Vickery Voice

Greenwash Gremlin's October Surprise

2009-10-19T13:31:00.000-07:00

Two surprises have come my way so far this month. First there was the news from the activists at Stop Chewing Carbon that the proposed biomass-burning facility in Greenfield would produce more CO2 per megawatt hour than the coal-burning Mount Tom plant in Holyoke but would still qualify for taxpayer assistance. Then came the news from Associated Press that Saudi Arabia is looking for public assistance too, just in case the world becomes less dependent on oil.

While stories about energy corporations getting tax breaks and other incentives under the guise of "green energy" may raise my ire they fail to raise either of my eyebrows nowadays. The AP story about Saudi Arabia joining the dole queue, on the other hand, sent both eyebrows upward and nearly triggered a coffee-out-the-nose event. As a forty-something I clearly remember the effects of the 1973 oil embargo and, seven years later, the Saudi government's expulsion of Her Majesty's ambassador to Riyadh in protest at a British TV drama called Death of a Princess, so I have no illusions about the regime. But not even in my most cynical of moods had I ever imagined the oil-rich theocratic oligarchy asking for a hand-out.

The outrageousness of the Saudi request has me at a loss for words, other than to ask myself whether, with billionaires posing as victims and tree-burners dressed up as tree-huggers, Halloween came early this year. But I do have a public-policy suggestion for countering greenwashing here in Massachusetts.

What is the appropriate response when companies tout themselves as green in order to qualify for public funding? Part of me wants to march into court armed with Chapter 26, Section 91, of the Massachusetts General Laws and force them to stop, one by one. After all, what is the point of having a law against false advertising if we don't use it?

The other part of me (the saner part, I think) wants to file legislation that would set sensible conditions for providing electricity in Massachusetts and our neighboring states. My proposed interstate compact would create an incentive for power companies to switch to genuinely renewable energy. How? By prohibiting the fossil-based alternatives.

If a corporation wants to sell power to the people of New England it would have to prove that the power came from a non-fossil source. In other words, the only way an energy provider could do business in New England would be for it to get out of fossil fuels completely and into renewables a.s.a.p. The compact would involve the six New England state governments acting together -- with each state punching above its weight -- to take on the power moguls.

I think it's worth a try. What do you think?

Cradle of Democracy

2009-04-07T18:55:00.000-07:00

For the video that accompanies this post, click here.

Global warming is having an impact on every aspect of our lives, and it is clear that we have reached a critical point in the history of our species. Quoting Winston Churchill, Al Gore told us in 2007 that “we are entering a period of consequences.” Change is definitely in the air. There is a growing understanding that the way we consume has to change, as does the way we travel, even the way we think about the future.

The way we do politics has to change too. But in Massachusetts we—or our legislators at any rate—seem to be stuck in a period of no consequences. A one-party system is simply not equipped to deal with the threats and opportunities that climate change presents, but a one-party system is what Massachusetts now has.

Right now all ten Massachusetts congressional seats and both U.S. Senate seats are held by Democrats, and Democrats occupy all six of the statewide constitutional offices and control 90% of the State Legislature. Of the handful of Republicans in the Legislature many owe their presence to the Democrats refraining from running candidates against them. A tame, token opposition, dependent on Democratic goodwill and forbearance, is no opposition at all.

The numbers are shocking. When it comes to contested state legislative elections, Massachusetts consistently ranks at or near the bottom among all fifty states. In 2008 we were dead last; there were two or more candidates in only 17% of the 200 state legislative districts. It was a combination of reasons that led me to switch my registration from Democratic to Green earlier this year. But the fundamental reason, the one that would have caused me to go Green even in the absence of the other reasons, is this: I believe that Massachusetts needs to become a functioning multiparty democracy.

Even dedicated Democrats should recognize the need for another party to start nipping at its heels from the left. The platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party is an admirable document, but there is a large gap between the platform’s promises and what the Democrat-controlled Legislature actually does. Healthcare, taxation, and sustainability are three areas, in particular, where the party’s deeds in office diverge from its platform commitments.

While the party is committed to the principle of single-payer healthcare – according to the platform – the Democrat-authored and Democrat-enacted Chapter 58 takes the commonwealth away from, rather than toward, a healthcare system that is both universal and sustainable in the long term. It is good news that so many more people have healthcare coverage than they did before Chapter 58 became law, but it is the health insurance companies that have reaped the biggest rewards. In contrast to single-payer, Chapter 58 involves massive transfers of wealth from the public to the private sector. I believe that this is wrong, and that the Democratic Party should not be forcing the people of Massachusetts to subsidize the insurance industry.

Taxes tell a similar tale of timidity. The voters’ unequivocal rejection of the November 2008 ballot question seeking the abolition of the income tax presented the Democrats with an unprecedented opportunity. Clearly there has been a sea change since the electorate’s 2000 vote to reduce the income tax to 5%, and Deval Patrick’s 2004 campaign can legitimately take some credit for helping produce that change. Given the clear shift in public mood, the responsible course of action would have been to restore the income tax to a realistic level. The refusal to do so is leading, predictably, to cuts in local aid, rather than the “increased local aid to cities and towns” that the Democratic party platform promises.

Instead of restoring the income tax, Democratic leaders are once again proffering casinos or even slot parlors in the knowledge that casinos have yet to solve any state’s fiscal woes and that the overwhelming majority of casino users are people with low incomes. This is simply unjust, and completely at odds with the Democratic platform commitment to “tax equity and responsible budgeting.”

Nobody should deny the Democratic Party’s real achievements. I am proud to have held office as a progressive Democrat. I respect much of what the party has won for ordinary working families over the years, and I applaud the many grassroots activists and office-holders who work hard on the inside to make the party truer to its ideals.

And, to be fair, Governor Patrick has made a couple of sensible proposals recently, namely pushing for an increase in the gas tax and instituting a carbon fee for parking at Logan Airport. These are steps in the right direction and they deserve support. But look at the response of the Democrat-controlled Legislature. State representatives and senators – self-identifying progressives among them – are tripping over their own feet as they scramble to find reasons why the gas tax has to stay as it is and why people should not have to pay a mere two dollars more to park and fly. This is a party that finds itself with a super majority greater than in any other state in the country, but flounders without an agenda or even a coherent sense of purpose.

It is time for Massachusetts politics to catch up with the demands of the period of consequences that we are in. It is time for Democratic incumbents to face Green challengers at every election, and, down the road, for there to be a clear Green voice in the state Legislature.

K'Ching!

2009-03-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

Last week I received a response to my public records request. You may recall that I had asked the Department of Energy Resources how much of the RGGI auction proceeds ($5. million of public money) the utility companies will get. Here is the breakdown:

Cape Light Compact $357,000.00
Fitchburg/Unitil $107,725.00
NSTAR $1,452,530.00
National Grid $4,000,000.00
Western Mass/NE Utilities pending
Total $5,917,255.00

The biggest winner was National Grid, raking in a cheery $4 million. Where did that money come from? By way of a quick reminder, it came from the December 2008 CO2 auction. In exchange for the right to spew tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, companies that generate electricity give the states money, and the states give the money to companies that distribute electricity.

In the December 2008 auction there were 69 bidders and most of them, approximately 85%, were so-called "compliance entities," companies such as National Grid. Yes, National Grid.

So what does National Grid also have in its hands as a result of the auction? Pollution permits and a cool $4 million.

NSTAR didn't do too badly either. Its share of the public money was over $1.4 million. I can't help wondering why NSTAR needs that public money. After all, what were NSTAR's revenues last year? According to its website, $3.3 billion. In 2008 its net income went up 7.2% and things look rosy for 2009. The annual report boasts:

"We have also increased the dividend we pay to shareholders for the 11th consecutive year -- further indication of our financial strength. NSTAR increased the common dividend rate to $1.50 per share for 2009, up from $1.40 in 2008, a 7.1% increase."

Feeling queasy yet?

THURSDAY, APRIL 16

2009-03-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

Save the date! On Thursday, April 16, three Massachusetts Greens who were at the Capitol Climate Action will be in Northampton. The venue is the Unitarian Society, 220 Main Street, and the event kicks off at 7:00 p.m.

Jill Stein, Eli Beckerman, and Dave Dionne are coming to Western Massachusetts for a conversation with local activists; to report back on the D.C. action, to listen, and to help plan next steps toward a secure green future.

To download the flier (right) just right click on the image, scroll down to "save image as..." and save it in a file of your choosing.

Reggie, but not Reggie Perrin

2009-03-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

(Reggie Perrin was the salaryman turned entrepreneur turned commune-founder in the satirical BBC show The Fall and Rise of Reginal Perrin)

Let's think about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, which the cool kids pronounce Reggie, I gather) the first-in-the-nation CO2 cap-and-trade program that Massachusetts co-founded. By the way, like many people who grew up in Britain in the 1970s, I can't hear the name Reggie without thinking of Reggie Perrin. Hence the picture.

But first a word about Gaia.

In Greek mythology, Gaia was a deity, a goddess representing the Earth. The Gaia theory claims that Earth is a single, complex superorganism that regulates its environment the way an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance.

Gaia the theory (the theory about the very real natural world) owes its name to Gaia the goddess, an imaginary inhabitant of an imaginary supernatural world.

I was reading The Guardian earlier this week and I noticed that James Lovelock, the environmental scientist who came up with the Gaia theory, has compared market systems that resemble cap-and-trade programs to slavery. Lovelock was at a debate on biodiversity sponsored by the journal Nature, and he was responding to the idea of putting a price on the “ecosystem services” that oceans and rivers provide. That seems to be a growing line of business, by the way.

This is what Lovelock said, according to The Guardian: “To talk of these ecosystems as something we can own and draw benefits from, and buy and sell, is just like the attitude not so long ago to slavery, and just as reprehensible.”

Lovelock also mentioned the ease with which cap-and-trade systems degenerate into “scams” (his word) that benefit industry but don’t benefit life on Earth.

Massachusetts participates in Reggie and for a while now I’ve been curious about its effectiveness. I grew more curious and, to be honest, a tad suspicious, when I read Governor Deval Patrick’s press release about how Massachusetts was going to spend its Reggie winnings.

What do I mean by “winnings”?

You already know how Reggie works, I suppose, but here is a brief refresher. Under Reggie, the participating states sell a finite number of pollution permits. A company needs a permit for every ton of carbon dioxide it emits. Over time, the states reduce the number of pollution permits. The number of permits drops and, hey presto, the amount of CO2 drops as well.

Energy companies pay for the permits at auctions, and each participating state gets a share of the auction proceeds, which I crassly refer to as “winnings.” What happens to the winnings after the state governments get their hands on the cash? That’s what I was (and still am) curious about.

After the December 2008 Reggie auction, Governor Patrick announced that the Department of Public Utilities would be dedicating $5.9 million “for the state’s electric and natural gas utilities to aggressively expand their energy efficiency programs this year to help consumers reduce their winter heating bills.”

What struck me was the possibility that what the utilities giveth in the auction, the utilities taketh away soon after.

So on January 19, 2009, I wrote the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) with the following simple request:

On reading the Governor’s press release regarding the December RGGI auction, I notice that the Department will be dedicating $5.9 million “for the state’s electric and natural gas utilities to aggressively expand their energy efficiency programs this year to help consumers reduce their winter heating bills.” Please let me know whether this means that the utility companies will receive the $5.9 million.

A few weeks went by, with no reply from DPU. So on February 8, I asked again, this time by way of a public records request under Mass General Laws Chapter 66 Section 10, and I received a prompt response from the Legal Division.

You can read the letter if you like, but this is the gist: look online.

I did. I went to the site as directed, looked through the wealth of documents, and could not find out how much the private utilities are raking in from the public's auction winnings. Given my regular inability to locate the ketchup in the refrigerator, this may be another case of me not looking long enough or in the right place.

Alternatively, it really is hard to find, or simply not there.

By the way, I called the attorney who signed the Department of Public Utilities letter and she told me that she’d gotten the information from another attorney, but it’s probably not the Department of Public Utilities that has those records anyway. The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) is the department that actually spends the Reggie winnings.

I have sent my public records request to DOER and I’ll let you know what they say.

In the meantime, it’s worth double-checking the Public Utilities site, and I would appreciate it if you would help me to follow the money.

Here’s my request. Go online to the Commonwealth’s website, www.mass.gov, click on Utility Regulatory Energy Efficiency, then choose “electric energy efficiency dockets,” and check out the 2008 energy-efficiency plans.

If you can find details of the Reggie funds, please let me know. And if you cannot, please let me know.

By the way, Reggie is not an ecosystem-services program, the kind of thing that James Lovelock was having a go at. It’s a cap-and-trade program. But there are similarities. Most importantly both are rooted in faith, faith in markets and the ability of markets to solve problems.

I can see the appeal. After all, it was humans acting through markets that created the problem, so why shouldn’t humans acting through markets be able to solve it?

Well, sometimes markets work and sometimes they don’t, not that you need reminding of that during the current recession.

How can we tell whether a market-based program – like Reggie – is working toward the common good or (as the market skeptics among us might suspect) working to the disproportionate advantage of the private industries it’s supposed to be helping control?

Evidence.

I’m a lawyer and, when it comes to proving things, lawyers prefer evidence to faith.

Taxing Gas

2009-03-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

Leo Maley, executive director of Progressive Massachusetts PAC, explains why Greens and Progressives should support the 19-cent increase in the gas tax.

Mount Tom Demo

2009-03-01T12:09:00.001-08:00

Holyoke, MA, Sunday, March 1: I am happy to say that more than 60 activists gathered at Mount Tom power station today. An earlier version of this post said 30, but Tina Clarke did a head-count and I trust her arithmetic more than I trust my own.

Kudos to David Starr of GREEN Northampton for helping turn us all out. At the same time demonstrations were happening at coal-burning stations in the eastern part of the state, sponsored (like ours) by the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities.

Our mission was to call on the station owners in particular, GDF Suez, and policymakers in general to stop burning coal. Tina Clarke (on the left of the picture) and Rev. Margaret Bullitt Jonas (right) addressed the crowd. A lone officer from the Holyoke Police Department watched us from his cruiser, parked at the entrance to the station. When I went up to introduce myself I noticed he was idling; I let it go, which was wimpy of me, I admit.

But at least the officer was there doing his duty, and that is more than I can say for the mainstream media. ABC News 40 had said they would show up to cover the event but didn't. Nor did any reporters from the two local newspapers, the Daily Hampshire Gazette and the Springfield Repubican, make an appearance. Fortunately Francesca Rheannon from WMUA and a team from Valley Free Radio's Enviro Show were there to do what newspaper reporters used to do back in the day, i.e. find out what's going on and why.

Tina recalled the long struggle to force the station's former owners to reduce SOx and NOx emissions, and noted the current owner's tendency to take credit for simply complying with the law. Margaret, whose ministry centers on the struggle against global warming, described the abuse of the climate as a sin. Then, reminding us that all great movements sing, she led us in song.

Both Margaret and Tina talked about the impact of global warming on people we don't usually think of as our neighbors but who are on the front lines, paying an immediate and unjustifiable price for our consumption of fossil fuels.

For my part, I mentioned the significance of the number 350 and the fact that in the Christian calendar today, March 1, is Saint David's Day.*

Veteran peace and justice activist Frances Crowe announced a one-item wish list for her upcoming 90th birthday: everybody stay home and don't burn gas. On the subject of boosting public transportation, Leo Maley urged us to support the proposal to increase the state gas tax by 19 cents a gallon. Joan Grenier mentioned that Bill McKibben will be in South Hadley soon (details to follow) and Tom Neilson sang us a wonderful song that he wrote for the occasion.

We left Mount Tom at about 2:00 p.m., with snowflakes in the air and joy in our hearts. Several people driving by had honked in solidarity, and we had borne witness to one another (and the officer from Holyoke PD).

But what's next? If that was it -- if today's demo was the beginning and end of our struggle to put an end to coal-burning at Mount Tom -- we won't have achieved anything more than an hour in the outdoors, a sing-along, and a chat with old friends.

So what do you think? What will you commit to doing to stop the burning of coal? While you ponder that, please bear in mind that April 1 is coming up. It's exactly one month away and nowadays, at least as far as some of us are concerned, April 1 is Fossil Fools Day.

*Welsh people will know this already but, for blog readers who were careless enough to have been born outside Wales, I should mention that Saint David's claim to fame was a little out of the ordinary for religious leaders. He didn't slay dragons like St. George or expel snakes like St. Patrick. He just grew leeks. Wales may be the only country whose patron saint was an organic farmer.

Sustainable Social Democracy

2009-02-06T20:27:00.000-08:00

For any social democrats interested in our ideology's intellectual history, Sheri Berman's article in the current edition of Dissent ("Unheralded Battle: Capitalism, the Left, Social Democracy, and Democratic Socialism") is worth reading.

When she is discussing the post-WWII social-democratic consensus that settled on Western Europe, including Britain, Professor Berman is giving Dissent's readers a helpful description. But her prescription (economic growth) is less helpful. The world has turned many times, and its climate has changed, since the days when economic growth was an essential part of the answer to the question that social democrats posed, i.e. how do we create a more just, equal, and democratic society?.

Personally, I enjoyed the quick trip down memory lane. Since my teens, social democracy has been the place I call home, politically speaking, and I became quite nostalgic seeing the name Tony Crosland (pictured), one of the heroes of my adolescence.

I wasn't even born when Crosland wrote The Future of Socialism and by the time I started paying attention to these things he was already dead, but he was a hero to the politicians I admired at the time, so I inherited him. When I was 14, and should have been engaged in the pursuit of manliness -- by idolizing Gareth Edwards, Phil Bennet, and other giants of Welsh rugby, for example -- I was, instead, obsessing on the split in the Labour Party. Not all Croslandites were quitting the Labour Party, but it seemed that everyone quitting the Labour Party was a Croslandite.

When the pro-Europe, pro-NATO social democrats broke away from Labour to form the SDP, I followed their every move in The Guardian. The next year Labour and the SDP had to share my attentions with the war in the Falklands, which I considered just as gripping as the civil war going on in the Labour Party, possibly more so because it involved aircraft carriers. Somewhere along the way, probably in a book by one of the SDP's co-founders, David Owen, I learned about Crosland's The Future of Socialism, ordered myself a copy, and read it several times. Pathetic creature that I was, I rather adopted Tony Crosland as my political imaginary friend. Even Adrian Mole (the voice of my generation) would have been embarrassed.

But enough Adrian Mole-esque soul-baring and back to Sheri Berman's article. Surveying the 1960s and 70s, Professor Berman describes the split between the European-style social democrats and those who still yearned for the collapse of capitalism, and she takes a swing at Michael Harrington in the process. But then, at the end of the article, addressing today's U.S. left, she turns all prescriptive on us. Her recommendation? "[T]ry to do what the Scandinavians have done: develop a program that promotes growth and social solidarity together, rather than forcing a choice between them."

A false choice it may be, but it is equally false to suppose that we can still walk into the market place of ideas, reach up, pick off the shelf a can of Scandinavian-style social democracy, and take it home to consume. A glance at the sell-by date would reveal that it was best before the period of consequences. And the period of consequences -- to quote Al Gore quoting Winston Churchill -- is what we are in. So to my eyes there is something missing from the growth-versus-solidarity frame, namely sustainability.

Growth and sustainability are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in 2009 it is hard to justify a public conversation about the former that is not also a conversation about the latter. When Crosland wrote The Future of Socialism we hadn't heard of global warming, and in those days the vision of "grow the pie to share it" did not look like quite so myopic. But now we realize that it is myopic. We are in a consumption-created crisis and we have to reject the assumption that more consumption will get us out.

As I said, Berman's article made me nostalgic. Right now I am inclined to climb up into the loft, open some boxes, and track down my copy of The Future of Socialism. I might even read it for the umpteenth time, unless I stumble across The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole first and get side-tracked. What heightened my sense of nostalgia was the sense that Berman's article could just as easily have been published thirty years earlier, in 1979, when all we had to worry about was inflation, unemployment, and nuclear war. It has the aroma of a pre-consequences world of comparative bliss, when to be young was very heaven. The answer (expand the pie) was simpler because the question (one slice or two?) was easier.

But the new question for social democrats to ask and answer is a harder one: How do we create a more just, equal, democratic and sustainable society? To put the same question another way, in 2009 what does it mean to be a green social democrat? I welcome your comments.

Green Action for 350

2009-02-06T14:24:00.000-08:00

Three hundred and fifty parts per million. That's the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the air. We can get back to that level, and stabilize the climate so that we leave our kids a life-sustaining planet, but not if we keep consuming what Thom Hartmann refers to as "our dwindling supplies of ancient sunlight."

Hartmann explains that by burning that ancient sunlight we are releasing so much CO2 into the atmosphere that in the past 20 years the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone from 280 parts per million to over 370 parts per million.* Dialing back down to 350 is imperative. With the aim of shifting U.S policies toward the 350 goal, Bill McKibben and the 350 Campaign he inspired are hoping to persuade President Obama to act decisively at December's U.N. climate meeting in Poland.

I'm not holding my breath for the President -- or Congress -- to force the pace of change, but I am full of hope nonetheless. Policies are going to change for the better, and change fast, thanks to the the spontaneous upsurge of community action groups. Based on what I read in the papers, I feel pretty sure this is happening across the country; I know for a fact that it's happening in my neighborhood.

Last week I joined with about 20 other Amherst residents to watch The 11th Hour. I showed up because Meg, my wife, forwarded the e-mail invite that she had received from a neighbor called Beth. When I read the e-mail what really made me want to go wasn't so much the choice of film but the names of the other invitees: I didn't recognize most of them. I was excited that whatever kind of event Beth was pulling together it was going to be something other than a round-up of the usual suspects.

Beth, who brought us together, talked about the value of sharing what we're doing as individuals and families to tackle global warming. I think this combination of personal responsibility and collective action is the key to the transformation that is happening at the grassroots.

After the film was over, we had a conversation about what it was that had prompted each of us to brave the weather (it's pretty darn cold in Western Mass right now) for the get-together at Beth's home. There was a real mix of experiences and backgrounds. No politicians (unless I still count as one) and no attorneys (ditto) which was wonderful for so many reasons. Not that I have anything against politicians and attorneys, of course.

I got the sense that all of us are working on being the change we want to see in the world, and at the same time we realize that, in the words of Al Gore, "we have to abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer."

That realization is at the root of the March 1 protest at Mount Tom. We know that, by itself, stopping GDF-Suez (the company that owns the Mount Tom plant) from burning coal won't halt global warming. But it is one of the many steps we have to take, and take quickly. Come along.

* I have just started reading Hartmann's book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late, which I bought earlier this evening at Amherst Books, one of our town's two outstanding independent bookstores.

Farewell Sal, Welcome Johanna

2009-02-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

Stalwart foe of casinos and staunch friend of equal marriage Sal DiMasi left the office of Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives last week. Some miles to the east, Geir Haarde, premier of Iceland (a country that looks like it spent a wild weekend in Vegas) also found himself on the way out.

Iceland's economy crumbled after its banks gambled on the U.S. mortgage bubble never bursting. Their debts were more than six times the size of Iceland's GDP.

The incoming prime minister of Iceland is Johanna Sigurdardottir, co-founder of the Social Democratic Alliance, and the world's first openly gay head of government. Her new administration is a coalition of social democrats and the Left Green Movement, and in crucial parliamentary votes it can count on the support of two left-of-center parties -- the Progressives and the Liberals -- that remain outside the government. To this green social democrat, that sounds like a dream team.

The BBC reports that Sigurdartottir is a former union organizer and flight attendant who has become one of Iceland's most popular politicians. One of her nicknames is Saint Johanna, says the BBC, as a result of her work for disadvantaged people. Iceland is casino-free, by the way.

Now back to Massachusetts: The new Speaker of the House is Robert DeLeo who says he "likes slots at the racetracks" and whose ascension to the big chair has the casino industry suddenly feeling lucky, according to the Boston Globe. If you would like to call Johanna and ask her if she would consider trading places with Speaker DeLeo, here is her office number: 011 354 545 8400.

Congress, Coal, Cars, and Consumption

2009-01-30T18:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a headline I didn't want to see, but half expected: "Coal wins big in stimulus package."

That was the lead into a story in last Sunday's Charleston Gazette describing the Senate's plan to deliver a multi-billion dollar gift to the coal industry. The article states that this latest $4.6 billion comes on top of the $2.8 billion that we gave King Coal via the Wall Street Bailout.

Coal's share of the loot is small compared with the amount the oil-and-auto axis stands to carry off. Thirty billion dollars is how much money Congress wants to pour into highways, on the strange assumption that cars are part of the solution to our combined environmental and economic debacle. A few billion for coal, a few billion for highways, and pretty soon you're talking big money.

Congress, the President, the banks, and the fossil-fuel peddlers all want us to spend more money. Seeing these guys is like watching a rerun of the Bush response to 9-11, i.e. go shopping. That's what they want their package of our money to stimulate: that intangible, ethereal phenomenon they call consumer confidence.

Those alchemists up there on the national stage are asking us to disregard the evidence and just believe in magic. For the magic to work, the audience has to do two things. First, we have to continue perceiving ourselves as consumers in stead of citizens. Second, we have to conjure up the confidence that consuming more (more cars and more petroleum-based gadgets that we can buy in more car-centric strip malls) will make things better.

What nonsense, and what a waste of an electoral mandate. When we have, in the words of President Obama, picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off, we are going to find ourselves face to face with the simple fact that was standing there before the onset of the sub-prime meltdown: We are not going to consume our way out of recession and global warming and into a healthier, sustainable way of life.

The Price of Coal

2009-01-10T08:18:00.000-08:00

Coal is responsible for a significant amount of the carbon we produce in Massachusetts. The organization CARMA calculates that more than ten per cent of the CO2 emissions in our commonwealth comes from just two coal-fired power stations, Brayton Point and Salem Harbor.

Here in Western Massachusetts, the coal-burning Mount Tom power station generates more than one million tons of CO2 annually according to CARMA. On December 28, I e-mailed Mount Tom's parent company, Energy Capital Partners, asking for their own estimate of yearly CO2 output. No word back yet.

Reducing our carbon emissions means forcing the private power companies to act, and experience suggests that they will not act unless we make them. We are racing toward a climate catastrophe and we have to force the power industry to take its foot off the pedal.

We must make the industry abandon coal, and do it now. Without question, this is a radical step and I would not suggest it unless I believed that we could do it. We can do it. I have seen it done, as I explain below.

First, however, a caveat. Don't get me wrong: Coal is an amazing substance, and the South Wales I grew up in would have been a very different place without the coal industry. But there is no getting around the fact that coal is (to be blunt) dirty. My maternal grandfather was a coal miner, and he died when I was five. According to my mother it was the coal dust in his lungs that did him in. Mind you, my dad used to say, smoking a pack of Woodbines a day didn't help.

Back when my grandfather was a miner Britain's mines were still in private hands, and the bosses would exploit the men shamelessly. There was no point in the unions looking to Conservative or Liberal governments for help. So from 1900 onward the union movement built its own political party, the Labour Party and, after the party's landslide in the general election of 1945, a Labour government took the mines into public ownership.

As a public entity, the coal industry became a symbol of organized labor's triumph, and thanks to their powerful union the men who worked in the mines finally got decent wages for their back-breaking work. When I was a boy, they were the "aristocracy of the working class."

Then, in the early 1990s (after the calamitous miners' strike of 1984-5) the British government decided to close the mines. According to the government, digging -- and subsidizing -- coal was just not economically feasible any more. Efficiency was their stated goal.

But there was a widespread suspicion that the real goal was to cripple the miners union. As the union with the ability to turn off the lights, the miners had been able to negotiate themselves a series of pay raises in the 1970s, and in 1974 their strike helped bring down Edward Heath's Conservative government. Ten years later, Margaret Thatcher's government faced down the miners and broke their union.

In the wake of the '84-'85 strike that had left the union fatally wounded, the pit closures looked like a coup de grace. I was outraged (I hadn't heard of global warming at the time) and joined thousands of people in London for a massive demonstration against the pit closures. Despite the public outcry, the plan went ahead and the coal mines closed.

The lesson? If politicians can quit coal to break labor unions or save money, they can quit coal to fight global warming. All it takes is political willpower. And, like the electricity that lights our homes, political willpower is a human-made force. People have to generate it.

To a large extent the presidential election and the economic downturn have pushed the climate out of the headlines. But even while the joy over Obama's victory dissipates and the recession becomes a grim part of daily life, the climate continues to change and the polar ice carries on melting. Our responsibility to do what we can to tackle global warming has not gone away. Quitting coal is an important step that we have to take in meeting that responsibility.

Governor's Council

2008-12-04T16:47:00.000-08:00

In December the Boston Globe reported that Governor Deval Patrick has not appointed as many people of color to the bench as some of his supporters might have hoped. The lack of judicial diversity in Massachusetts is a significant problem in and of itself. But it is also a symptom of flaws in the process by which Massachusetts governors choose judges. And there is a connection between the process and the dearth of applicants of color.

To secure a place on the bench, an applicant has to pass muster with three different groups, namely the Judicial Nominating Commission (JNC), the Governor's Council, and the Joint Committee on Judicial Nominations. Each of these bodies takes soundings from local attorneys who know something about the applicant, and rightly so. After all, it would be foolish to ignore the opinions of the very people who have first-hand experience of the applicant's demeanor, temperament, and legal acumen.

Of the three bodies, only the Governor's Council is elected. It is no secret that Massachusetts governors sometimes find the Governor's Council a source of frustration. But, frustration notwithstanding, governors are grateful for the Council because it helps them spread the opprobrium when judges end up embarrassing themselves. In stead of shouldering all the blame for a judge who fails to demonstrate sufficiently judicial temperament (e.g. yelling at people from the bench, showing up for work drunk, or showing up for work only rarely) a governor can point to the elected Governor's Council and the unelected JNC and Joint Committee on Judicial Nominations. Together, these bodies ensure that the buck merely passes the corner office without stopping there.

On the surface this three-tiered screening process appears several steps removed from the political fray and effectively hack-proof. But there is something about the process that deters some well-qualified attorneys of color from applying for judgeships.

What is that "something"? Based on my experience, I believe it is the knowledge that the real decisions take place long before the applications even arrive at the JNC. All too often, governors (including Deval Patrick) cede de facto control over the judicial-nomination process to politically powerful, unaccountable local cliques.

One notable example of this phenomenon was in the news recently. Dan Ring's story in The Republican describes the original 3:3 vote at the Governor's Council meeting over the nomination of Attorney Bill Mazanec, a friend of the current Governor's Councillor Tom Merrigan and his brother, Register of Probate John Merrigan. The fact that Mazanec was not simply part of the wider Merrigan clan but was actually renting office space from Tom Merrigan helped cause three councillors to pause for thought. It was a short pause; one week later the Council voted 5:1 to confirm Mazanec.

How did Attorney Mazanec emerge from the JNC in the first place? Well, because the process is secret we can only speculate. My own speculation, which I base on my stint on the Council and several years practicing law in Western Massachusetts, is that Mazanec was the only local applicant because other well-qualified attorneys from Franklin County declined to put themselves forward. The reason those other attorneys held back (and, again, I am speculating) was that they knew Mazanec, and only Mazanec, had the blessing of the Merrigans. For these local lawyers, dependent to varying degrees on the goodwill of the Merrigans, applying would not only have been fruitless. It would have seriously damaged their political health.

Governor Patrick is not merely turning a blind eye to the expansion of local fiefdoms, but is actively encouraging it. In the short term this may make for an easier ride for him -- and for Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray -- but there is a price to be paid in the longer term. That price is the decline in high-caliber applicants from diverse backgrounds who are not indebted to the local bigwigs.

The message to would-be judges is clear: Only those who are acceptable to the local establishment need apply. Otherwise, forget it. Certainly, this affects every lawyer who is not part of the club, regardless of race and ethnicity. But in areas where the legal-political establishment is predominantly white, the message has a disparate impact on people of color.

Testy relations with Speaker DiMasi and the recession have ensured that Governor Patrick has not been able to deliver much of what he would have liked. He innoculated his supporters about this likelihood early on and took care not to over-promise. So it is particularly disappointing that Patrick has not made more progress in the area of judicial appointments, a realm where he does not depend on the cooperation of the legislative branch. But given his administration's decision to roll over for the good ol' boys, no one should be surprised.

Full disclosure: After Deval Patrick's election (and my loss to Tom Merrigan) in 2006 I wrote to the transition committee and then to Deval's chief legal advisor asking for the job of promoting diversity in the judiciary. I haven't heard back yet, by the way.

Open Letter to the GRP from a Green Social Democrat

2008-11-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

I am a Democrat and proud of it. In Europe I would fall into the category of social democrat, somebody who has a vision for a more open, equal, just, and democratic society. At the same time I believe we should make the struggle against global warming the organizing principle of government. The best label for me is, I suppose, green social democrat. And as a green social democrat I believe that a healthy, pluralistic society needs a multi-party democracy. So I have a suggestion: Let's try building one in Massachusetts.

Before November 4, 2008, it was hard to believe that the political complexion of Massachusetts could turn any bluer. With the Democrats controlling all six constitutional statewide offices, both U.S. Senate seats, all ten congressional seats, and more than 85% of the Legislature, I thought the Democratic party must have reached its high-water mark. But I was wrong. Believe it or not, the Democrats now have 90% of the seats in the Legislature.

In such a lopsided political environment there is not so much a power vacuum as an opposition vacuum. Clearly the voters cannot look to the Republicans to fill the void. By failing to gain ground in the House and Senate in 2008 -- after forfeiting so many statewide races in 2006 -- the GOP has effectively abdicated the role opposition in Massachusetts. There is no latter-day Ray Shamie poised to rescue and rebuild the party. So if the people want competition for the Democrats, they are going to have to look elsewhere.

What about the Greens? Yes, Virginia, there really is a Green party in Massachusetts, although you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise based on the 2008 elections. Last November the unfortunately-named "Green Rainbow" party fielded even fewer legislative candidates than the Republicans. In fact, the grand total of GRP standard bearers was zero. The other progressive party with a ballot line, the Working Families party, did no better.

Looking at the voters' verdict on Question One (which would have abolished the state income tax) I believe there is a demand for a strong, organized, progressive party in Massachusetts. Almost three-quarters of the people voted to keep the income tax. That is a stunning figure. Remember, this is a state that not so long ago voted to reduce the income tax to 5% and elected a succession of Republican governors. Decades of anti-tax propaganda and an economic recession could easily have produced a different outcome. But Deval Patrick's consistent message in 2005-06 (yes, it's your money but it's also your broken roads, bridges, schools, etc.) combined with years of patient, unglamorous work on the part of groups like One Massachusetts and Neighbor to Neighbor helped lay the groundwork for the success of the No-on-One campaign.

For the sake of clarity, let me repeat myself: The vast majority of people who voted in 2008 voted to keep the income tax. There has been a sea-change in Massachusetts politics, and many voters are now noticeably to the left of the Democratic party. What does this mean for electoral competition?

I believe that there is a sizeable chunk of the electorate that is ready for a party that will compete with the Democrats for its support. And there is an opposition-shaped gap in the heart of Massachusetts politics, the kind of gap no healthy democracy can live with for long. Without more than token, tame opposition the Democratic party will float aimlessly around the center, entrenched in power but somehow ever on the defensive. This commonwealth needs a political party that will drive forward a green, progressive agenda by running credible candidates for the House and Senate. Any volunteers?

Depths of Deceit Contest

2008-05-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Behold the Buick Rainier, named after the snow-covered peak southwest of Seattle. Why did Buick decide to call this vehicle the Rainier? Because, says the car company, it "reflects majesty with ruggedness and independence." We'll be needing a heck of a lot of ruggedness and independence to deal with global warming and peak oil, but those qualities won't be coming at us out of the tailpipe of the Buick Rainier.

Naming an SUV after a natural feature is a bit like calling a brand of cigarettes the Healthy Lung. According to the Sierra Club SUVs "spew out 43% more global-warming pollution and 47% more air pollution than an average car." http://sierraclub.org/globalwarming/SUVreport .

Buick's Rainier is helping trash the real Rainier.

Because cars are destroying the rugged and majestic places that their makers have named them for, some jurisdictions are trying to rein in the deceitful garbage that auto makers throw at the public. For example, Norway's advertising watchdog issued guidelines last year to discourage the use of the the following words in connection with cars: green, clean, natural, and environmentally friendly. The rationale was simple -- by definition, cars are none of those things.

In the U.K. the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned a Lexus ad that used this headline: "High Performance. Low Emissions. Zero Guilt." The ASA said that the ad misleadingly implied that the car caused little or no damage to the environment.

I'm all for freedom of expression. But I'm also in favor of holding accountable those lying, polluting, climate-wrecking corporations that stand between us and a healthy, sustainable, democratic society. The same goes for the bought-and-paid-for political hacks who do their bidding in state houses and executive mansions across the country.

So let's have a contest to see who can find the most misleading motor-vehicle ad. Keep your eyes open for TV commercials, online ads and print ads that use images of the environment to promote their environmentally-damaging products. Send me the image and, in a token nod toward democratic ideals, we'll have a vote right here on the Vickery Voice site.

This is quite a challenge. There are plenty of car companies that are plumbing the depths of deceit, so coming up with the worst of the worst will take some time and discernment. Good luck out there.

P.S. If you're hoping for a prize, please don't hold your breath.

German Lessons

2008-05-17T19:21:00.001-07:00

Germany's domestic security service issued a warning last year about left-wing extremists in the increasingly popular political party called Die Linke (the Left). In an unpublished report the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the BfV) justifies raids on the party's offices because the Left contains factions from the old East German communist party.

In case anyone is starting to wax nostalgic for the communists, let’s remember how they actually governed. They turned East Germany into a prison camp.

Among the collaborators were the non-communist political parties that held seats in the old East German parliament, all of them under the control of the communist government. With no autonomy or independent voice their role was certainly not to oppose the regime, but merely to serve as window dressing. Presenting the illusion of multiparty democracy would provide (or so the politburo must have believed) a veneer of legitimacy to what was, in reality, a one-party state.

We know what token, tame, toothless opposition looks like in Massachusetts. Ten out of the 19 Republican state representatives do not have to contend with a Democratic opponent this November. In other words, half the members of the pitifully small Republican caucus in the House owe their seats to Democratic forbearance. A high proportion of the few Republicans in the Senate are similarly obligated to the Democrats.

Nowadays Republican legislators are currying favor with the corner office by promoting Deval Patrick's casino plan and attacking his rival, House Speaker Sal DiMasi, by filing ethics complaints against him. When the Republicans talk you can almost see the Governor's lips moving.

Obviously life in Massachusetts is not like life in East Germany. We are free to criticize the ruling party without fear of a midnight visit from the secret police, free to join independent trade unions without risking imprisonment, and free to leave without having to evade watchtowers and minefields.

But when it comes to the Democrats' skill in co-opting the opposition, Eric Honecker would be impressed.

Survival: Imperative or Lifestyle Choice?

2008-05-09T07:38:00.000-07:00

If you live in the Greater Boston Area you can now ask your electricity company, NSTAR, to provide you with exclusively wind-generated electricity.

In one sense, NSTAR's decision to offer its customers 50-100% wind power is welcome news. Several organizations that are engaged in valuable environmental work in Massachusetts cooperated with the company in developing the option, namely the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Conservation Law Foundation, and Environment Massachusetts (a project of Mass PIRG).

Massachusetts law requires companies like NSTAR to get 4% of their energy from renewable sources by 2009 and the new wind-power option will, says the press release, "make it less expensive" for NSTAR to meet this standard. How? It's simple: Choosing wind power will cost you more money.

The company says that customers opting for wind power will "pay premiums above the basic plan to reduce global warming." The average increase will be about $4 to $7, according to NSTAR. To reduce global warming, you see.

At this point, it is worth noting two facts; first, NSTAR has a captive market and, secondly, its shareholders are smiling. NSTAR's 2008 annual report filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) explains:

As a rate regulated distribution and transmission utility company, NSTAR is not subject to a significantly competitive business environment. Through its franchise charters, NSTAR Electric and NSTAR Gas have the exclusive right and privilege to engage in the business of delivering energy services within their granted territory. Under Massachusetts law, no other entity may provide electric or natural gas delivery service to retail customers within NSTAR’s service territory without the written consent of NSTAR Electric and/or NSTAR Gas.

The report adds that in 2007 NSTAR's common share dividend increased "by 7.7%, outperforming the industry average of 5.4%." Among the three reason for this boon to shareholders were "increased sales of 1.8% ($30.5 million)." The company's website boasts that "NSTAR is the largest Massachusetts-based, investor-owned electric and gas utility, with revenues of approximately $3.3 billion and assets totaling approximately $7.8 billion."

It is just conceivable, then, that NSTAR could absorb the cost itself without its investors going shoeless and hungry. So why is NSTAR shifting the cost of clean energy onto Massachusetts citizens, penalizing the people who are helping the company meet its legal duty by choosing wind power over fossil-fuel power? Because NSTAR is a private enterprise, albeit a regulated one, with a duty to its shareholders. In short, because it can.

Massachusetts deregulated electricity in 1998. Or, to be precise, the Democratic-controlled Legislature deregulated it, much to the detriment of the public. Since deregulation, prices have risen by approximately 50%. States that did not give in to the lobbyists and kept the provision of electricity under public control have not had to endure comparable rate hikes.

On the bright side, there is a law that allows Massachusetts communities to take back the ability to provide their own electricity (municipalization). But NSTAR's annual report notes that municipalization "is not a trend." Any community brave enough to try would face "numerous legal and regulatory consents and approvals" and would have to pay the company compensation.

So for NSTAR's customers, fossil-fuel power is cheaper and wind power is more costly. Why would any cash-strapped family choose the more expensive option? Ordinary families are already having a hard time making ends meet, so an additional $84-a-year for electricity means cutbacks somewhere else in the household budget. This sends an unequivocal and damaging message: If you want to reduce global warming, you (not the NSTAR shareholders) are going to have to pay. You can either go out for dinner one night, or you can help ensure that the planet your kids inherit is fit for human habitation. You can't do both.

Mike Tidwell, in the current edition of the magazine Orion, urges a wartime level of mobilization for clean-energy solutions:

"[T]o achieve these changes fast enough, the American people need a grassroots political movement that goes from zero to sixty in a matter of months, a movement that demands the sort of clean-energy policies and government mandates needed to transform our economy and our lives."
("Snap! The terrifying new speed of global warming and our last chance to stop it," Orion, May/June 2008, www.orionmagazine.org)

We have a choice. We can, as Mike Tidwell suggests, mobilize politically to bring about the transformation that the crisis requires. Or we can engage in the equivalent of the Phony War -- telling the for-profit energy companies to provide a mere 4% of their electricity from renewable sources and letting them meet that legal obligation by offering us wind-power as an optional extra while charging us a few dollars extra for the privilege.

Reducing the survival of the species to a luxury commodity, a matter of lifestyle choice, may strike you as outlandish, and hardly the we're-all-in-this-together attitude that is essential in a crisis of this magnitude. But it is the logical consequence of the Massachusetts Democrats' deregulation policies of the 1990s, and it makes complete sense from the consumerist perspective.

The choice we confront comes down to how we see ourselves. Companies like NSTAR depend on us perceiving ourselves first and foremost as consumers. Democracy, on the other hand, requires that we see ourselves as citizens. And democracy, unlike NSTAR's wind-power, it is not an optional extra.

It's Boris

2008-05-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

London's voters have spoken (the 45% of them who voted, anyway). Last week Londoners ditched two-term mayor Ken Livingstone and elected the Conservative Party's candidate, Boris Johnson. There were 10 candidates running for mayor but, as a result of the electoral system, voters did not have to worry about the "spoiler" effect. London uses the Supplementary Vote, which is similar to Instant Runoff Voting, so a candidate can only win by getting the support of a majority as opposed to a bare plurality.

Victory for Boris was a real boon to the already reinvigorated Conservatives. Ken Livingstone is an unorthodox radical, often out of step with the Labour leadership, but he had the misfortune of being the Labour candidate at a time when the party's popularity was at rock bottom. Ditching Tony Blair last year in favor of Gordon Brown did Labour no good. And ditching Livingstone out of frustration with the Blair-Brown Labour Party is not likely to make ordinary Londoners any better off.

One encouraging outcome from the London mayoral election was Sian Berry's performance as the Green candidate. Berry, who won the endorsement of one of Britain's leading daily newspapers, The Independent, and the Sunday Observer, came in fourth with a combined first-and-second preference vote total of 140,000. Berry's campaign helped push Green policies further up the agenda. Ironically it's the Conservative Party (whose trademark color is blue) that has been doing an impressive job of promoting green issues under the slogan "Go Green, Vote Blue."

The Green Party's policy proposals for London included interest-free loans to homeowners for installing solar panels. This policy is eminently sensible, and compares favorably with the pay-now, get-the-rebate-later (maybe) option that we have in Massachusetts. It is already up-and-running on this side of the Atlantic in Berkeley, California, according to E Magazine. Berkeley residents who install solar panels can borrow the necessary money from the city and repay the loan over 20 years via their electricity bills. That is much more affordable than having to front the $20,000.00 for a solar system in Massachusetts in the hope that you qualify for a rebate.

Well, that's all food for thought: A fair voting system, a vibrant multi-party democracy, and sensible public policy proposals to boost energy efficiency and combat global warming. Could it happen here?

Task Force: Mandates and Tax Breaks for Agrofuel Industry

2008-04-25T07:34:00.001-07:00

The oil industry has been getting some bad press recently, what with global warming and peak oil. If you think these hard-done-by hydrocarbon peddlers deserve more than tea and sympathy, you are not alone. The leadership of the Massachusetts Democratic Party is with you.

The Advanced Biofuels Task Force (the creation of the Governor, Speaker, and Senate President) has published its final report, with several key recommendations. Receiving the most press coverage so far is the proposal to develop a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) for Massachusetts. But three short-term recommendations merit closer attention than the LCFS, namely the recommendations that Massachusetts should:
1. Exempt cellulosic biofuels from the state's gasoline tax;
2. Impose mandatory minimum percentages of biofuel in motor and heating fuel; and
3. Give state agencies "latitude to exempt fuel produced from waste materials from full lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions analysis."

The second point, the mandatory minimum blending of agrofuel, is (to put it bluntly) a way of forcing us to purchase agrofuels whether we want to or not. Imposing this requirement is something the task force wants to do before, not after, Massachusetts fashions its LCFS.

Clearly the agrofuels industry will receive a shot in the arm if the Legislature enacts the task force's proposals. This hardly comes as a surprise. After all, during its deliberations the task force heard plenty of testimony from the industry, including testimony from World Energy Alternatives based in Chelsea. According to Biodiesel Magazine, World Energy is "the first alternative energy company backed by a major petroleum company," namely Gulf Oil, which "has been providing financial backing and a platform for growth for the company since its start in 1989."

Should Gulf Oil's partner get the benefit of a gas-tax break from Massachusetts? This is something worth asking legislators when they debate the task force's report.

But putting that question to one side for the moment, let's look at where World Energy's biofuel actually comes from. Curiously, World Energy does not produce fuel of any kind. The company's strategy, explains Biodiesel Magazine, is simple -- "marketing energy, not necessarily creating it." So who does have the task of creating it?

Well, the entity that will be manufacturing biodiesel for World Energy is Dow Haltermann Custom Processing (DHCP) of Houston, Texas. And who owns DHCP? The Heritage Group and the Grube Family, the proud operators of three oil refineries which (according to Indianapolis Business Journal) escaped hurricanes Katrina and Rita and continue to "crank out more than 65,000 barrels a day." According to the relevant SEC filings, the Heritage Group/Gruber Family company (called Calumet Specialty Products Partners, LP) is a leading producer of "high-quality specialty hydrocarbon products" such as gasoline, diesel, asphalt, and jet fuel.

By the way, if you're wondering why Calumet is a partnership the answer is simple: publicly traded partnerships can pass along earnings to investors without paying income taxes.

Requiring Massachusetts residents to buy agrofuel could help boost the fortunes of Gulf Oil, whose officers and directors are not exactly going hungry. Other likely beneficiaries of our largess are companies that are up to their necks in hydrocarbons and are strangely reluctant to pay their fair share of society's tax responsibility.

Let's keep our eyes on the task force's report and how the Legislature deals with it.

Agrofuel Mandates: Warning from the Conservation Law Foundation

2008-04-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

Will Massachusetts residents have to subsidize the agrofuel industry?

Last year the Governor and the Legislature created the Advanced Biofuels Task Force to assess the potential for biofuels (also known as agrofuels) in Massachusetts. One of the aims that the Governor, the Speaker, and the Senate President announced was to establish a volumetric mandate for biofuels, i.e. by 2010 all diesel and home heating fuel sold in the Commonwealth should contain 2% biofuels in their blends, with that amount rising to 5 percent in 2013.

The task force has taken testimony from across the Commonwealth and has published its draft summary recommendations. In view of the impact of agrofuels on food prices and carbon emissions, the testimony and the recommendations are important documents.

One of the recommendations is that Massachusetts should "develop standards for lifecycle evaluation that consider the carbon, environmental and economic impacts... including potential impacts on agricultural, forest and other land use in Massachusetts and on a global basis, using definitions like those used in California and included in the new federal energy law. These evaluations must include both direct and indirect impacts, as well as consideration of impacts on environmental justice."

So far so good. When we're deciding whether to throw public support behind a fuel whose backers present it in green wrapping it makes sense to consider the impact on the environment. But in keeping with the wishes of the Governor and legislative leaders the task force also recommends "carefully targeted mandates, such as requirements for minimum percentages of biodiesel in motor and heating fuel."

Among the witnesses offering testimony to the task force was the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), whose comments included a warning against setting mandates. Citing the experience of the European Union ("mandates gone awry") and the potentially disastrous results, the CLF "strongly advises against setting mandates." With an eye to the likelihood that the task force would recommend mandates anyway (which its draft does) CLF lays out four criteria that should serve as preconditions. One of those preconditions is tying the putative mandate to "a specified, verified reduction in greenhouse gases." In other words, the biofuel proponents should have to demonstrate that their product would ameliorate, rather than exacerbate, global warming.

Perhaps I'm just not seeing it, but so far as I can tell the task force's draft recommendations contain no such requirements. To find out whether the Governor, Speaker, and Senate President incorporate CLF's common-sense conditions into their proposal, stay tuned.

By the way, I still haven't heard anything from the Deval Patrick administration about what Doug Rubin had in mind when he claimed his boss was showing national leadership on the environment (see "Doug Rubin's Spin" below).

Fuel Subsidies in Boston = Food Riots in Haiti?

2008-04-21T09:38:00.001-07:00

The Democratic leaders on Beacon Hill are promoting biofuels as a more sustainable energy source than fossil fuels. According to the press release, the Governor, Speaker and Senate President are pushing legislation that would require “all diesel and home heating fuel sold in the Commonwealth to contain a minimum amount of renewable, biobased alternatives in their blends, with that amount rising from 2 percent in 2010 to 5 percent in 2013.” There would be a tax incentive for ethanol derived from what the press release calls “forest products” (does that mean trees in plain English?) along with switchgrass and agricultural wastes. As a result of the biofuels mandate, they say, Massachusetts will gain 3,000 new jobs.

Is this subsidy really an effective way to combat global warming, or could it make the problem even worse? Right now there is no definitive answer, so green advocates should pause before applauding the Massachusetts Democrats’ gift to the biofuels industry. The response of eco-activists across the Atlantic is instructive.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is taking Britain down the same route as Massachusetts. Under the British government’s plan all gas and diesel sold in the U.K. will have to contain 2.5% biofuel. Brown’s announcement met with protests from environmentalists. Why? Because the protestors want enforceable guarantees that biofuels will save at least 60% more carbon than they produce. They point to evidence that sources of some biofuels destroy habitats, upset delicate ecological balances, and even exacerbate global warming. If this is true, biofuels are hardly the sustainable alternatives that their lobbyists and legislative allies would have us believe.

Is it possible that biofuels could be making global warming worse, not better? Britain’s Independent newspaper cites a report from the University of Minnesota “which found that growing biofuel crops on converted rainforests, grasslands or peat bogs created up to 420 times more CO2 than it saved.” The current edition of Discover magazine discusses similar research by Joseph Fargione of the Nature Conservancy and Princeton’s Timothy Searchinger. Discover explains that while the two studies differ in some ways they both establish is that “changes in land use related to biofuel production would be a significant source of greenhouse gases in the future.”

The supposed bright side is Brazil, where sugarcane ethanol has reduced vehicle emissions. President Bush likes to tout the Brazilian experience as the basis for subsidizing biofuels here. Yes, George W. Bush. Perhaps you are getting a warning signal from the hairs on the back of your neck at this point.

Writing for the Independent, Daniel Howden reaches a different conclusion from President Bush: “The consequences of the modest reduction in transport emissions in Brazil’s crowded cities can be traced in the gigantic geometrical scars of soy plantations that cut into the Amazon rainforest and the choking black clouds from burning cane fields that engulf the capital for weeks every year.”

The demand for biofuels pushes up the price of their source commodities, commodities like corn. These rising prices have triggered food riots in the Philippines and Haiti. Here in Western Massachusetts, local farmers are feeling the effects in inflated prices for hog, cattle and chicken feed. When a public policy that is supposed to be pro-environment has an adverse impact on small organic farms, we need to ask more questions. So before we smooth the passage of even more public money toward private companies in the belief that we are combating global warming, let’s do some homework. The stakes are too high for mistakes.

Beware Sun Screen

2008-04-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

The news* that the Deval Patrick administration is using rebates to encourage people to install solar panels is welcome. Via a program called Commonwealth Solar the state will provide up to $68 million over the next four years to generate 27 megawatts of solar electricity. The program is not open to Massachusetts residents whose communities have municipal power, however. Only private-sector consumers need apply. That said, for the companies and individuals who qualify, this transfer of public money will be a real boon.

But in a state that depends overwhelmingly on coal and other fossil fuels, subsidies of this scale are not enough. Sixty-eight million dollars over four years is not going to produce the kind of energy turnaround that we need in Massachusetts. And shutting out people who get their electricity from municipalities sends the wrong kind of message.

Right now, we are hardly the leaders in the field that the administration would have us believe we are. Let's look at the reality:

Only seven percent of the energy generated in Massachusetts in 2006 came from renewables, says National Geographic. The other 93% came from fossil fuels, which emit the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Of the 260 power plants in Massachusetts, 66 qualify for "red alert" status according to the watchdog organization CARMA (Carbon Monitoring for Action).
http://carma.org/

Nobody expects Massachusetts to kick its fossil-fuel habit overnight, and the administration deserves some credit for helping move the Commonwealth away from its dependency. Deval Patrick was right to sign up to the Northeastern Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the solar subsidies are a plus. Together they are steps in the right direction. But these steps do not keep pace with global warming. As Environmental Secretary Ian Bowles told Associated Press: "The public is ready for bold measures." So let's see some.

*The Associated Press is treating Commonwealth Solar as today's news. In fact, the administration announced the $68 million program in January 2007. Here's the announcement:
http://www.mass.gov/envir/press/pressreleases/012808_commsolar.pdf

The Clock is Ticking

2008-04-05T19:00:00.000-07:00

How much longer are progressive Democrats going to wait for the Massachusetts Democratic Party to live up to its commitments?

The platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party contains many laudable, progressive proposals. Single-payer healthcare, for example, has been in the platform since the early 1990s. With single-payer, as with Medicare, patients still choose their physicians but there is just one insurer -- the Commonwealth. Regardless of the platform commitment, the healthcare law that the Legislature delivered in 2006 (Chapter 58) bears absolutely no resemblance to single-payer. Instead, it mandates the purchase of health insurance from the private sector.

In addition to single-payer, the platform states that the party "continues to strive for the public funding of elections, thereby eliminating economic barriers for qualified candidates." Of course, such striving as there may have been since the Democratic-controlled Legislature repealed the Clean Elections Law in 2003 has been utterly invisible and inaudible. The party now controls all six constitutional statewide offices, from Governor to State Auditor, and almost 90% of the seats in the General Court: Against whom is it supposed to be striving?

Curiously, the platform also proclaims that "Massachusetts Democrats condemn the tax cuts that leave cities and towns to fend for themselves with only the regressive property tax as the primary source of revenue." But it was Massachusetts Democrats in the Legislature that enacted those tax cuts. What our cities and towns need is less condemnation and more action.

No progressive would deny that the platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party contains many worthy aspirations. But the longer those aspirations remain locked in the platform, the stronger the case grows for a breakaway from the party. But where could disaffected progressives find a political home? The results of the 2006 general election may point the way.

Two things have become clear following the 2006 general election. First, the Massachusetts Republicans have abdicated the role of principal party of opposition. Secondly, the Greens are on the rise. Without the benefit of bid donors or a friendly press, the Greens’ level of support has grown -- in 2006 it was double their 2002 showing. In the race for Secretary of the Commonwealth, the Greens’ Jill Stein won 18% of the votes, which is twice the percentage that Jamie O’Keefe garnered in his well-run 2002 bid for State Treasurer.

Today Massachusetts is badly in need of both an effective opposition and some meaningful electoral competition. In this supposedly blue state we need to remember that only about 37% of Massachusetts voters are registered Democrats, with close to 50% voters unenrolled (independent). Nevertheless, even with half the electorate eschewing both the major parties by opting for unenrolled status, the Democratic Party controls 88% of the seats in the Legislature. In addition, both of our U.S. Senators, all 10 members of the congressional delegation, and all six of the constitutional statewide officers, from Governor through State Auditor, are Democrats. By any reasonable standard, that is an extraordinary imbalance.

In the 2006 elections, there were contests in only one-quarters of the legislative districts. That’s right -- most of the seats in the Legislature went uncontested in the general election. There were contested Democratic primaries in just 15% of the districts, and most of those were for open seats. (i.e. the incumbent was not seeking reelection). The truly staggering fact is that in Massachusetts this is the norm, not the exception.

Is there a realistic possibility that Massachusetts could achieve contested elections and acquire a real opposition? Yes -- such things are possible. In Vermont, for example, the Progressive Party holds six seats. As their website explains: “The two brand-name parties frequently act in concert, because they serve the same corporate interests. They agree to take issues ‘off the table’, preventing discussion of issues important to most Vermonters: health care for all, property tax reform, energy independence.” http://www.progressiveparty.org

Could Massachusetts follow that example, with the Greens in the role that the Progressive Party plays in Vermont? Statewide races are important and the Greens have used these races to raise their profile and expand their popular support. But real power, i.e. the power of the purse, resides in the House. Unless and until there are Green state representatives, the party will not be in a position to file legislation or propose budget amendments. In the meantime, the effects of the 2006 success story will dissipate. So now is the time to start restoring balance to the Legislature.

As the experience of the Progressive Party in Vermont shows, there could be significant benefits to making a breakthrough and electing a small number of state representatives. With the Republicans demoralized and adrift, the Greens could use their presence in the Legislature not only to hold the Democratic Party accountable but also to acquire a greater degree of credibility as the alternative party of government.

There is no secret formula for winning legislative elections. It is a question of concentrating on a handful of winnable seats, seizing sudden opportunities (such as special elections), training and supporting candidates, focusing on several simple and coherent policy proposals, identifying Green voters, and getting out the vote on election day. Easy? No. But straightforward? Yes.

Massachusetts has a multi-party electorate, a two-party voting system, and a one-party government. The Republican Party has forfeited its role as the major opposition party. Like nature, genuine democracy abhors a vacuum. There will always be work for some progressives to do within the Democratic Party, but the time may be coming for other progressives to complement that work from the outside.

So in the next few years, there is clearly room for the Greens to assume the role of effective opposition in Massachusetts. One big question is whether the party is willing to seize the opportunity. The other big question is whether there are enough disaffected progressives willing to help.

Capital and Labor

2008-04-03T19:57:00.000-07:00

According to the Boston Herald, Sean M. O'Brien, the president of Teamsters Local 25, is planning to inject a little democracy into the Massachusetts Democratic Party. He is threatening to do the unthinkable -- encourage people to run for office against sitting legislators.

It is hardly a secret that the Democrats take organized labor for granted. And contested legislative elections are such a rarity in our one-party state that we often rank 49th in the nation, just ahead of Arkansas. In 2006 only 15% of Democratic primaries had more than one candidate, and most of those races were for open seats (i.e. the incumbents were not seeking re-election). So, in one sense, it is a welcome development when a union leader decides to do something about the dearth of electoral competition in Massachusetts.

It is clear that only a matter of fundamental import can have triggered this sudden urge for accountability on the part of the Teamsters, an issue central to the interests of ordinary working families. The lack of single-payer healthcare, perhaps? Here is a measure that would transform the lives of every working class and middle class family in the Commonwealth. Imagine how much easier life would be if people in Massachusetts, like the citizens in most industrial democracies, had free healthcare -- if they did not have to dedicate such a large proportion of their annual income to private health insurance companies. This is the freedom that single-payer offers.

But single-payer has been in the platform of the Massachusetts Democratic Party for so long that it has become a fragile antique. Like grandma's best china, nobody dares touch it except for occasional dusting. They would never dream of taking it down off the shelf and using it.

So the leading Teamster's threat to make incumbent Democratic legislators actually run for re-election, not merely stand, is all about single-payer healthcare, right? Guess again.

Well, if not single-payer healthcare, it must be public higher education that has prompted Mr. O'Brien to commit political blasphemy. A college degree is essential nowadays, and working class families in particular depend on the University of Massachusetts and the state colleges. But right now public higher education funding is $245.6 million (18.9%) below the FY 2001 level of funding, says the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center's Budget Monitor.

So is that what Mr. O'Brien is angry about? Under-funding of public higher education?

It is not.

Then I guess it just has to be taxes. After all, during the 1990s the Democrats in the Legislature cut the income tax time and again, knowing that the result would be a steady increase in the regressive property tax. Far from fighting for a progressive income tax, these Democrats in effect voted for property-tax hikes that have (predictably) hit working families and seniors hardest. Union leaders must be outraged that the party they bankroll has done this to their rank-and-file.

But no, it's not unfair taxation that has inflamed the leader of Teamsters Local 25. It is casinos, the ill-fated measure that the Massachusetts AFL-CIO made its top priority earlier this year. At the Governor's behest, organized labor spent a large chunk of political capital lobbying for a proposal that would have made the lives of working families considerably harder and the wallets of right-wing billionaires who control the casino industry considerably fatter.

Casinos should never have been labor's top priority and the issue is a flimsy casus belli. The Massachusetts Democratic Party has a longstanding platform commitment to single payer healthcare, to equitable taxation, and to public higher education, but even with total control of the executive and legislative branches it has failed to deliver. Now that is something worth fighting elections over.

Doug Rubin's Spin

2008-04-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

In a recent post on Blue Mass Group, Governor Patrick’s chief of staff, Doug Rubin, declared that “Governor Patrick has succeeded in bringing fundamental change to our state government.” One phrase made clear that Mr. Rubin was engaged in extreme spin. Rubin cites the decision of the Appellate Tax Board (ATB) to let communities charge telecommunication companies property taxes for the land that their telephone poles occupy: “The Appellate Tax Board closed the loophole on telephone poles, which when the process is completed will raise millions in new revenue for cities and towns.”

Well, the administration certainly played a role in the pole-tax case. As Boston Globe columnist Steve Bailey has pointed, the administration did intervene -- but not on the side of the communities trying to close the loophole. In fact, Deval Patrick’s Department of Revenue jumped in on the side of the defendant, Verizon. Now the Governor is claiming credit for an ATB decision that his administration actively argued against just a few months ago.

Rubin’s list of Deval Patrick’s heroic achievement states: “Highlights in 2007 include the historic vote on same-sex marriage… and national leadership in clean energy and environmental issues.”

Claiming some credit for the Legislature’s decision not to put the anti-marriage equality measure on the ballot is fair enough. Nobody would deny that the Governor, along with House Speaker Sal DiMasi, helped persuade legislators to kill the proposal. Persuading people to come around to your point of view is part of the art of politics. Of course, when Sal DiMasi exercised that same art to kill casinos, Deval Patrick cried foul. Referring to my handy Polspeak-to-English phrasebook, I see that when the Governor talks to legislators he is a doughty advocate and when the Speaker talks to legislators he is a sleazy midnight-deal-making hack. So far, so good. Like Humpty Dumpty, many politicians seem to believe that words mean whatever they chose them to mean, and unabashed hypocrisy is what makes politics such fun.

But the Patrick administration claiming “national leadership on clean energy and environmental issues” is a bit of a stretch. What could Rubin mean?

On the plus side, the Governor issued an executive order last year setting targets for renewable energy. Called “Leading by Example,” the executive order says that 15% of agency electricity should come from renewable resources by 2012 and 30% by 2020.

According to National Geographic, Massachusetts is below the national average in terms of renewable energy. The current edition states that renewables account for just two percent of the Commonwealth’s energy resources. If we had all the time in the world to come to terms with global warming and peak oil, the figure of 30% within a dozen years might be reasonable. But in reality we have years, not decades, to make radical and far-reaching changes in our energy use. In the context of large chunks of the Antarctic collapsing into the ocean, thirty percent is a risible target.

In addition to the “Leading by Example” greenwashing, our Governor has a penchant for high-emission/low-efficiency forms of transport (e.g. helicopters). And the avowed intent of his casino proposal was to encourage people to drive long distances to large new constructions on previously undeveloped land. How all this might constitute national leadership on clean energy and environmental issues intrigued me. So I decided to try and find out what Doug Rubin meant.

Yesterday (Wednesday, April 2) after e-mailing an inquiry I followed up with a telephone call to the Governor’s office, asking what specific measures Mr. Rubin was referring to. They put me through to the communications office where a woman took my number and said that somebody would get back to me. Then, a little nervously, she asked “you’re not from the press or anything, are you?” My request for concrete facts seems to have triggered a degree of alarm in the Deval Patrick communications office. I shall let you know as and when they get back to me.