The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has less than a year to finalize regulations to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions under an executive order issued by Gov. Charlie Baker (R) Friday. “Combating and preparing for the impacts of climate change will require a holistic approach across state and local government and collaboration with stakeholders from all corners of the Commonwealth,” Baker said in a press release. “By signing this Executive Order, our administration is taking an important step to protect public health and safety, local infrastructure, small businesses, and our state’s abundant natural resources from the effects of climate change.”
That state’s 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) requires that the DEP take steps to reduce Massachusetts’ greenhouse gas emissions to meet output limits set for 2020, 2030, 2040, and 2050. The state has set targets for 2020 (25 percent below 1990 levels) and 2050 (80 percent below 1990 levels) but has not set limits for 2030 or 2040. The executive order requires that DEP set those limits by the end of 2020 and 2030, respectively.
A state Supreme Judicial Court ruling earlier this year determined that the GWSA also requires “promulgation of regulations by the Department of Environmental Protection ‘that establish volumetric limits on multiple greenhouse gas emissions sources, expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents, and that such limits must decline on an annual basis,” the governor’s executive order says.
To comply with the court’s ruling, “The Department of Environmental Protection shall promulgate final regulations … by August 11, 2017, having designed such regulations to ensure that the Commonwealth meets the 2020 statewide emissions limit mandated by the GWSA,” the order says.
