Will Brownsberger — State Senator, Democrat, 2d Suffolk and Middlesex District

The Senate passed a bill that generally forces greater accountability on utilities for keeping costs down. At the same time, it extends our commitment to transition to more use of renewables in electric power generation.

On Wednesday, June 8th 2011, at the Joint Committee hearing on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, many bills were presented mainly relating to the high costs of utilities state wide, their burden on large industrial companies as well as individuals, the leakage problem with natural gas and the need to replace the outdated pipe system. State [...]

By Audrey Schulman You can look up your neighbor’s house value, what their mortgage was, how much they paid in taxes, what their home looks like from the street and from above. In many municipalities, you can look up how much water they use per month and if they are behind in the payments. Why [...]

We are doing a “deep energy retrofit” of our home. It’s a nice time to drive by if you are interested in the insulation process — different parts of the structure are at different stages.

The Global Warming and Climate Change Committee held a hearing on the climate impact of the transportation sector this week. The presentations were useful and read well as standalone documents.

In this legislative session in Massachusets, we are not expecting much new legislative progress on energy issues, but at the federal level legislation is front and center. Congressman Ed Markey and Energy Secretary Chu seem to be leading us in a good direction.

Smaller housing units in high density areas are more efficient from both the building carbon use perspective and the vehicle miles travelled perspective.

Over the 2007-2008 session, I have spoken out and taken positions on many larger issues, but some of my most satisfying accomplishments have come from lower profile legislative work.

Our goal should be to create an economy substantially independent of the burning of fossil fuels.

Greenhouse gases in Massachusetts come in roughly equal parts from power generation, homes and buildings (mostly from heat, but also industrial processes), and transportation. Currently Massachusetts is moving forward very strongly on the first two sectors.

Pursuant to the Global Warming Solutions Act, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has begun to produce Massachusetts Greenhouse Gas estimates which appear to be authoritative.

Summary of legislative and regulatory initiatives in Massachusetts as of November 2007.

Long before global warming began to be recognized as a major threat, we had compelling reasons to end our economic dependence on burning of fossil fuels.