The “Bridges to the Future” event at the Westside Riverway Park concerns the Massachusetts Climate Superfund bill.
“Our bill gives the power to the state's Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to not only assess what the cost of climate has been in the state, but also who are the fossil fuel companies that have not only business attachments to Massachusetts, but that can be held accountable for some of the largest carbon emissions in the state,” said Rachael Boyce, climate justice and resilience manager for the Better Future Project and co-lead of the Make Polluters Pay campaign in Massachusetts.
If the bill were to pass, companies that have contributed to polluting the commonwealth would have to invest in a fund aimed at shoring up climate resiliency efforts.
“40% of the funding would directly benefit environmental justice communities across the state, since they are bearing the greatest impacts of climate change," Boyce continued. "The rest of the money will go towards projects including increasing urban tree canopy, addressing flood mitigation, supporting farmers that have lost historic amounts of crops over the last couple of years, not only to flooding, but also to extreme heat- Any sort of climate change adaptation project that is currently happening in the state that needs to not only receive funding because it has been cut by recent federal cuts, or has not been able to start because we just don't have the money for it.”
Pointing to a pressing local need, Boyce said one such project would be culvert replacement.
“Many culverts have been washed out over the past couple of years because of increased flooding," she told WAMC. "Some municipalities have been able to replace those culverts, but many have not been able to replace those culverts. This money will go towards projects like that.”
The nearby town of Adams faces exactly that issue, with uncertainty over the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s support for an almost $4 million culvert project leaving the long-awaited infrastructure improvement in limbo.
Boyce notes similar legislation has passed in other Northeastern states, and that the proposal falls in line with first-term Democratic Governor Maura Healey’s existent agenda.
“It's largely a tax relief program," she said. "It passed in Vermont and in New York, both in 2024, and that was the way that it was pitched to voters across the aisle, that this is a tax relief program. Again, these are projects that the state is already or has already underway or is already planning. I mean, as is laid out in the governor's recent environmental bond bill, these are already matters that she's hoping to fund- Again, that funding is coming directly from taxpayers. What we're proposing is that let’s create a fund that, instead of having taxpayers pay into it, it's the state's top polluters.”
Democratic State Senator Paul Mark, of the Berkshire, Hampden, Franklin and Hampshire District, will make remarks on behalf of the bill at the event.
“Where there's pollution ramifications from the activities of whatever organization – I mean, GE in Pittsfield would be the classic – that these organizations contribute to the fund, and then, if and when the negative impacts are left in our communities, that there is money that we can all rely on, short of lawsuits and all of that other stuff is going to happen anyway, but there is reliable funding to help gather the resources to make undo the negative impacts,” said the state senator.
As the Trump administration aggressively slashes spending on regulations, regulatory agencies, and other federal programs aimed at protecting the environment, Mark says Massachusetts must move quickly to bolster its own agency.
“I think what you're going to see happening more and more in the future is that either individual states or states working together in community, are going to start to pursue alternative methods of making sure that we're able to stay self-sufficient and stay on top of harm that is done and remedial problems that are coming," the Democrat told WAMC. "I mean, we can't live in a world where because the EPA gets gutted, or because USDA gets gutted, that we're just going to sit here in Massachusetts and think, oh, cool, that's okay, we'll allow a bunch of pollution. We have to find alternatives.”
The “Bridges to the Future” event in Pittsfield kicks off at 1:30pm Saturday.
