Massachusetts state agencies have missed filing reports showing they trimmed emissions coming from state owned vehicles. Regulators didn’t enforce the rule, and now it’s raising fresh questions about oversight as the state presses ahead on its climate goals. Jordan Wolman reported on this recently for the Commonwealth Beacon explains what this 2017 vehicle emissions rule required state agencies to do and why it was created in the first place?
Jordan Wolman, Commonwealth Beacon: Absolutely! So, this rule came out of a major lawsuit where a judge ruled in 2016 that Massachusetts was not enacting strict and stringent enough regulations to meet the 2050 climate goals to cut pollution by 85%. And so, Charlie Baker, the governor at the time, responded to that litigation and that ruling by requiring his Department of Environmental Protection to issue rules that would get the state on track to meet those climate goals.
And so, the Mass. DEP came out with six regulations at the time, one of which is this rule that we’re talking about today that requires state agencies like the Department of Transportation, and the Office of Health and Human Services, to cut the emissions produced by their state owned vehicles and to submit reports to that effect to the DEP, showing compliance that they are, in fact, meeting the emissions limits laid out in that regulation…