Beaton: Hydropower key to meeting state emissions target
Passage of the hydropower bill Gov. Charlie Baker filed with the Legislature earlier this month will be "truly essential" if the state is to meet the emissions reduction goals of its Global Warming Solutions Act, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton said Tuesday.
"Without it, we will fall short of the Global Warming Solutions Act," Beaton said. "Gov. Baker fully understands that, that is why he made it one of his priorities early on to file this legislation."
Passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Deval Patrick in 2008, the GWSA set economy-wide goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below 1990 statewide levels by 2020, and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Baker's hydropower bill would require Massachusetts utilities to solicit long-term contracts for clean energy generation, including hydropower, with the Department of Energy Resources. The bill, which was referred to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, allows for multi-state procurement.
When the first Climate Change Plan was proposed in 2010 to meet the goals established in the GWSA, Baker wrote in a filing letter that it assumed that Massachusetts would procure 1,200 megawatts of hydroelectric power to meet the 2020 benchmark. That hydroelectric power was to account for about a fifth of the total greenhouse gas emissions reduction, Baker said.
"This power has not yet been procured, and we are at risk of not meeting our 2020 goal," the governor wrote.
Beaton on Tuesday told the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change that the hydropower bill is "phase one of (the administration's) major attempt to try to stay committed to meeting the targets in the Global Warming Solutions Act."
"Gov. Baker and I are fully devoted to a clean energy future that reduces Massachusetts's greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Global Warming Solutions Act that encourages the innovation of our growing clean energy technology sector," Beaton said.
But the legislators who attended Tuesday's meeting said that the governor's hydropower bill may be a piece of the puzzle, but it will not be enough to ensure that the GWSA goals are met.
"One set of numbers I've seen suggests that if we're going to reach our 2020 goals or our 2050 goals, we've got to be active with equal intensity on a number of fronts," Sen. Michael Barrett said. "If only 20 percent of the problem today is electric power generation, then the addition of large-scale hydro from Quebec, and the leading of it today, may inadvertently be a case of a caboose heading the train, the tail wagging the dog."
Barrett said he views aggressive action in the transportation sector, which he said accounts for 39 percent of carbon emissions, as a key to reaching the goals of the GWSA.
"I don't think the bill that has been filed is the wrong place to start, I think everything we're talking about has to be on the table to get anywhere close to where we need to be," Sen. Marc Pacheco said. "I think we will be heading in the right direction if we adopt this version or a version like this to move forward because there is so much more we're going to need to do to get anywhere close to where we need to be."
Beaton told the committee his secretariat is looking at a number of other initiatives to diversify how the state generates energy and expects to have a more thorough report completed by the end of the year to show exactly where the state stands in its pursuit of the GWSA goals.
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