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Environmental Groups Want Massachusetts To Stop Subsidies For Biomass Energy

Packaged wood pellets on a conveyor.

Environmentalists are objecting to the Baker administration’s efforts in Massachusetts to promote the use of forest products as fuel for heat and energy.

In a letter to Gov. Charlie Baker signed by about 30 representatives of environmental groups and scientists, the activists complain about the recent awarding of state grants, totaling almost $3 million, to companies involved in producing wood chips to burn in boilers and stoves.

One of the activists, Laura Haight of the Pelham, Massachusetts-based Partnership for Policy Integrity  said the Baker administration's policy is at odds with climate science.

" It appears that the Baker administration is really very aggressively pushing wood-burning," said Haight.

A spokeswoman for the Baker administration said the letter would be reviewed.

Legislation has been filed that would make woody biomass and garbage incineration ineligible for state renewable energy subsidies.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.