Episode 175: Clearing the Air

3/31/21--After weeks of COVID cases on the decline in Massachusetts, data show that they are on the uptick. Not just here in the Bay State, but in states across the nation. This week CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said she felt a sense of "impending doom" and stressed the necessity for people to "hold on a little while longer."

In #mapoli news, state Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz has said she's "seriously considering" a run for governor in 2022, which brings Steve to take a look at the most recent approval ratings for Governor Baker out from Suffolk University and the Boston Globe. He explains the context behind the governor's high ratings.

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We're joined this week by two guests. Ally Jarmanning, senior reporter for WBUR, covered the recently published report out of Suffolk County that found not prosecuting low-level crimes led to less crime overall.

Then, State Director at Climate XChange for Massachusetts Tim Cronin stops by to break down the landmark climate bill that was just passed into law late last week.

Full transcript below:

Steve Koczela: [00:00:03] Welcome back to The Horse Race, your weekly look at politics, policy and elections in Massachusetts. I'm Steve Koczela here this week with Jenn Smith. Stephanie Murray, our dear friend and co-host, is off this week. So this week we have a lot going on, as always. But I think the thing that's drawing most of our attention is that after weeks of covid cases declining, we're starting to see them rise again in kind of an alarming way. Jenn, what's caught your eye about this trend? [00:00:26][23.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:00:27] Yeah, it's exactly as you just mentioned, which is I think a lot of us had already started to get into the mindset of looking ahead at the summer. You got the vaccine's rolling out and everyone's kind of saying, great, everything's declining. We're going to go hang out on beaches with friends. We won't have to wear masks, but we're not there yet. Remember, you know, the general public is not eligible for the vaccine until April 19th. And so we're getting, I think, this kind of typical mixed messaging for a lot of folks where you're seeing this re-opening happening on the state level. For instance, know restaurants no longer have capacity limits. Bigger event venues can have a hundred or upwards of attendees. You're only still supposed to have 10 people in your home. But when you're looking at all of these things that you're potentially allowed to do, it can be kind of hard to understand why the governor is standing there during press conferences saying we're seeing a lot of spikes among young people. You just got to hang in there and power through it until until you can all get vaccinated. Because I don't know what your peer group looks like, Steve, but there are a lot of folks in mind kind of throwing their hands up and saying, did you just open everything to tell us that we shouldn't be going? [00:01:42][74.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:01:42] Yeah, it does. It is kind of a bit of mixed messaging. In some ways. It feels like you're allowed to do all of these things. But if you do them, I am really going to be mad at you. You know, that's kind of right. A lot of the messaging sort of sounds like there's not as many people under 30 in my peer group. So, you know, the place where infections are rising the fastest, unfortunately, they're doing things that, you know, people like me don't get to do anymore. But in all seriousness, it does seem like there's been some mixed messaging. And I think that's part of what we can attribute that that rise in cases from it is happening, though, all across New England, you know, and in Europe particularly, it's been terrible recently by the sound of it, but it feels like we're almost there. But then we're not, you know, where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But there's still one more like cross track where trains kind of like Chromeo as you're trying to run for the light. [00:02:30][47.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:02:30] Yes. CDC director Rochelle Walensky was warning of impending doom during during a news briefing on Monday. And she was pointing again to this uptick in cases across the country, you know, not just the Northeast, but most places are, in fact, seeing this kind of uptick, and especially with some of the other variants where it's not the original covid variant that we were used to. But, for instance, Florida is having a real problem with the British variant right now. And so Wilonsky was saying she was trying to speak to governors to, quote, try to reinforce the need for current restrictions to not open up. So we may not be in the Trump era anymore, but we are, in fact, still seeing these kind of communication issues between states, deciding what to do for their own populations and how they're deciding to interpret the guidance coming from the federal level. So I'd imagine, Steve, the thing that you're following right now is what this looks like on the polling front, because we've talked before about how people felt Governor Baker was handling the pandemic in general. [00:03:36][65.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:03:36] Yeah, this is something that that we have been keeping an eye on for a long time. And there is just a new poll out. Just in the last 24 hours, there's been a new poll from Suffolk University and The Boston Globe. David Paleologos over at Suffolk University does a really good job. So certainly the polls that come out from Suffolk are ones that are worth paying close attention to. The things that caught my eye about this particular poll were that in terms of the overall approval rating that Charlie Baker gets at 67 percent. So the reason that that's notable is that there was a period about maybe a month ago now where it looked like Charlie Baker sort of honeymoon days. The six year or seven year honeymoon is finally over. You know that we are finally going to start to see his numbers look something more like every other governor where they start out popular and then it declines over time. [00:04:21][44.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:04:22] That had never happened to Charlie Baker and it looked like maybe it finally was happening. This poll were back up and more familiar territory. But the poll also kind of offers some clues as to what may have been going on last month. So when the polls that that showed him somewhat lower were taken, one of the things that was going on was the very, very poor rollout of the initial vaccination process. You know, the websites were crashing. You know, there were all kinds of problems in terms of delays and kind of understanding what you were supposed to do and how you were supposed to do it. So in this poll, it showed 58 percent said that they approved of the way Charlie Baker was handling the vaccine distribution. So that's lower than his overall rating and lower than his. Rating in terms of how he's handling the overall outbreak. So what that tells me is that there is some kind of I don't know if it's discomfort, but at least disapproval of how Charlie Baker has handled vaccine distribution. [00:05:15][53.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:05:16] And I should note that vaccine distribution now is much, much, much better than it was back in February. You know, there was a period of time and we were like 47th in terms of the states and their progress in distributing the vaccine. You know, now we're up and, you know, depending on the statistic that you're looking at, you know, we're number five in terms of the pace that we're using our vaccines. We're number six in terms of the percent of the population with one that's received one of the doses. So we are doing much better now than we were then. [00:05:43][26.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:05:44] Yeah, I'm I'm very interested as kind of the summer wears on, what we'll find out about people's memories in this one, because, of course, as we move into April and and everyone can basically everyone over 16 can can register to get the vaccine, maybe there's kind of a retroactive change in the impression on how the vaccine rollout went once more people kind of have those jobs in their arms and like are feeling more comfortable about it, even though obviously there's still plenty of kind of discomfort and bad feeling around the way that the vaccines were rolled out, because it's not as though, for instance, people stopped getting covid or stopped dying in the interim. So we may have a very strange combination of people who are relieved to have the vaccine in the summer. And so they feel fine about how it all went down in retrospect. And folks that saw kind of the damage that a bad vaccine rollout can do on a personal level who never really get over that one. And, you know, obviously, nor should they. So that's an interesting thing to be watching as we move into this kind of general public vaccine stage. [00:06:58][74.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:07:00] But I bet some other folks who are watching the governor's numbers right now are now Senator State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, who is, quote, seriously considering a run for governor. And so she is joining Danielle Allen, who we've just recently had on the podcast, as a potential but yet unannounced Democratic candidate for governor. And then we have Ben Downing, of course, another Democrat who has officially announced his candidacy. So I'm pretty sure no one is watching the governor's polls closer than those three at the moment, unless it's someone else who wants to throw their hats in. [00:07:32][32.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:07:33] And it does feel like there probably will be some of those people eventually. But one of the interesting numbers beneath the top line on this poll was the partisan breakdown of approval for Governor Charlie Baker. So throughout his term, Baker has done better among Democrats than he has among Republicans. And this poll is no different. So 72 percent of Democrats in this poll say that they approve of Charlie Baker's job performance. 53 percent of Republicans say the same. So this is something that I think that those candidates are going to be taking a look at, because those are the people that they need. Those are the first voters they need to convince, you know, to get through the Democratic primary. You know, they need to pull in some of those voters and then certainly to be Charlie Baker, if he decides to run again, you know, they're going to need to lock up the large majority of those Democratic voters. [00:08:21][47.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:08:22] Yeah, that's also a great point. And we're going to keep an eye on that. But moving moving a little bit closer to the present rather than the future in this moment, Steve, it's a day of the week. We are here in our virtual pod bunkers. Why? [00:08:35][13.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:08:37] Because vaccinations have not rolled out fast enough at all. No, seriously, we are here. We are. We've actually been here for over a year now. We've been doing this virtual pod thing for more than a year. But this particular week, we're here because we have two very interesting guests. Our first guest is Joe Manning, who's going to be taking a look at that very interesting study of Suffolk County recidivism rates and kind of what goes into influencing whether or not somebody shows up again in the criminal justice system. And then our next guest is Tim Cronin, who's the state director of climate exchange. And he's going to be walking us through this huge climate change bill that was just signed into law this week. [00:09:13][36.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:09:14] All right. Let's go have a chat with them, shall we? [00:09:17][2.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:09:18] Giddyup. [00:09:18][0.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:09:19] Steve. Steve! [00:09:20][0.9]

Jennifer Smith: [00:09:28] New research out this week found that not prosecuting low level crimes may have led to less crime overall in Suffolk County, and that's based on about 14 years of data. This study was conducted before the current Suffolk County District Attorney, Rachael Rollin's, took office. But the results support Rollins's decision to decline, prosecuting certain nonviolent misdemeanor crimes. That policy, if you may recall, received plenty of blowback when it was first announced. So our first guest today reported on the study discussing that strategy and its implications. [00:09:59][31.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:00] She is here today to walk us through it all. Ally Jarmanning, senior reporter for WBUR. Thank you so much for joining us. [00:10:07][6.1]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:10:08] Thanks for having me. [00:10:08][0.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:10:10] So first, let's talk about who was doing this research and what they were looking at. Where did it come from and what was the scope? [00:10:16][6.2]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:10:17] Yeah, so it was a team of researchers from three different universities that wanted to look at the effect of not prosecuting misdemeanors. What would that what would the impact be on recidivism? Basically, the the chances of someone reoffending, again, committing another crime. So they were kind of fishing around to find a district attorney's office that would allow them to basically go through more than a decade of data. And so that I know they were looking in New York and some other places. And I'm told that when Suffolk County D.A. Rachael Rollins heard about this, she wanted to be a part of it and gave them basically full autonomy to look through whatever they wanted, as much data as they needed. And it would be completely independent. She had no impact on the results or anything like that. [00:11:07][50.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:11:08] So we've all seen the headlines. But I wonder if you'd walk through some of what you saw as the highlights of the report? [00:11:12][4.1]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:11:13] Yeah, so they looked from 2004 to 2013 for the most part. So those 14 years are before Rachel Rollin's came into office, before she came out with her 15 crimes that she said level and nonviolent crimes that she said would not be prosecuted or that would be the default to not prosecute them. And so they were looking mostly at Dan Conley's tenure as D.A. And so they looked at like a bunch of so low-level misdemeanors, things like motor vehicle infractions, shoplifting, drug possession, things that like don't necessarily rise to the level of, you know, an assault or something like that that we would think about that would be in district court. And so they looked OK. So if somebody is shows up in court for their arraignment and the D.A., the ADA who's working in the courtroom that day, says, you know, we're not going to charge this person, we're just going to dismiss. You're not even going to be arraigned. What happens to that person compared to the person who is arraigned does get started in the criminal justice system on that crime. Basically, what happens to those two different people? And what they found was that the person who was not prosecuted, who was allowed to kind of go on with their life and not face any, you know, immediate repercussions from that crime, they were less likely to show up in Suffolk County Court again in the next two or three years, which is the time period that they looked at. Of course, you know, there could have they could have showed up someplace else. They could have moved they could have gone to, you know, Quincy or Cambridge and committed another crime. But from, you know, looking at Boston, Chelsea Revere and Winthrop, they were much less likely to show up again. [00:12:44][90.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:12:45] And so if I recall correctly, looking through this study, the researchers were particularly focused on cases where prosecutors had discretion, where these weren't kind of mandated outcomes. Why were they looking at the impact of prosecutorial discretion? And did they find anything interesting around that question? [00:13:01][16.7]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:13:03] Yeah, I mean, prosecutors have a lot of discretion. They can decide, you know, what kind of sentence to ask for, whether they pursue a case in the first place, whether it's dismissed. And I'll just add one of the really interesting things about that. It was kind of tucked into this data was even if somebody is prosecuted for a misdemeanor three times out of four times, it's going to get dismissed anyway, or they're not going to have a guilty plea in the end. So a lot of times through this whole process, someone might end up with a criminal record, but they don't actually end up with a conviction. So prosecutors basically were able to decide should we pursue this case? Is it worth our time? And one of the interesting things that Rollins said when she came on Radio Boston this week was that even before she took office, Dan Conley, the last year that he was in office, they were dismissing 42 percent of these kind of crimes anyway. So there was this kind of discretion already happening. There were these decisions that were already being made. And the first year that Rollins came into office, they they dismissed about 57 percent of these types of crimes. So it did go up and she did make it more public what she was going to be doing. But but Ada's already had the decision making power to to say, you know, we're not going to pursue this, t's not a priority. [00:14:12][69.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:14:13] For those who are perhaps less following this issue less closely. And, you know, criminal justice reform writ large. You know, the theory that I think has kind of been out there in our politics is that if you basically make the consequences. Really severe that people will be less likely to commit crimes. There's been a lot of research over the years that has started to chip away at that, but this seems like almost going all the way in the other direction. [00:14:34][21.2]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:14:35] Yes, so I think that there before we had this data, it was all kind of anecdotal. You know, you had the progressive prosecutors, people like D.A. Rollins, civil rights organizations, saying basically, you know, by by charging people for low level crimes, it puts a brand on them and it makes them harder for them to, like, get on with their lives, to get a job, to get housing, all of that kind of stuff. [00:14:57][21.8]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:14:57] On the other side, you had people who are a little bit more hard line, a lot of police unions, even like businesses that were saying, listen, if you tell people we're not going to charge you, if you shoplift, people are going to go wild and we're going to have, you know, lawlessness in the streets. And we really didn't have any data to say which one was right. Everybody had their point of view. This is now the data showing that if you don't prosecute somebody for that low over crime, they are less likely to show up again. And one of the things that the the researchers did was they did look at the effect of Rollins' inauguration on crime in Boston from 2017 to 2020. So that was before covid. And they found significant reductions in reports of property damage, reports of theft or fraud after she was inaugurated in 2019. And they didn't find any evidence of increases in reported crime for any crime type, really. So. So the idea that Rollins was going to come into office, criminals were going to find out, oh, I can I can do whatever I want now and then went and did so didn't really bear out. [00:16:02][64.7]

Jennifer Smith: [00:16:03] And so what have the responses been from the people who were I-- I basically say aggressively opposed to this kind of policy being talked about openly to to these to these results? Because I think the point that you make, Ally, which is which is really cogent, is that there was already a lot of discussion happening. It's just that they weren't going out and putting out a list of of nonviolent crimes and saying, we're probably not going to prosecute you for these. But there seemed to be something about the idea of saying it out loud that really made a bunch of folks nervous. And now with this data, have they calmed down a little bit? [00:16:41][38.6]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:16:43] You know, maybe I might have missed something, but I haven't seen any, you know, of those critics say, yeah, I was wrong. And it was interesting. You know, Rollins was asked by by our Radio Boston hosts, basically, will this silence your critics? And she said, just a flat no. You know, critics are going to be critics. And I thought that was interesting. What I'm really interested in is seeing, you know, when we have our next DA's race, like who runs against her? Like, what kind of prosecutors do we see run for other DA's offices in the state? Do we see, like, more of an acceptance that this is the way it's going to go and less of a hard line attitude that, you know, crime, crime, all crime needs to be prosecuted or that, you know, one of the things that some of the critics have said, like the D.A. O'Keefe on the Cape and Islands, that, you know, it's not a prosecutor's responsibility to deal with, you know, saying being being reformer's, essentially being. I think he calls on like social justice prosecutors. So there's this I wonder if some of that will get quieter. I'm not really expecting anybody to say to, you know, the union to put out a tweet and say, you know, we were totally wrong about this, but but it just might be a little bit quieter. [00:17:54][71.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:17:55] It really will be an interesting election year coming up. You know, voters have kind of been ahead of where political leaders have been for a long time. And just in 2022, we have pretty much the entire every elected official responsible for the criminal justice system is up in 22. You know, sheriffs, there are six year terms are expiring all the days. Governor, if Maura Healey runs for governor, then the AG. So it really will be a very interesting election cycle as it relates to, you know, policy discussions around criminal justice reform. [00:18:22][26.8]

Jennifer Smith: [00:18:22] I think that's a really good point. And it does kind of pivot to the question of what's next for Rollins as much as anyone else that's running against her. You know, if we're looking at a 57 percent exercise of discretion here and choosing not to finally prosecute these crimes, has she indicated that that's a good start, but she's looking forward to kind of raising that bar? Was she at some level kind of waiting to see what the results were from from everyone poking through the data? Or has this kind of been an affirmation that her approach is working and she's just going to kind of keep going as she is? [00:19:02][39.7]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:19:03] Yeah, I think I think it's an affirmation of of what she's doing. And, you know, she was asked, what would you have done if the data had showed the opposite, that not prosecuting, you know, has has negative consequences on people and on society. And and she said then we would have been having an all hands on deck meeting to, you know, change our approach. Of course, we can't prove a negative, and we can't know that, but but I do think it it gives her data to stand on and not just anecdotal evidence that that her approach works. And I think that, you know, one of the things that she said is that she's going to continue to look at the data on a regular basis and not wait, you know, 16 or 17 years to to do this kind of assessment and try to really review, you know, is what we're doing working, you know, and as I'm sure you guys know, she's in the in the running reportedly to be the next U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, which will be really interesting if she does get that job. You know, what kind of approach does she take there with, you know, a different different pool of people and a different set of crimes that she gets to have some discretion over? [00:20:15][72.2]

Jennifer Smith: [00:20:17] That is also a great point. Well, we got to leave it there for this segment. But Ally Jarmanning, senior reporter for WBUR, thank you so much for joining us. [00:20:25][8.1]

Ally Jarmanning: [00:20:25] Thank you. [00:20:26][0.4]

Steve Koczela: [00:20:29] Governor Charlie Baker signed a sweeping climate bill into law on Friday. It's a significant update to the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act and there are many complexities to walk through. So here to break it all down with us is Tim Cronin, state director of Climate XChange for Massachusetts and author of the Massachusetts Climate Roundup. And as a repeat guest, you get your own horse race title. So we're promoting you to the supreme commander of climate change legislation. Thanks Tim for being with us. [00:20:54][25.2]

Tim Cronin: [00:20:55] Well the honor is mine! [00:20:56][0.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:20:56] Supreme commander is, as I understand it, a relatively elevated position in all of this horse race guest armies that we've formed. So just take it take it very seriously, I'd suggest. [00:21:07][10.8]

Tim Cronin: [00:21:08] I will. Well, thanks for having me on anyway. [00:21:11][2.2]

Steve Koczela: [00:21:11] So what are the big what are the big pieces of this law? What are the big takeaways people should be focusing on? [00:21:15][4.6]

Tim Cronin: [00:21:16] Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, this piece of legislation is a rightfully characterized as landmark. There's so much going on. But I think some of the big things to note is it sets new targets for reducing emissions for the entire state to 50 percent by 20, 30, and then close to ninety nine percent, what's called net zero emissions by 20, 50. This makes Massachusetts one of a handful of states to set ambitious targets like this. And it also does a number of other things. And I won't get into all because there's a lot, but it does increase energy efficiency pretty much across the board, especially in new buildings and in the appliances that we use every day in interviews and restaurants and so forth also does a lot to accelerate the pace of renewable energy in the states, requiring utilities to be able to purchase renewables like offshore wind and solar. And then I think another really important thing that's been a battle for most of the last session was making it harder for fossil fuel projects to be built in communities of color, especially ones that are environmental justice communities. So these are just a few of the really important things that are there in this legislation. [00:22:18][62.3]

Jennifer Smith: [00:22:20] I'd love to dig a little bit into one of the points of contention between the legislature and the governor is this thing has kind of rolled on, which is about the specificity of the five year emissions reduction targets. Can you talk about kind of where that disagreement was happening and how the final legislation shook out? [00:22:39][18.6]

Tim Cronin: [00:22:40] Yeah, yeah. So emissions targets were are complex pieces in the legislation and have evolved pretty significantly over these past actually almost a year that the bill has been going through the legislative process. So on one hand, a disagreement that led to this back and forth that we're all pretty familiar with as this point was, we're to set to 20, 30 emissions targets. So the legislature called for a 50 percent reduction by 20, 30. Meanwhile, Governor Baker really called for forty five percent reduction, which was consistent with some planning that he had done in December, and that individuals like Secretary Theoharis, who runs the Environment and Energy Department for the governor, were supporting. And part of the disagreement came from this number. Supposedly there was six billion dollars in economic loss that could come from having that extra five percent by 2030. A lot of environmentalist advocates, economists really disagreed with this and the legislature ended up standing pretty pat on holding that line. The other thing that's really interesting is that this bill proposed it was originally in the Senate bill that ended up being included in the final compromise emissions requirements that target six sectors across the economy. They're called sublimits. They include things like transportation or electricity or heating and requires some targets for each of these sectors. And Governor Baker was really opposed to this. And in the end, they ended up reaching somewhat of a compromise where they kept sublimits. But instead of having them just exist, they ended up being kind of optional if the state doesn't meet its emissions goals for every for 2030, 2050, everywhere in between. [00:24:20][99.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:24:21] So how about for individuals? I mean, a lot of this is going to be things like how energy is brought into the state and that sort of thing and what kinds of infrastructure can be built. But what about at the individual person's life level? You know, a lot of the things that we do on a day to day basis do create emissions. So how is everyday life going to change for people? [00:24:37][16.0]

Tim Cronin: [00:24:38] Yeah, yeah. It is important to note that this bill is largely focused on setting pretty strong, legally binding targets. These are long term 2030, 2050 has been thrown around already in this conversation. But it's an important part of the bill overall. And this means that for the most part, the bill will not have immediate impacts on people's everyday lives. But instead what you'll see is changes that happen in the background but will impact folks overall. A great example of this is this fossil fuel projects like the Boston substation or the Springfield biomass plant, things like that that are opposed by members of both communities, environmental justice advocates and other folks will be harder to build in the future. And this will have a pretty tangible impact over the course of the coming years and decades on the air quality and the quality of life and environmental justice. Communities, another one that's important is construction over the coming years will be required to incorporate energy efficiency into the homes and the businesses that are constructed, which will mean lower long term costs for tenants, whether they be businesses or individuals. And there's other smaller things here and there. Like, you know, if you're looking for a job in the coming years, you'll have new programs that are administered by the CDC to help support you if you're interested in retraining and entering the green economy. So you have some of these hyper specific things. Most things will not come into effect immediately. [00:26:02][84.2]

Tim Cronin: [00:26:03] There's a lot of planning behind this legislation, but over the coming decades and years, you'll start to see a shift towards more renewable energy that will impact consumers mostly positively, either in air quality or in costs. [00:26:16][13.1]

Jennifer Smith: [00:26:17] So and the environmental justice component has been really interesting to me on this front, because, you know, we have a definition now for what an environmental justice community actually looks like. So what does it mean now and how does that actually change the way that we've been dealing with environmental justice on a state level? I understand now it means it's not just going to be up to the executive to decide what that means. [00:26:43][26.0]

Tim Cronin: [00:26:44] Yeah, yeah. That's that's I mean, there's definitely still more that needs to be done on environmental justice. But this bill is a pretty big win for the advocates who have been pushing for it over this past few months. And one of the most important things is that under the law, agencies are now required to look at what are called cumulative impacts of projects. So if you're trying to sort of project the fossil fuel project, let's say in a community, you must also prove that overall the burden of pollution creating projects or the burden of pollution in that community will not be overly that those committees will be overly burdened by these historic sources of pollution. If this new thing is put in. So it looks at these cumulative impacts and gives a lot more power to communities to oppose things like those two I mentioned before, or things like the compressor station going forward into because of this definition. So it's not just the definition change. It also changes the burden of where that kind of proof has to be on whether this is a good project or how the impacts of the community could shape out. [00:27:48][63.9]

Steve Koczela: [00:27:49] One of the criticisms of the law has been that it that's in some people's view, it focuses too narrowly just on mitigation, in other words, preventing as much climate change as we can, and that it doesn't really include enough in terms of adaptation and protection strategies. Where do you come down on that and what are what are some of the things that could be done or should be done in the future? [00:28:07][17.9]

Tim Cronin: [00:28:08] Yeah, that's a that's a great question. And I think too often I think mitigation and adaptation are pitted against each other. You need to do both. And this is a really important bill in terms of setting those mitigation targets. I think regardless of either one, a lot of the criticism seems to come down on the question of funding, getting to 50 percent reduction by 20 30, getting more charging stations, providing cleaner alternatives for environmental justice communities, and providing adaptation of seawalls and things that protect against climate change impacts. All that requires funding or that requires investments in green infrastructure, something that's even more important now because we're seeing hundreds of thousands of jobs, especially green jobs, need to be built as we try to recover from the pandemic. And I think a lot of the question of how you get that funding is going to be the most important thing going forward, because to achieve these goals, we need infrastructure and the jobs that come with that and to achieve goals around adaptation goals to me, that as well. And so I think there's a number of bills out there that are trying to do this, and I think that's going to be a focus going forward in this space. So I'd say both if I had to answer. [00:29:15][67.5]

Jennifer Smith: [00:29:17] Love, love answers that are both. The the kind of pegging of net net zero emissions to the kind of 20 50 marker is interesting, obviously, because I think we're all used to kind of trying to figure out where that that famous 12 year window was, where we have to deal with climate change within 12 years, or else we're all, you know, out on the ice floes together. The question is often kind of for me at least, how are we picking these numbers? What is it about net zero by 2050 that was so appealing to the legislators? And what kind of interim check points are we going to have up until then if you're trying to figure out how the state is doing it, actually meeting those goals? [00:30:01][44.0]

Tim Cronin: [00:30:02] So I think that the thing to note is that there are multiple different targets that we can try to achieve in Massachusetts and globally and states as well. And it's also important to note that Massachusetts is part of a pretty small part of the United States, as high as it comes to emissions and globally as well. And so in absolute terms, where Massachusetts sets the target, one have the biggest impact on emissions. But in terms of being a symbolic win and something that other states and eventually other. Countries can use as a baseline for determining where to set emissions goals. This is extremely important because showing that this is doable on a political level, showing that this is doable as a way to stimulate the economy and something that is overall achievable does have more of a knock on effect and will will allow for examples. And that can be replicated on the federal level or in other states as well. So saying the goal, it gets kind of murky. This is a lot of disagreement over whether should net zero or achieve a goal like renewable by 2050 or earlier. A lot of this is broadly scientifically based and a lot of this will also have a pretty substantial impact on reducing emissions in the state and allowing for less pollution that has health impacts overall. I think in terms of the targeting, this bill does a lot better of creating interim targets for 2040, five-year targets for allowing for, like we said before, sublimits to come into effect if, let's say, the state doesn't meet its 2030 targets. And so going forward, there's going to be a lot more, a lot more constraint and oversight over how the targets are sent, how they're met on the administration side. [00:31:36][93.7]

Steve Koczela: [00:31:38] All right. Well, Tim, we have to leave it there. Tim Cronin's the state director of Climate XChange and the supreme commander of climate change legislation. Tim, thanks so much for joining us and walking us through this. [00:31:46][8.8]

Tim Cronin: [00:31:47] Thanks for having me. Thanks for the title, too. [00:31:49][1.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:31:52] This week, we don't so much have a question as much as we're going to be addressing a question that was raised on Twitter in the grand tradition of how the heck do you pronounce Massachusets things? And the question was from one Julie Cohen wondering on a Wednesday, how do you pronounce the state's westernmost county hearing many different versions of late? So, Steve, how do you pronounce the Berkshires? [00:32:16][24.5]

Steve Koczela: [00:32:18] I feel like you just gave us the answer, though, now that she did a Twitter poll, which we love. We love Twitter polls on how to pronounce things in Massachusetts. And as of right now, when we're recording, we have forty five percent who said Burke shares. We had a fifty one percent said Berkshire's and four percent of Twitter monsters, said Burke Shiers, which I don't know Lord of the Rings fans out here. Exactly. Read The Hobbit and then travel to Massachusetts. Maybe that's where they got that from. So it seems pretty evenly split. We discussed it on the NPG chat, too, and there's strong disagreement there as well. But I think we should also note that neither generally are from Massachusetts. So we've actually decided to delegate final authority on this question to our producer, Libby Ghormley, who now joins us on the line. Libby, how do you pronounce this word? [00:33:05][46.5]

Libby Gormley: [00:33:06] It's, of course, Berkshires. And yes, I did I did take on a note of authority there, but because I am only a Massachusetts native of the three of us, however, Maeve Duggan the research director of MassINC Polling Group is also a Massachusetts native and she pronounces it Berkshires. So I'm feeling a little a little less confident with that knowledge, but--. [00:33:27][21.0]

Steve Koczela: [00:33:27] It seems like there's a pretty even divide on it. Berkshires versus Berkshire. So anyway. Good poll. Good poll there. We've now hashed out how to how to pronounce. But what did we decide? MA Ledge, mapoli and Berkshires or Berkshire is we're not really sure on that last one. [00:33:43][16.4]

Jennifer Smith: [00:33:44] Oh, it hurts. [00:33:45][0.8]

Steve Koczela: [00:33:46] Which one, MA ledge? [00:33:47][1.0]

Jennifer Smith: [00:33:47] Mahledge. Because Stephanie desperately wants you to pronounce it like SpongeBob allegedly does. [00:33:58][11.3]

Steve Koczela: [00:33:59] My leg. Yeah, my leg. We're not going to do that here on the air. Maybe we can paste that in later. But for now, that's all the time we have for this week. I'm Steve Koczela here with Jenn Smith. We'll see Stephanie Murray back here again next week. Our producer this week, as always, is Libby Gormley. Make sure to leave us reviews wherever you get your podcasts and post on social media that you listen to The Horse Race. It helps others find us and makes us feel better about ourselves. Do sign up for the POLITICO Massachusetts Playbok if you're somehow not already subscribed and call us here at the MassINC Polling Group if you need polls done. But for now, thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week. [00:33:59][0.0]

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