Government News, June 23, 2016

The Government Action Team has been busy in recent weeks with important meetings and research. Last week we met with Protect Sudbury’s attorney, Richard Kanoff to review strategy.

Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healey, will be an important ally and our letter writing campaign to AG Healey is still in effect. Information on how to send a letter and a template are here. Attorney General Maura Healey’s Energy and Environmental Bureau is also hosting a listening session on Monday, June 27, 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm at Roxbury Community College. We aim to speak at this event to further inform AG Healey about our concerns. To attend, you can register with Event Brite.

We also are pursuing a legislative agenda in the Mass. Congress. House Bill 4357 is currently in Committee and is directly relevant to Protect Sudbury since it adds language to existing Mass. Law that requires the Energy Facilities Siting Board to review environmental and public health impacts when reviewing submissions such as the current Eversource project proposal in Sudbury. Protect Sudbury has already garnered some great support from Rep. Carmine Gentile and Town Manager Melissa Rodrigues who have both written letters to the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. We also had a substantive and positive meeting with Senator Jamie Eldridge, who promised to bring this to the attention of Benjamin Downing, Senate Chair of Joint Committee on Telecommunications Utilities and Energy, via a formal letter. Protect Sudbury was contacted by House Speaker DeLeo’s office about H.4357 and we continue to communicate with the Speaker’s office as the bill is still in Committee. We also briefly connected with Governor Baker at a speaking event, and informed him of our concern over the Sudbury-Hudson transmission line project.

In order to garner maximum support for H.4357, Government Relations has launched an ongoing project to develop a coalition of communities who can collaborate and highlight the need for improving the energy facility siting process. The goal is to reach 60 representatives of these communities so we can support Mass. House Bill 4357 as a group. The ultimate goal is to effect change on siting projects currently in line to be seen by the EFSB as well as future projects.