Phase out coal and beat back fracking

Consider lending your support to these issues --

"Phase out coal and beat back fracking."
That's the message we're asking you to send your state legislators before 4:00 p.m. Friday, February 4.

Please call or email your State Senator or Representative and ask them to co-sponsor two bills: Representative Lori Ehrlich's Act to Phase Out Coal-Burning in Massachusetts and Representative Sean Garballey's Act to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing.

About half the electricity we generate in Massachusetts comes from natural gas, and much of that natural gas gets to the surface via a process called hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) which contaminates drinking water. The Act to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing would require power companies to certify that their natural gas meets safe drinking-water standards and force them to disclose the chemicals they used to extract the natural gas.

The Act to Phase Out Coal-Burning wold make power companies retire or repower their coal-burning plants by 2020. The bill would also set up a Community Repowering Fund to help plant-workers and surrounding communities if a company chooses to retire (i.e. close down) a facility instead of repowering it to cleaner energy.

Together these two bills would push us closer to the goal of being fossil-fuel free by 2050. Please contact your state legislators today and ask them to sign on as co-sponsors. Tell them you want Massachusetts to phase out coal and beat back fracking.


Beat Back Fracking in Massachusetts

Targeting: The MA State Senate and The MA State House
Started by: Peter Vickery
In Massachusetts, natural gas is the source of about half of our electricity. We have a responsibility to ensure that the drilling companies that extract the natural gas from underground use methods that are safe and that they publicly disclose the chemicals they use in the process.

Natural gas may be cleaner than coal, but that doesn't mean it's clean. Getting natural gas out from underground by the process called hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) can pollute the air and poison people's drinking water. Drilling companies don't even have to tell us what chemicals they're injecting into the ground to force the gas out. Dangerous unregulated fracking is a public health hazard and it has to stop.

Although dangerous unregulated fracking doesn't happen in Massachusetts, there is something we can do to stop it. We can require the power companies to certify that the natural gas they use in Massachusetts complies with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act's underground injection control program requirements.

Until Congress did the industry a huge favor by creating a loophole in 2005, those federal regulations covered fracking. Closing that loophole at the federal level is essential. But we can't afford to wait for Congress. We have to get to work at the state level.

That's why it's so important for the Massachusetts Legislature to pass the Act to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing, which would require power companies to (a) publicly disclose all the chemicals that the drillers used in obtaining the natural gas, and (b) certify that the extraction process complied with the Safe Drinking Water Act's underground injection control program requirements, the rules that used to regulate fracking before 2005.

By signing this petition we're telling Massachusetts lawmakers to ensure that the natural gas coming into the state was extracted safely and that the public knows what chemicals the drilling companies used in the process.

For the sake of clean air and safe drinking water, let's beat back fracking in Massachusetts!

The Bay State Push to Move Away From Coal


The Mount Tom coal plant in Holyoke, Massachusetts poses an interesting ethical quandary. On the one hand, it annually pumps about 1 million tons of toxic CO2 into the increasingly fragile atmosphere. On the other hand, it generates 146 kilowatts of much-needed electricity, keeps about 50 people gainfully employed, and contributes nearly $2 million to the community in taxes.

What’s the best course of action in this case? Shut down the plant and cut electricity, jobs and tax revenue? Or keep it open and contribute to global warming?

A new bill introduced in Massachusetts says the answer should actually be neither. Rather than forcing the state to close the coal plant, its supporters want Mount Tom to switch to renewable energy sources or natural gas. Peter Vickery, one of the bill’s proponents, and the creator of a petition on Change.org, puts the mission simply: “Keep Mount Tom open, but minus the coal.”

This highly sensible tenet is one of many in the so-called Act to Phase-Out Coal Burning in Massachusetts, which also asks for the closure or conversion of all other Bay State coal-burning plants (there are currently two others alive and kicking, one of which is already scheduled for closure). For instance, the deadline it sets for change is 2020—giving plant owners a more-than-reasonable time frame to figure out logistics. And if a plant gets shuttered rather than converted over, it asks for a Community Repowering Fund to help laid-off employees and the local community get back on their feet.

In an op-ed, Vickery also tackles the inevitable question of will it work? He provides detailed examples of other plants that have successfully made the toxic-to-green leap, including four in Colorado, one in Minnesota, and one in Mount Tom’s backyard.

But what’s really reasonable about the legislation is its central motive: prevent coal from wreaking havoc on the ecosystem. Vickery notes that coal makes up roughly one-third of the U.S.’s total CO2 output. And on her official website, the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lori Ehlrich, says virtually all of the coal burned in Massachusetts is imported from other states or countries, and is often mined under dangerous conditions.

Combating this, while also keeping precious jobs in place and the fragile economy in balance, seems like an easy win-win—which is probably why more than a thousand people have already e-mailed Mount Tom’s owners, GDF Suez, asking for a conversion. It also explains why the legislation has elicited the support of groups including the Sierra Club, the clean-energy labor organization GreenWork, and Neighbor to Neighbor, a group that serves low-income communities. Even more promising? All that support has come in advance of the campaign’s official kickoff during a public meeting February 23.

Vickery, a master's degree candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst's Center for Public Policy and Administration, says the goal of the act is to spur “clean-energy innovation and job creation.” It’s nice to know there’s no reason we have to choose between the two.

Support jobs and the environment by signing Vickery's petition to support the Act to Phase Out Coal Burning in Massachusetts.