. So, really building not just fast charging, but reliable fast charging close to the highways. In all cases with our conversations with the developers, they're looking beyond that five year horizon and are looking to implement for, at a minimum, 10 years.
BARRETT - Andy, let me ask you specifically, though, if I might. In the case, first of2581 all, I want to hear about the service plazas2583 in Newton and in Lexington on I-95 and whether they're a part of the deal you're hoping to forge with the developers of the service plazas on the Pike or whether instead they're a part of the NEVI program. But, again, is there going to be a kind of cross subsidy where the chargers in Newton and Lexington are being supported by the other business activities at the same service plaza? Or instead, do we still expect the chargers to operate profit and loss on their own?
PAUL - To answer your question, Senator Barrett, those requirements will be bundled with restaurant, commercial, and other activities on the site, where it's not going to be as it is today where the profit and loss is dependent upon Mass DOT.
BARRETT - So is that specifically with regard to Newton and Lexington?
PAUL - Yes.
BARRETT - Are you talking about bundling?
PAUL - Yes. So, we have the service plazas on the Mass Pike, which a lot of folks are familiar with, and then Newton, Lexington, we also have two in Bridgewater as well as one in Beverly and Plymouth and Barnstable. So, I think it's 18 or 19 service plazas, and we are bundling that contract. On the front end for the2669 customer, the sunsets on the leases that we have today are staggered, but we will bring in a single vendor to oversee the redevelopment of those plazas.
BARRETT - This is not the NEVI program, right?
PAUL - Correct. I'm working with the folks who are doing the service plaza procurement to make sure that we're not building a charging station through NEVI adjacent to a service plaza, let's say, where they know early on they're going to be rolling out charging there so there's not redundancy.
BARRETT - Thank you. I'm going to yield my place, I just want to leave you with this message. The future of charging in Massachusetts should not be dependent on either federal or state subsidy, they should be revenue generating small businesses either as2723 part of bundles or possibly stand alone. I just want to encourage the2727 administration to pursue the deployment of chargers as revenue generating businesses because in the long run, that's going to put legs and durability2737 under the charger program in a way that even state support could not do.
CREEM - Okay. I'm glad to not rely on anyone. Anybody else from the committee have any questions? Okay, so thank you very much for your testimony, thank you for the executive department. We're going to move on to the Attorney General. So, I think the first person up is Turner Smith, the deputy chief of energy and environmental bureau. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
And I don't see are you here, Turner?
SPEAKER6 - Yes. I am here.
SPEAKER1 - Okay. Can
SPEAKER6 - can everybody hear me? Yes.
SPEAKER1 - Oh, I see. Okay. Sorry. I was looking at Amy and by instead. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. You're on.
SPEAKER6 - Thank you.
TURNER SMITH - MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE - Good afternoon, Chair Creem, Vice Chair Barrett, and Senate members of the committee. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Turner Smith, I'm deputy chief of Attorney General Campbell's energy and environment bureau. I'm joined today by my colleagues; Julia Jonas Day, assistant attorney general for climate change, as well as Amy Laura Khan, who is our climate and environmental justice fellow who will be assisting and answering any questions that you may have. We are grateful for the opportunity to testify today about our office's advocacy to defend climate change programs that are under threat at the federal level. I understand you're interested in hearing about our work to defend federal funding streams in particular, and I will go into detail about our litigation efforts, all a matter of public record. I will also summarize some of our other litigation and policy advocacy to defend critical federal climate protections.
Our office alongside our robust multi state coalition of Attorney's General across the nation was prepared to hit the ground running on January 20th. We have substantial institutional knowledge and experience from fighting rollbacks under the prior Trump administration. During that time, our office engaged in 249 distinct actions against the Trump administration on these issues, and between 2017 and January of 2021, we prevailed in 83% of our cases challenging rules, regulations, and actions that weakened federal environmental and climate protections. We know to expect even more damage this time around, unfortunately. So, from the start, one of the biggest threats to federal climate policy has been the Trump administration's efforts to gut the Inflation Reduction Act. This law, along with the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act, sometimes called the IIJA or the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law fights climate change and mitigates its harms.
It makes massive investments into climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience through federal grants and incentives for job creating clean energy infrastructure, green lending, energy efficiency upgrades, pollution reduction programs, grid reliability, infrastructure, and more. It simultaneously2924 bolsters efforts to replace crumbling infrastructure from roads and bridges to clean drinking water and nature based flood protection. As you've just heard, Massachusetts is slated to benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars in IRA and bipartisan infrastructure law funding, with hundreds of millions and even billions more in grants and tax credits to benefit non governmental organizations and businesses across the Commonwealth. President Trump issued the unleashing American energy executive order on day one of his administration, directing agencies to freeze all funding appropriated under the IRA and the bipartisan infrastructure law.
But we were prepared to move quickly to bring them to court, we co led a coalition of 23 attorneys general to challenge both the executive orders targeted funding freeze and the even broader funding freeze initiated by the Office of Management and Budget a week later. Overnight, the funding freeze blocked literally trillions of dollars to state, local, regional and tribal government entities, educational and research institutions, and a vast array of businesses and non-profits, with the IRA and bipartisan infrastructure law funds accounting for $2,000,000,000,000 alone. As with many early AG efforts, this litigation has so far been a success. On 01/30/2025, the district court issued a temporary restraining order against the federal government followed by a preliminary injunction on March 6th, enjoining the federal government from executing its harmful funding freeze. The court stated unequivocally that the Trump administration's categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government.
And just last week, the first circuit rejected the Trump administration's attempt to stay the preliminary injunction, but through the temporary restraining order and now the preliminary injunction, funds are once again available, including hundreds of millions of dollars, and EPA funds, for example, for the solar for all and clean ports programs, multiple air quality monitoring programs, and the diesel and diesel emissions reduction act grants. Also, the Department of State Energy Program funds as well as home efficiency rebate program funds and the home electrification and appliances rebate program grants, also sometimes called HER and HEAR grants. These are all crucial efforts to reduce rising energy costs. But we know that our state agencies and other funding recipients continue to face uncertainty as the federal government employs a constantly evolving set of tactics to delay, withhold, and deny resources from new manual review programs to grant terminations to stop work orders.
Our team is evaluating each tactic as it comes in, considering litigation options alongside our coalition members, and coordinating with our non-governmental partners to make sure that they have the legal and technical support they need for their grants, which are not covered by the preliminary injunction issued in the state's lawsuit. I want to emphasize that the impact on local governments, non-profits, and small businesses cannot be overstated. Funding freezes and terminations are leading to layoffs, undermining contractual relationships, and threatening organizations' ability to3117 make good on promises to their constituents. We've heard loud and clear from3121 stakeholders across the Commonwealth that interim funding assistance is urgently needed as well as long term resources to support climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience work. But beyond funding issues, we are also ready to fight rollbacks across a broad array of environmental and climate issues.
On March 12th, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced EPA's plan to take more than two dozen deregulatory actions. On this list are rules governing power plant3150 greenhouse gas and mercury emissions to rules defining the reach of the federal clean water act. The Trump administration is trying to flood the zone, but we are prepared to oppose those deregulatory efforts alongside our multi state coalition before the agencies, the courts, and before Congress. Our team is leading the fight against some of these key anticipated climate rollbacks. This includes opposing EPA's effort to rescind its finding after the seminal 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts versus EPA, that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. We are also co leading efforts to defend rules governing power plant greenhouse gas and mercury air and air toxic submissions, emissions of super pollutant refrigerants and climate disclosure rules. In addition to administrative proceedings and litigation, our office is also fighting for federal climate protections through legislative advocacy at the federal level.
So, in January, we submitted a letter on behalf of 17 states to congressional leadership urging them to protect the Inflation Reduction Act. And just last month, we submitted a similar letter urging Congress to oppose Congressional Review Act resolutions that would disapprove common sense refrigerant regulations. We're3220 also actively opposing the Council on Environmental Quality's efforts to rescind the3224 agency's own National Environmental Policy Act regulations, which have served to unify federal environmental reviews3230 for over 40 years and which were3232 amended recently to fully integrate climate and environmental justice considerations. Our multi state coalition has been in court defending NEPA regulations promulgated under the Biden administration, and just last week, we submitted comments on CEQ's proposal to repeal its rules, highlighting the critical role NEPA plays in addressing climate impacts. We are also committed and we remain committed to supporting the development of a robust offshore wind industry here in Massachusetts.
On his first day in office, President Trump issued a presidential memorandum pausing all approvals of wind energy projects while the administration completes a comprehensive review of certain alleged impacts on the industry or of the industry. We are working with our multi state coalition and state partners to assess the on3278 the ground impact of that pause and ensure it doesn't affect development here at home. We've seen some concerning news come out of New3284 Jersey in recent weeks, but the projects on deck here are in different phases of development and approval and have very strong permits that have undergone extensive review. We will continue to work with all relevant stakeholders to ensure this industry takes off and delivers the energy jobs and the climate benefits that it promises. So, I want to thank you for your time today, we stand ready to work in partnership with you and stakeholders across Massachusetts to protect our residents during this challenging time. My colleagues and I are available for questions from the committee.
CREEM - Thank you so much for the great job you're all doing. Now, I have a lawyer question. So, we were fortunate to win the last suit, and the funds are now coming back. Is the decision from the appellate court appealable again? Is this the end of it, or can the Trump administration take it further, and reverse what happened?
SMITH - That's a very good question, Senator. There is, of course, the potential for the Department of Justice to seek review in the Supreme Court. We think though that the preliminary injunction is a very strong order, and that the first circuit decision as well is quite strong.
CREEM - And is this a judge that the Trump administration wants to impeach?
SMITH - Not to my knowledge.
CREEM - Okay, but there's always the chance that it could go to the Supreme Court. Okay, that's what I thought. So, is3394 the office of the Attorney3396 General aware of any major federal3398 climate awards that we are not accessible even now?
SMITH - For that one, I'm going to turn to my colleagues, Amy Laura and Julia.
3414 AMY3414 LAURA3414 CAHN3414 -3414 MASSACHUSETTS3414 ATTORNEY3414 GENERAL'S3414 OFFICE3414 -3414 I3414 can start, thank you so much, Senator Creem, and then I will hand to Julia. So, as you heard from EEA, we do have at3426 least one frozen FEMA grant, I believe it's the high hazard dam grant. In recent weeks, FEMA has instituted a categorical manual review of all grant reimbursements with which now threaten critical emergency management and disaster relief programs here and around the country. We've actually filed now three motions to enforce our court orders to free up these still frozen funding streams, including this recent set of3454 FEMA manual reviews.
CREEM - So, it's clear that the AG's taken action to try and get that issue before the court as well.
CAHN - That issue is clear front and center before the court.
CREEM - Okay. Great. So there was a landmark lawsuit, led by Massachusetts that first let the EPA issue the endangerment finding. I think we mentioned that allowing it to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. Will Massachusetts defend the endangerment finding should the federal administration try to revoke it?
JONAS-DAY JULIA - MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE - Thank you, Senator Creem for the question. We are absolutely committed to defending the endangerment finding if this administration takes any steps to rescind it. So, we are continuing our leadership role in this area. We had a victory in the seminal supreme court case, Massachusetts versus EPA, as you know, in 2007, and that decision paved the way for federal greenhouse gas regulations, just providing this context for whom it might be useful. But two years after that EPA found that greenhouse gases indeed do threaten public health and welfare in what is known and as you referred to as the endangerment finding. As you all also likely are aware, the science supporting that finding has only become more and more clear in the years that have followed. We have heard from the administration that they intend to rescind the endangerment finding as well as the climate regulations that EPA has issued since then. We are proud to be leading our multistate coalition in defending this finding in whatever form the challenge takes, although it remains unclear exactly what that's going to look like at this juncture as well as working with our multistate coalition to defend the many climate regulations that we have been fighting for, for a long time.
CREEM - Okay, thank you. California received waivers that allowed it to set strict vehicle emission standards. Massachusetts is required by law to adopt California standards, and our climate plans depend on this authority. What is the status of the federal administration's efforts to revoke a California waiver, and is Massachusetts involved in defending those waivers?
SMITH - Sure. So, I'll take this one. Just for context, let's say, like the other rollbacks that I've discussed, our office plans to be actively engaged as commenters and then litigation on any rollback proceedings involving these important regulations. So, as you noted, we are a so called Section 177 state, meaning we're a state that has chosen to adopt the stronger vehicle emission standards that California has adopted under the Federal Clean Air Act. And we're committed to defending California's ability to set more stringent standards and Massachusetts' ability to adopt those stronger standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. The current administration has indicated both in executive orders and various press releases in recent months that it intends to revisit all vehicle emissions policies, including the waivers, and we intend to be there in court.
CREEM - Okay. So I have just one more, thank you. Some areas of climate policy are more firmly under state control, including most regulations of the gas system, and we make progress in those areas no matter who's sitting in the White House. Attorney General Campbell recently submitted an excellent brief to the Department of Public Utilities about reforming the GSEP program. Can you tell us, if you can, about the recommendations of the AG's brief? And if not, we'll give you time to look into that.
SMITH - Yes, I think I would like to defer to my colleagues in the energy and ratepayer advocacy division on that one. Unfortunately, they are not with me here today, but we can certainly follow-up with the committee.
CREEM - Okay. If you could with that, would be great. Just give3699 us some ideas on what her recommendations were. Anybody else in the committee have a question?
BARRETT - Just a brief one, thank you, Senator Creem. Again, listen, I want to congratulate all staff members of the Attorney General's office for their spectacular performance over the course of the first three months, keep it up. Your office is giving everyone else a lot of hope, and you're building confidence, so I think you're doing a fantastic job. I do want to clarify, whether there has been follow through and compliance with the temporary restraining order. What it's not quite clear to me whether monies are truly flowing unimpeded as a consequence of the TRO or whether problems exist nevertheless.
SMITH - Thank you, Senator, and thank you for your kind words. I'll start and then I'll kick it to my colleagues, Amy Laura, and Julia to elaborate. But I will just say at the outset that we, on the whole have seen compliance, we are very pleased that the vast majority of federal funding has opened back up, including the vast majority of climate funding to the states as a result of the TRO first and then the PI. As my colleague Amy Laura noted, we've had some bumps along the way that have necessitated some motions to enforce in the district court on which we have prevailed. There's a third one pending right now with regard to those FEMA streams that Amy Laura mentioned. I will pause there and let Amy Laura and Julia elaborate if there's anything I've missed.
BARRETT - Laura, are you going to say something, Amy? I'm sorry.
CAHN - That's okay. I was just going to jump in to say, that, I agreed with Turner in terms of the the compliance we've seen particularly from EPA, Department of Energy, USDA, Department of Interior on varying critical climate programs. Also, we are seeing this constantly changing set of barriers to access to funds, including the stop work orders, including terminations, and that prohibit programs and activities that reference any one of a larger list of search terms, including climate. So, the need for continued vigilance is clear and the need for, a kind of constant evaluation of the next step of the strategy, and we're in very close communication with the administration, with their multistate partners as well as our NGO and municipal partners as well in terms of what has to come next.
BARRETT - That 83% success rate on your lawsuits, that takes back, I believe, to the first Trump administration? And is it restricted to environmental and climate activities, or are you talking about a wider range of litigation?
JULIA - I can jump in on that. Yes, that is a statistic about our multistate coalitions actions defending against rollbacks of EPA and other climate and environmental protection regulations during the first Trump administration.
BARRETT - I guess my final clarifying question then is this. You mentioned the the current frustrations we're having with regard to, that one grant having to do with dam safety. So, I just wanted to make sure I understand, that's $378,000, so it's not a large grant. Is that right?
CAHN - It is not a large grant, it is part of a much larger national problem in FEMA instituting these manual reviews, but for the impact on the Commonwealth, it's much smaller.
CREEM - 387,000, is that what they said, I think? Yes.
BARRETT - Thank you very much for your testimony, very heartening to hear about your work.
CREEM - Thank you, really, we all thank you. Anybody else on committee have any questions? Okay, we don't want to keep you here, we want you to keep working. Thank you. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
And thank please thank the AG for all her hard work. Okay. The next panel, the next speaker is Anna Vanderspeck from the electric vehicles program director, green energy consumer alliance.
ANNA VANDERSPEK - GREEN ENERGY CONSUMERS ALLIANCE - Good morning, everybody, or, actually, good afternoon now. Thank you very much for the invitation to speak today, and big thanks to Chair Creem and Vice Chair Barrett for the time. I was asked to talk specifically about the impacts of all of this on the transition to electric vehicles, and I have some quick slides to share. So, let me just make sure I'm sharing my screen, but some of what I'll cover has already been mentioned a little bit today, so, hopefully, this won't take too long. Just a quick heads up for those of you who aren't familiar with us. Green Energy Consumers Alliance is a local non-profit organization, we work across Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and we both run programs that people can tap into to access clean energy technologies and do public policy advocacy at the state level. So we have our ear to the ground, so to speak, on actual people who are trying to buy an electric vehicle, trying to install a charging station, things like that.
That informs, how we see all those federal developments and the role of the state. I'm going to talk about eight things that we see as the biggest federal threats to the electric vehicle transition in Massachusetts. So, we'll talk about the endangerment finding, key federal standards, the federal tax credits, the Inflation Reduction Act more broadly, the bipartisan infrastructure law more broadly, the California waiver, and then also tariffs. Again, some of this has already been talked about, so, for example, the endangerment findings slide, we will fly through. But, basically, the Clean Air Act directs the EPA to regulate pollutants if they harm public health or welfare. The 2007 Supreme Court case found that greenhouse gas emissions do harm human health and welfare and that, therefore, the EPA must regulate them. In 2009, the EPA released the endangerment finding that we've already talked about.
The Inflation Reduction Act builds on that 2009 rule, and President Trump's executive order 14154 directs the EPA to reconsider the endangerment finding. Massachusetts versus EPA could not be overturned without another Supreme Court case or congressional action, so, this will take a while. But if the endangerment finding were to fall, that obviously has huge ramifications in the regulation of power plants. But in the transportation space, it would impact the EPA's ability to regulate vehicles' carbon dioxide emissions. EPA would still have the right to regulate other emissions, but the carbon dioxide emissions would fall if the endangerment finding were to fall. So, what are those standards? I think often, in talking about standards, we sort of refer to the federal vehicle standards, but there's one set out of EPA and one set out of DOT that I want to highlight today. So they are the multi pollutant standards out of the EPA, and this is where the EPA regulates emissions, from light, medium and heavy duty vehicles, and that is all permitted because the endangerment finding gives it the authority4184 to do so under the Clean Air Act.
About one4188 year ago, there was a lot of4190 news about these regulations because the Biden administration finalized these multi pollutant standards that go through model year 2032, and there are accompanying greenhouse gas standards for heavy duty vehicles in a sort of separate regulation. These multi pollutant standards regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but also hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. But the big news that we heard or the sort of punchline with this a year ago was that the regulations operate on a grams per mile basis, but the standards are high enough that they're really only going to be achievable with substantial electrification. The EPA projected at the time that by model year 2032, 67% of light duty vehicle sales, would end up being electric and that 46% of medium duty sales would be electric as a result of these standards. So when we're hearing discourse about the EV mandate, often this is what people are talking about.
The March 12th announcement that we've already discussed today specifically mentions these rules for reconsideration. Then we've got the CAFE standards, and these are out of the Department of Transportation, specifically the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These don't regulate emissions, they regulate fuel economy. These standards are not directly at risk if the endangerment finding falls because it's not the Clean Air Act that gives the Department of Transportation the authority to regulate fuel economy, instead, it's the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The March 12th memo from the Environmental Protection Agency does not specifically mention these standards. Quite honestly, the language is pretty vague, it just talks about car standards. But it's entirely possible that they are under consideration as well. Moving on to tax credits. The Inflation Reduction Act or the IRA instituted several vehicle purchase tax credits.
So the one that most people are familiar with is 30D, this is the one that is for new vehicles, and it's up to $7,500 for eligible buyers and vehicles, and it's available at the point of sale at participating dealerships. But the IRA also added 45W, which is for commercial vehicles. It's up to $7,500 for light duty vehicles and up to $40,000 for medium and heavy duty vehicles. This provision is under attack in particular because it's seen as a loophole. Because if you are a consumer who leases a vehicle, the leasing agent can basically claim this commercial vehicle tax credit and pass the value onto you, the end consumer. So, many vehicles that don't meet the complicated battery and mineral requirements for 30D are okay for 45W. So consumers are capturing a tax credit for vehicles that otherwise wouldn't be eligible. So this has been in the news quite a bit as a particular target in these federal tax credits. But also crucially for municipalities across the state, this is a credit that is available to tax exempt entities via direct pay.
So when we're talking about school bus purchases or trash trucks or any other large electric vehicle purchases, this provision is key. Then we've got the used electric vehicle tax credit, which is up to $4,000 for eligible buyers and vehicles, and then a tax credit also for the installation of charging infrastructure only in eligible census tracts. So, these are all under attack all4441 via the Inflation Reduction Act.4443 So, the Trump administration has made removing all of those tax credits a policy goal because they were brought about by the Inflation Reduction Act. The administration will need Congress to pass a law amending or removing the credits. Most likely, they're going to go after them via budget reconciliation. Another route that is at their disposal is that the IRA includes strict sourcing requirements around minerals and battery components that require a fair amount of interpretation from the executive branch. So, they could decide to enforce or understand those requirements more strictly to the point where no vehicles qualify or many fewer vehicles qualify, which would basically render the federal tax credit non-existent without having to pass new legislation.
I will say, though, that the fuel economy government website lists several vehicle models right now specifically as qualifying from January 1st to December 31st of this year. So, this is causing a lot of confusion and uncertainty for individual consumers and also fleets that right now, it says that these tax credits are available, but there's very little faith that if some sort of legislation were to pass later this year that gets rid of them, that they would be honored up until that point. So, I think a lot of people are holding off on making decisions while they try to figure out whether this tax credit will exist or not. The tax credits that I've talked about are all under the Inflation Reduction Act, but there's much more to the IRA that could indirectly impact the adoption of EVs in Massachusetts. So, the IRA institutes a production tax credit for battery manufacturing, and also has billions of dollars in funding and grants and loans for new vehicle manufacturing plants or revamping old plants to produce electric vehicles in particular and much more. Most of those dollars are flowing to states other than Massachusetts, but if those funds are paused or rescinded, we'll see ripple effects in terms of vehicle availability and price.
Again, we think that the current administration will target the IRA by a budget reconciliation. But on this particular piece of the IRA, there may be fewer attacks because many of those manufacturing incentives are flowing to districts currently in the hands of Republican lawmakers. So, if you heard of the battery belt, there's lots of manufacturing plants being built in red areas of the country. So, the term I keep hearing is that they might go after it with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. But I think the tax credits for vehicle purchases are definitely top of mind on the chopping block. Moving on to the bipartisan infrastructure law, I don't think we'll have to spend very much time here, because this is mostly about NEVI and, the CFI, which the Department of Transportation has already talked about. I want to flag that in addition to NEVI and the charging and fueling infrastructure program, there's lots of other funding programs that various entities across Massachusetts have taken advantage of or would want to take advantage of that are funded through the bipartisan infrastructure law that are also now at risk, and particularly the Clean School Bus program, which our entire Mass CEC, Clean School Bus program is designed to complement. There's also low or no emission bus grants that, regional transit authorities could take advantage of.
So, all of that is at risk from the bipartisan infrastructure law. We've also talked about the California waiver already today, so I will just reiterate4686 here that Massachusetts has a law on the books that we have to adopt advanced standards out of California.4694 In particular, we're talking about the advanced clean cars 2 regulations, advanced clean trucks,4700 and then the heavy duty omnibus regulations. All three of those received the waiver that they need from the EPA before the Trump administration took over, so, technically, they are all alive, they're enforceable. The Trump administration is gonna try many different routes to get rid of these standards.4721 The first one that they've taken is4723 that they have determined, though many legal scholars disagree that these regulations are considered rules that are therefore, able to be subject to congressional review. So they've submitted those to Congress through the CRA. Quite honestly, I think this issue will end up in the courts, and the reps from the Attorneys General's office could speak to this much better than I can. I want to stress that from an advocate's point of view, these standards are absolutely critical. They're the main pillars in the transportation section of the clean energy and climate plan.
So, this is really, really troubling, the California waiver piece. Finally, I'll just talk really quickly about tariffs. This space is changing minute to minute, so every day, there's new news about tariffs, but we know that there are tariffs on steel and aluminum and that tomorrow, there will be tariffs on vehicles and auto parts. We've been tracking what different economists expect in terms of increased prices, and we've seen estimates from anywhere between $3,000 to $12,000 higher for new vehicles, not just ones that are imported, but also American made vehicles because the parts are being tariffed as well. So far, there's no indication that tariffs will disproportionately impact electric vehicles, but there is some indication that they will disproportionately impact more affordable vehicles. But this is a place where the legislature and the executive branch need to keep an eye on this because those price increases will change which vehicles are eligible for the federal tax credit and the state more EV rebate.
Because both of those incentive programs have a price cap, and many more vehicles will exceed those price caps in the coming months as we start seeing higher prices as a result of these tariffs. So, from our perspective as an advocacy organization working on this, what should Massachusetts do? We should defend and implement the vehicle standards. We should work and continue to work. I know there's a lot of work going into this work on rate reform and grid modernization and director utilities to deliver adequate EV programming, both in terms of building charging stations, but also managing charging. We have to continue to support the build out of charging infrastructure and the purchase of electric vehicles, particularly for moderate income drivers, and then invest in education to combat misinformation. I wanted to call out, there's a lot of controversy surrounding the advanced4887 clean trucks and the heavy duty omnibus regulations, which, quite frankly, are due to a lot of misinformation coming from the manufacturers. So, I think that kind of intentional misinformation and disinformation is only going to continue, so making sure that we're proactive on that front, I think, will be key in the coming years. So that was my sort of whirlwind presentation. Thank you very much for the time.
CREEM - Great job. Can you make these slides available?
VANDERSPEK - Absolutely.
CREEM - Okay, thank you very much. Any questions?
BARRETT - Senator, I want to yield to you, Senator Creem, I just have one question, after you're done.
CREEM - Okay. So, if the federal EV rules or tax credits are successfully repealed or watered down, should we increase the size of the rebate? What considerations would guide that decision? SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER9 - Sorry. It was my turn to accidentally be muted. Yeah.
SPEAKER1 - And we're joined by senator Comfort here as well. So thank you, senator Comfort. Okay.
VANDERSPEK - I think that is a question that warrants a whole discussion in and of itself, given budget constraints and all the attacks from many different angles on clean energy broadly. I would want to make sure we have a sort of strategic response to this. I have been looking at some economists forecasting of what the overall demand for electric vehicles will look like in the event that the federal tax credit disappears, and their estimates are really all over the place. So, there's some economists who are foreseeing a 30%, 40% downturn, there's others who are like, actually, it's not going to make that much of a difference. This is me paraphrasing a little bit informally. But I think that's a really fair question to ask, and we have a lot of different things to balance. So, I don't have an immediate response to you, but it's something to think about, but the incentive program in general existing and existing stably in a way that we don't suddenly have funding disappear and then come back three months later, I think that's going to be really key.5045
CREEM - Okay. So, one other, you might have to think about two. In the worst case, where all federal support for EVs are stripped away along with the California Clean Act waivers, what would be the most impactful policies Massachusetts could implement to maintain the EV transition? That's loaded question, you might need to think about it, but we're looking for policies, that we can look at that might be, should we not be able to proceed because of funding or changes in the federal law, we want the Massachusetts to still do what it's intended. So, what would be impactful? What policies might be a good idea?
VANDERSPEK - I will point to rate design and the role of the utilities in this space. So, the individual consumers and also fleet managers,5102 when they're making a decision about what5104 vehicle to purchase, they're not5106 thinking about our state's climate goals, they're thinking about fuel costs and5110 maintenance costs. The maintenance cost benefits of electric vehicles are very clear. With increasing electricity rates, it is getting increasingly challenging to make the case of lower fuel costs over the life of the vehicle. It's definitely still a case, to be made, but with all the news about electricity prices being high and things like that, that perception is shifting a little bit. So we've been watching the work of the interagency rates working group really closely, the same question could be applied to heat pumps. Basically, every current fossil fuel use that we want to shift to electricity, we want to make sure that the rate supports that transition. So, I think rate design is one piece. Then the role of the make ready programs from the electric utilities that we've already talked about have been huge. So, the NEVI funding, which is very important, is $63,500,000, $50,000,000 if we don't get the remaining $14,000,000. The utility programs for the current program that we're in were $400,000,000 over four years. There's excellent evidence that increased electric vehicle adoption pushes rates down for everyone because the revenue coming in from these electric vehicles surpasses the costs of upgrading the infrastructure. So, really fine tuning that approach, I think will be really key, and that's something the state can do that is completely independent of federal progress. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER1 - Okay. Thank you. Senator Barrett.
BARRETT - I want to thank you again, Senator Creem. Anna, excellent presentation, my gratitude to the Green Energy Consumers Alliance for staying so strongly focused on this space. I want to flag something, just for a follow-up question. There has been a little talk, a rumor mill, I guess you could say, that the $55,000 ceiling on the availability of the state level EV purchasing credit might have been lowered or might be conceivably lowered to $50,000. You're pointing out that, in fact, the price of EVs and the price of all cars is likely to go up because of these tariffs. So, it would seem, would it not, to be a bad time to lower the ceiling since the price even of the moderately priced EV is likely to move up.
VANDERSPEK - I think that's a very fair response. Because of the on again off again nature of all of this, my instinct is to say, let's wait for everything to calm down a little bit and see where we are. I honestly don't know if we're going to get to a calm down a little bit stage, but what's very clear right now is consumers are really freaked out, people are running on dealerships right now to buy any vehicles that they can. I can't honestly tell you two months from now how many of the currently moderately priced electric vehicles will still be under $55,000 price cap. So, I think it's definitely fair to wait and assess before making any decision on that front.
BARRETT - Thank you so much, and, again, thank you for your terrific work. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
SPEAKER9 - Thank you.
SPEAKER1 - Any other questions? Okay. Thank you. So the next speaker is, Kelt Wilska, offshore wind director and environmental league of Massachusetts. Lots of questions on wind. Right? Okay. Thank you, Kelt.
SPEAKER10 - Thank you. Can you all hear me?
SPEAKER1 - Yes.
SPEAKER10 - Okay. Great. Okay.
KELT WILSKA - ENVIRONMENTAL LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS - Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Creem, Vice Chair Barrett, members of the committee for having me here today. My name is Kelt Wilska, and I am the offshore wind director at the Environmental League of Massachusetts, where on behalf of ELM, I lead New England for Offshore Wind, a broad based coalition of over 100 different organizations. We are environmental nonprofits, labor unions, universities, and business groups all working together to ensure that offshore wind is developed responsibly and equitably off our region's coast. So, we work at the federal, regional, state, and local levels. We have been working to inform the planning and leasing process at the federal level through comment letters. We work regionally to encourage states to collaborate on transmission build out and supply chain development. State wise, we work with our 6 different state committees, one for each New England state to pass legislation that fosters a growing offshore wind industry, and locally, we work to improve public sentiment around offshore wind through education and pushing back on harmful misinformation. I'm here today to talk about the federal actions that have threatened the offshore wind industry in New England.
I'm going to start by saying what the Trump administration has done so far, what impacts those actions have had on the industry and on New England states and their climate goals, and finally, what Massachusetts can do to respond. So first, what has the Trump administration done? We had an executive order on day one on January 20th of this year that can be broken into three parts. Before I dive into that, I just want to briefly remind committee members about coastal jurisdiction, the nitty gritty here. State waters are up to 3 nautical miles from shore, federal waters are beyond 3 nautical miles and either up to the continental margin or 200 nautical miles, whatever comes first. So, President Trump temporarily withdrew all federal waters from leasing consideration where most of these projects are going, effectively nullifying former Department of the Interior secretary Holland's four year leasing schedule, which did include a second Gulf of Maine auction in 2028, which I know Massachusetts is keenly interested in given the proximity to lease areas off of the Cape. These existing leases right now are not affected by this withdrawal, but the Department of the Interior will conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing energy wind energy leases, identifying any legal basis for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the president, that's a quote from the executive order itself.
The second part of the executive order is about federal permitting for offshore wind projects. All federal permitting for offshore wind projects has been paused pending another review, a review of the federal government's leasing and permitting practices for wind projects. Finally, the US Attorney General may, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law provide notice of this order to any court with jurisdiction over pending litigation related to any aspect of the federal leasing or permitting of onshore or offshore wind projects and may, in the Attorney General's discretion, request that the court stay the litigation or otherwise delay further litigation or seek other appropriate relief consistent with this order pending the completion of the actions described above. So, that's the executive order, the Trump administration has been doing other things and so has the Republican Congress. Of course, we have all been hearing about tariffs recently, and I know that we just talked about that in this hearing. Tariffs are threatening energy reliability, and they are risking raising prices here in New England amid rising tensions with our Northern neighbors in Canada.
I think, and ELM thinks that this is all the more reason for us to construct offshore wind now because we can strengthen our energy independence, stabilize prices, and make sure that we're creating homegrown clean energy here. Finally, at the congressional level, we are facing a looming threat of the repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains a very important piece of policy for the offshore wind industry, which is the investment tax credit. It's a tech neutral tax credit that is very important for the viability of offshore wind projects in New England. If the ITC is repealed, it could make costs become unpalatable for developers. So, I just talked about what the federal actions are, and I'm going to talk about what the impact is on Massachusetts and also on developers that are building here, permitting here, etcetera. Without all of the federal permits, projects planned for New England waters cannot begin construction. Even if projects do have all of their federal permits, which some do, these federal actions send an immensely negative market signal to developers who may be reluctant to begin construction or even sign a power purchase agreement. Now, this hits very close to home because this just happened yesterday.
Actually, this uncertainty has caused yet another delay in the negotiations between Massachusetts and Rhode Island and5663 the South Coast wind and New England Wind 1 projects. Specifically for South Coast, that project has written down the5671 value of their project, anticipating a delay in the start of construction, possibly to 2029, when, of course, there will be another Presidential administration. These federal actions are also impacting projects in other areas on the Atlantic Coast, which in turn are having ripple effects on New England projects right here. After a petition from the EPA, a federal judge remanded a Clean Air Act permit for the Atlantic Shores project in New Jersey. This was remanded to the EPA for review,5701 which, again,5703 is damaging to that project and also sets precedent for other projects here in New England. Atlantic Shores was a uniquely vulnerable project given the timeline of their permitting process, but a group in Nantucket here has used this as precedent and is petitioning the EPA to remand permits for the New England wind 1 and New England wind 2 projects off of the islands. The town of Nantucket is also very recently appealing the entire federal approval of South Coast Wind, citing poor consultation.
So, finally, this is not good news for the industry, but there are things that Massachusetts can do to respond.5747 First, we can continue to support the build out of ports and transmission to hit the ground running for when the tide changes at the federal level, as I know the legislature has long supported. We can also, very importantly, continue to educate the public and improve political sentiment on offshore wind, especially in towns hosting critical offshore wind infrastructure like ports and interconnection points for transmission. We really need to push back on misinformation and share the best available science and data on environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind. Finally, and I think most directly, you all in the legislature can support this work5781 by5781 fully funding Mass CEC and supporting offshore wind legislation like that from Senator Fernandes S2279, which does include a host community incentive program that we are very excited about. Thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
CREEM - Well, it doesn't sound very promising, but thank you so much for all the work you are doing. So, how much wind power do you think we could expect to have online by 2030?
WILSKA - Well, at this time, given delays, we are likely only to see the Block Island Wind Farm and the Vineyard Wind 1 and Revolution Wind projects online by 2030. That's the Block Island Wind, which is already operational. It's very small, in State Waters off of Rhode Island, and then those two projects, Vineyard Wind and Revolution Wind, are currently under construction. Those are likely not to be halted by the executive order, those should be safe for now. That's under 2 gigawatts of electricity for the region and far short of our state climate goals.
CREEM - What was our state climate goals in gigawatts?
WILSKA - We currently have a state climate goal of 5.6 gigawatts for offshore wind.
CREEM - So less than half?
WILSKA - Correct.
CREEM - Okay. So there was something about, I think you've answered my questions, you said what we could do. Are there any other questions from committee members? Okay, thank you very much for your testimony today. The next person to testify is Sherry Morgan from the Elder Climate Action, legislative committee member from elder climate. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Sherry?
I think you're muted.
Good.
SPEAKER11 - Thank you.
SHERRY MORGAN - ELDERS CLIMATE ACTION-MASSACHUSETTS CHAPTER - Thank you, Senator Creem. I very much appreciate the invitation. As you said, I'm a member of the Elders Climate Action legislative committee. I'm sitting out here in Western Massachusetts, I'm a constituent of Senator Comerford. So anyway, Elders Climate Action, on the last couple of sessions, we have looked very hard at the bills that would provide additional funding for our work on climate. We have a big job ahead of us, and we are going to need lots more funding. Just as an example, this session, we had a discussion with Senator Barrett's staff about carbon price bills. We've spoken with Senator Mark's staff about climate bank bills. We're also monitoring the 2026 budget and waiting for the forthcoming environmental bond bill. So, in our scan of potential sources of funding, we believe that the largest viable untapped source of funding for work on climate is private capital. The only public financial entities that we are aware of that can use private capital are green banks, also known as climate banks. As just an example, the oldest green bank in the United States is the Connecticut Green Bank. Their fiscal 24 annual report said that every public dollar invested in their bank attracted $8.60 in private capital.
So, for the life of the Connecticut Green Bank, they have enabled almost $3,000,000,000 in investment throughout the state. I was very pleased to hear Undersecretary Antos say that they are looking at the existing Community Climate Bank and thinking about ways to expand that bank, we do think that6052 expanding climate bank programs to other economic sectors is a strategy that the legislature should take a hard look at this session. Senator Mark staff has told us that the bill they are working on envisions a climate bank that would serve as a hub, but the spokes would reach out to other existing entities within the state. So, in other words, the community housing bank would stay in Mass housing, but there would be good strong connections there. So, the purpose of having this new proposed climate bank is to work very, very hard to raise funding to help us reach our 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals. We do know that, Senator Mark and Representative Meschino have sought input from Melissa Hoffer. They've been talking to A&F and Treasury about the best ways to structure a climate bank hub. So, we think that the legislature should understand those conversations and think very hard about what is the best way to move forward.
The proposal that Senator Mark is working on is for a state backed financial institution that would provide direct and indirect capital, would leverage public and private investment, would support small businesses, public infrastructure, and underserved communities, there are details in the bill about how that would operate. The Climate Bank legislation as currently drafted allows funds to be deposited from array of sources, both private and public, including but not limited to state appropriations, funds from cap and trade programs, deposit of unclaimed property, private donations, and bond issuances. The bank, once it stood up, would generate its own operational funds by offering financial products and intermediation services like, commercial banks do. Even ECA, we were talking about this. We even suggested, well, you know, the utilities collect funds for the Mass save program, but until the utilities need to actually spend that money, why not deposit it into a climate bank? So, in closing, we applaud the legislature for thinking very hard about where can we find additional sources of funding for our work on climate, and we really encourage the legislature this session to take a really, really close look at expanding the housing bank and expand it to apply to other sectors within the economy. Thank you.
CREEM - Thank you. Any questions?
SEN COMERFORD - Leader Creem, if I could just say, Sherry makes me smarter every day with her leadership, and I'm very, very grateful to hear from her today and grateful for the call to do everything we can to raise the revenue we need. So, thank you. Thanks, Leader Creem. Thanks, Sherry.
CREEM - Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much. Moving on to the last panel. Andrew Gottlieb, executive director association to preserve Cape Cod. SHOW NON-ESSENTIAL DIALOGUE
Andrew, are you here?
I see his name, but
SPEAKER5 - I am.
SPEAKER1 - Okay.
SPEAKER5 - How are you? Thank you for
SPEAKER1 - Good. Thank you.
ANDREW GOTTLIEB - ASSOCIATION TO PRESERVE CAPE COD - Thank you for taking me. Andrew Gottlieb, the executive director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod. Our experience with Trump administration on funding has been a difficult one. We were beneficiaries and happy to receive two significant NOAH grants in transformational habitat and, tribal set aside that we're going to fund six wetland restoration projects, some coastal, some inland, all having benefits for climate resiliency, by creating better functioning and restored wetland resources that would enable us to have protection from storm surge and provide flood control and resilience, and protection of public and private infrastructure. These six grants, there are six projects that are funded over a four year period, and with all of these types of grants are reimbursable. So, we are partnering with a number of either municipalities, other nonprofits, land trusts, and the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. We believe, as I think a lot of people did, that transitioning from the grant award announcement to signed contracts that were executed at the beginning of January of this year would be a sufficient basis upon which we could rely to allow the projects to proceed and obtain the reimbursement that we would have expected, we were wrong about that.
On January 21st, after reading the executive order on the energy emergency that also suspended all BIL and IRA related climate projects, we attempted to access the online payment portal, and were unable to get to the payment page. Under normal circumstances, we would submit payment requests based on the contractually authorized expenditures and would expect reimbursement within 24 hours. Beginning on January 21st, our access to the payment part of the portal was suspended, it did not return until three weeks later. The afternoon that the Rhode Island district judge found the administration for the second time had violated the law by suspending payments, we were able to begin to access our funding at that point and to be fair, have been able to continue to draw down legally authorized funds since that time. So, we are currently current in our expenditures. The problem we have with all of this is that at no time, from the time the suspension of payments went into effect to now, have we had any communication or guidance from anybody at the federal level. So, the only way we knew we were suspended was when we tried to get payment, the only way we knew we were back able was because we were checking three times a day,6499 and the last time we tried in February, we got in.
A number of these projects, some of it is staff costs, 95% of it, though, goes back out the door to project implementation and6512 supporting, implementation and supporting, contractors who are moving earth, laying concrete, building that's the infrastructure that we need to restore these wetland areas. As we get into construction, as we have with the first of our projects with the Howard's Conservation Trust, you start to spend money in a hurry, and we're spending money not knowing with any certainty whether or not we're going to continue to be able to access reimbursement and whether or not the local contractors actually did the work on good faith or ultimately going to end up getting paid. We've managed our risk by increasing the frequency with which we invoice these projects so that the window of opportunity for large expenditures to be caught up in a future suspension will be minimized, but we're still operating at risk. Frankly, we know no other way with which to proceed because the flip side of this coin is we take our contractual obligation seriously, and we have performance deadlines to implement these projects, and it's our belief that if we hesitate and don't move these projects forward, that we will be terminated for lack of performance.
So, we're a little bit between a rock and a hard place, and decided to proceed as best we can. We only have one of these projects under construction this year, the others are in years 2, 3, and 4. Hopefully, we'll get some clarity about what the long term future is. The other way this has impacted us, and I'll wrap it up, is that we were having secondary conversations with the private foundation on the next generation of these types of projects. The questions that the philanthropy world has about the future of availability of federal funding, the inability of states to step into the breach in totality has caused private funders to step back, not wanting to become the sole funder of projects. So, what we had in the queue for future funding that was non-governmental has been thrown very much into question because of the questions associated with federal funding. So, as a non-profit, you know, we rely on grants, state, federal, and philanthropy, and we're getting squeezed from all sides on that. The net effect of this is less restoration work that will improve our ability to respond to climate changes we're already facing on Cape Cod is going to happen on The Cape and elsewhere, I suspect, as a result of the downstream effect of the uncertainty around federal funding.
CREEM - Thank you. Any questions from any members of the committee? Well, keep a good stiff upper lip and let us know how you're doing. Thank you.
GOTTLIEB - We will, thank you for your time.
MORGAN - Senator, this is Sherry Morgan. May I provide you just another glimpse of some of the uncertainty ahead? What I wanted to say is I'm a retired federal employee, and not only are we seeing chaos and confusion right now, but all of the agencies are under a mandate to provide reduction and force plans to the White House, and not only are these reduction in staff, but reduction in layers of management and span of control, and these plans are going to be implemented very very quickly. I would just tell you that the Fish and Wildlife Service has had leases for two regional offices canceled. The reduction and force plans are supposed to start in May and June and be concluded by September. So, I really think that the state should anticipate that we're going to see even less service.
CREEM - Sherry, we're in a really tight schedule, and I'm hoping that we can stick to, I know there's a lot of things going on, and I'm going to conclude with at least what the Senate plan is, looking at what we can do. So, if you'd hold your thoughts, and we're happy to have you submit anything in writing to us. There's no time to open this hearing, and it's in immeasurable number of things that we're going to see change, and we appreciate it. So, if you send us something, I'm going to talk about the Senate and hold that thought. But thank you, Sherry. The next speaker is Patrick Herron, executive director of Mystic River Watershed Association.
PATRICK HERRON - MYSTIC RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION - Thank you, Chair Creem and vice chair Barrett, to the committee and your staff for convening today's conversation. My name is Patrick Herron, and I'm the executive director at the Mystic River Watershed Association, also known as MyRWA. For more than 50 years, MyRWA has been a leader in advancing solutions in collaboration with our communities, our fellow advocates, leaders, and the Commonwealth to ensure no matter who you are or where you live, you have safe and easy access to nature, healthy water, and clean air. Today, as Andrew just described and others have described, our efforts are of that critical work are under threat. Last week, the US EPA informed us that a previously approved $500,000 grant to mitigate the impact of extreme heat on communities in Chelsea, Malden, and Everett had been terminated. This is after the federal government had toggled on and off the payment system as Andrew just described.
As New England summers continue to break historic heat records, it's evident that extreme heat has become and will continue to be a significant threat for the health, safety, and livelihoods of people across our region. The impact on our residents in urban areas like Chelsea, Malden, and Everett, which are disproportionately lower income communities is even more extreme. We conducted a research project called6904 the Wicked Hut Mystic Project, in partnership with the Museum of Science6908 a few years ago and6910 found that these communities in particular are 10 degrees hotter than our neighboring communities upstream. On a 90 degree day in July, that extra 10 degrees quickly escalates to dangerous health complications for families who are commuting to jobs and school, workers facing unprecedented temperatures, and those at home grappling without air conditioning or an accessible way to cool down.
Based on research and science and the community feedback, we know there are solutions that we can implement in our communities, it's very straightforward that we can see that the communities in Massachusetts that have greater tree canopy cover of cooler temperatures, protecting residents. We also know our community members want shaded bus stops, misting stations, splash pads, and, green spaces for their kids. And core to implementing these solutions are going to be buying from the community and partnership from state and federal governments. Our grant that was canceled had the purpose to work with our communities to chart6986 a blueprint for crafting these on the ground solutions. We6990 worked in partnership and directed about 3/46994 of this funding to community based organizations like Green Roots and Ever Community Growers, the Chinese Cultural Connection, and Cambridge Health Alliance, and partnered with the municipal leaders. We were well on the way toward moving that work forward when this funding was pulled away.
CREEM - How much funding was it? I didn't get how much you said.
HERRON - It was $500,000, intended to support work over three years. So, it's not dramatic to say that losing this funding source will slow down the chance to make our cities more livable in this heat and also protect public health. And, despite this loss of funding, MyRWA will continue to work with these partners and develop community driven solutions such that everybody can enjoy a healthy neighborhood and environment to live in. As we're closing to the end of this and really interested in hearing what the Senate will do, you know, we share that commitment that the Commonwealth has to protecting and addressing these vulnerable cities. But I would also urge the legislators in light of the withdrawal of these federal support, to consider that as the environmental bond bill comes forward in the budget that funding for the municipal vulnerability planning program is a really powerful way to offset some of these losses and give the tools and resources for our communities to protect their residents. So, we would urge the Senate and the legislature7096 to raise this funding to $100,000,000 a year over the next five years. Again, I'm really grateful for your leadership and for caring about the most vulnerable residents7108 in this changing climate, and thanks for the invitation to testify today.
CREEM - So, I know I have a bill that might be helpful here on extreme heat resilience and municipal reforestation. So, if you think as later on or any of those people testifying, I know that, Sherry testified about what Senator Mark was doing, and that was very helpful, if you also could think of bills and numbers that you think might be something we could be plugging in now, in lieu of finances, that would be7155 helpful and you could send that along. It's kind of think policies that we're looking at that might be7161 able to not substitute, but maybe offset some of the negative effects of what's happening with the federal government. So that'd be great. Thank you.
HERRON - Senator Creem, we have your bill on our desk, and, we have a short list. So we will follow-up with you, thank you for that invitation.
CREEM - And I'll give that to the committee. Anybody else in the committee want to ask a question? The last person, Emily Norton, not last by any means, the executive director of Charles River Watershed.
EMILY NORTON - CHARLES RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION - Hello, all, thank you so much for having me. What a treat to see my Senator, Senator Creem, thank you so much for inviting me. Thank you all to the vice chair and the members of the committee, really appreciate you doing this outreach and hearing from the environmental community and, including watershed groups in that. So, just quick background, CRWA was founded 60 years ago. Our mission is to protect, restore, and enhance the Charles River and its watershed lands. The watershed starts in Hopkinton River, makes its way North to Boston. We have about a million residents and over 60% of our residents are in environmental justice neighborhoods, so disproportionately affected by climate change impacts including flooding and heat. So, the work we do particularly related to managing water better, it's beyond environmental protection, it's also public health and public safety. So, I wanted to focus on how we are affected as the request was, how we're affected by what's going on with the federal government. So, financially, we've received over $500,000 in what used to colloquially be called earmarks, but community project funding grants that we received through Representative Catherine Clark's office.
This was for climate resilience projects and for a municipal tree planning, protection program, very, complimentary with Senator Creem's bill. This year, we had expected to receive a $1,000,000 in those community project funding grants through Senator Markey and Representative Clark, but it was announced that there will be no earmarks in FY25, and we will apply again in FY26 if earmarks have resumed then. We also applied for a $30,000 healthy communities grant from EPA region 1, we were notified last week that we didn't receive it. We can't take it too personally though because it's not that we weren't chosen, it's that the entire grant program was canceled. We have applied for over $10,000,000, in order to build flood mitigation projects in four of our communities through the EPA community change grant. We haven't been notified that the grant program has been eliminated or any notice beyond that, but this would be literally building the projects that we've been working with our communities to do the outreach for and the education for and the design for. So, real lost opportunity and there will be more flooding and heat suffering as a result of these projects not going through. We also typically get various state administered grants that are funded by the federal government such as the 319 and 604b grant programs, these help pay for those on the ground projects, mostly related to water quality.
We're also very worried and affected by cuts to federal staff. So, you may have seen recently, the significant cuts to the USGS staffing and programming, especially, the mapping that we use. We use their high quality elevation data to identify areas7389 of impervious surface, that's where you're going to have more flooding because it's paved surface, water's not infiltrating in the ground there. As well as stream gauges and monitors that we have not only in our watershed, but all over the state. Everyone uses these developers, emergency management people, Con Coms, in order to know when levels are low, when you need to conserve, when levels are high and there's going to be flooding, how to plan ahead, how to plan developments. So, these are these sort of areas that the federal government has been providing services that it's been providing that a lot of people probably aren't aware of, but we are going to notice the cuts. In addition, the water center, the USGS center in North Borough, they are cutting 1/3 of the staff, and they're also as they are with other folks, they're allowing them to spend a dollar on their cards, so they can't spend any money on travel, on repair, on maintenance, so, that's a big cut to us. Cuts to EPA in general, if the staff are decimated, which it sounds like is the intention, they enforce the Clean Water Act, including stormwater regulations.
Stormwater is the biggest threat to the Charles and many of our rivers and streams and lakes. We are also waiting on a new stormwater permit to be7466 finalized in the Neponset, Mystic, and Charles River watersheds. This would be a new7472 stormwater requirement on private property owners with an acre or more of impervious cover. It would be an incredible improvement for reducing pollution in our rivers as well as a cost saving to municipalities. Because right now, municipalities are under the gun to massively reduce7492 stormwater pollution. So, this would7494 be those who are disproportionately causing the pollution would have to be addressing it. The comment period just ended, we're waiting for it to be finalized, it'll be a real hit if that doesn't happen. So anyway, those are a few ways that policy and funding affect us as well as other water protectors in in the Commonwealth. Lastly, I'll just give a shout out to Senator Creem, the MVP plus bill that we worked with you on, and your leadership was so valuable on. That actually will be quite helpful, it already would be very helpful, but this would be even more helpful now to incentivize cities and towns to do more, to partner with policies that they can implement on the ground to reduce the incidence of flooding.
CREEM - Thank you. Any questions for Emily? Okay. So, that concludes our speakers. I do want to talk about the Senate, but I first want to give a great shout out to Garrett Casey, my policy director who does an amazing job putting these hearings together, and we owe him a lot, so thank you, Garrett. The Senate, we're all struggling with what do we do, what can we do. We need to look beyond finance and think about policies that7576 we could administer or bills that we have that might help. It was so helpful that that came up with Patrick, that whole issue regarding what can we do. So the Senate put out 20 response to 2025, and the Senate has set up a committee, they're steering and policy committee, and that committee is going to meet with other committee chair and look through bills that we have and policies in not just climate but other areas affected by changes in the federal government and make some recommendations as to how the Senate can propose certain bills to try and offset some of the harm or concerns in a policy way of what's happening in the federal government.
The steering and policy committee, Comerford is vice chair, and she'll be working with the committee, with Senator Friedman, I am on the steering policy committee, and so this meeting today was a good segue for how committees will look at what can we do in wake of the federal government's changes to what we all believed was going to, we were going to look forward to in 2025 and 2026. So, thank you all, stay tuned. If anyone has any written material or you can think of things that, not in the financial sector, but in the policy sector that we can look at, please submit them to us and we'll take a look. Unless committee has anything else, Senator Comerford, did you have something to say?
COMERFORD - No, Madam Chair, but thank you for leading us.
CREEM - Okay. So unless the committee has something to say, we're looking forward to, trying to come up with some solutions to offset the burdens that we're feeling by the changes of federal government. That concludes today's hearing, thank you very much.
SEN LOVELY - Thank you, Madam Chair.
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