Local Permitting Being Regulated

By Christine Rasmussen

Republican Governor Charlie Baker enacted a law in 2021 to have Massachusetts achieve 'net zero' emissions (based on 1990 levels) by 2050, with 50 percent of the goal being reached by 2030 and 75 percent by 2040. Since removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is difficult, electrification was determined to be the viable option to create clean energy. However, unlike fossil fuels, electricity needs power lines and energy-generating facilities to work.

In 2023, Governor Maura Healy appointed a 28-member Commission on Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting to "provide recommendations for reforms to remove barriers to responsible clean energy infrastructure development." During the winter, the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, MA Municipal Association, and Senator Paul Mark, among others, became concerned that the Commission was recommending removal of local control in the new permitting process. Unfortunately, that recommendation was in the Commission's March 29 report to the legislature.

Despite a massive effort to keep local control, in July, both the House and Senate passed versions of a bill with a requirement that municipalities approve only small clean energy (less than 25 Megawatts or transmission/distribution infrastructure projects of less than 100 Megawatt hours) through a consolidated permitting process within 12 months. Should a municipality not act within that time frame, the permit would be automatically approved, allowing the project to operate under standard conditions. Through the proposed consolidated process, it's unclear whether a municipality could effectively deny a permit application, in whole or in part, beyond simply determining compliance with standards set through the rulemaking process. A state Energy Facilities Siting Board will approve large projects through a consolidated permitting process within 15 months.

Because the House and Senate bills are not identical, for instance, the Senate provides deadline relief for municipalities if they cannot complete approval within 12 months because an applicant fails to respond to information requests or changes major elements of the proposed project, a conference committee of three members from each branch is required to iron out the differences, pass identical bills in both Houses and get the bill to the Governor before midnight on July 31. If that occurs, she'll have ten days to review, amend, veto, or sign the bill. As of this writing, no agreement has been reached. However, the feeling is that a version of the bill will be on the governor's desk.

Stay tuned.

Note from the Author: The most important greenhouse gas for climate change is carbon dioxide, which is why you hear so many references to carbon when people talk about climate change. We're adding 5 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere yearly.

"Net zero" means the total amount of greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere must be balanced by what we can remove by 2050. In practice, however, because we don't have many ways to remove atmospheric carbon, this mandate means we need to drastically cut emissions by electrification.

Photo: Lionel Delevingne