Our last Lobby Day was a huge success!

Get Ready for Lobby Day in June

White smoke poured out of the Legislative Team’s heat pump last week, indicating that they had chosen the new priority bills for the 2025-26 legislative session. The list of 18 top priority bills and several others that ECA Mass endorses includes legislation addressing forest protection, plastics control, building decarbonization, gas system reform, and electrification of transportation. Check out the selections here.

Lobby Day Plans

Lobby Day will be Wednesday, June 18, 10 AM – 2 PM, and will be our first major effort to advocate for our priorities on Beacon Hill. We’ll target key committee chairs and other legislators and include visits with some of our allies and supporters in the legislature. Lobby Day organizers are especially encouraging members new to lobbying to attend and engage in whatever way works for them. No experience necessary! Last year’s Lobby Day was a great success, and attendees all reported experiencing learning, inspiration, and an enthusiastic camaraderie at the event.

State House News

On Beacon Hill, the legislature has started holding hearings with the aim of accelerating bill... 

Roger Luckmann

The manufacturing of plastics is a major climate warming issue. Their production - and toxicity - are also becoming better recognized as a peril both to human health and to the health of the earth’s ecosystems.

As gas and oil companies respond to clean energy sources like wind and solar displacing fossil fuels in the building and transportation sectors, these huge companies are upping their use of fossil fuels in the production of plastics. Plastics - projected to undergo a three-fold increase in the decades ahead - are their “Plan B” for a profitable future.

Two bills aimed at reducing the demand for and use of plastics - one on...

Michael McCord, ECA Mass Plastics Working Group

Since being established in 2008, 297 communities in the state have been designated as Green Communities. As a Green Community, these towns committed to reducing their municipal energy use and qualified for state grants to support their energy reduction goals.

With the focus shifting from reducing energy use to greenhouse gas reduction, the state established a new program called Climate Leaders. To qualify as a Climate Leader, new criteria and goals were established.

On May 2, the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) announced...

Arnie Epstein

“The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience.

On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.”

Quote from timothysnyder.org. 

Maiyim Baron

Here’s an opportunity to actively support one of ECA’s priority climate bills, the Climate Bank bill, S.786/H.3937. On Monday, June 9 at 4 PM via Zoom, Sen. Paul Mark will meet with citizens from across the state to answer their questions and prepare them to join others in educating their own state representative and senator about the bill and ask them to co-sponsor it.

What is this bill? 

S.786/H.3937 establishes a Massachusetts climate bank as an independent public authority to finance and support climate and clean energy initiatives. This legislation positions Massachusetts as a leader in climate financing, while also supporting efforts to meet statewide emissions reduction targets and drive sustainable economic growth. 

Why organize a special coalition to focus on this specific bill? 

This is a...

John Micklejohn

All plastic and polystyrene is made from fossil fuels. Recent research shows that especially when heated, polystyrene and black plastic can leach into food. In addition, small particles of plastic called “nanoplastics” have been found in human organs. Over 60 towns in Massachusetts have passed some version of a plastic reduction initiative.

At the Monday, May 5 Town Meeting, Hudson MA passed a warrant bylaw (introduced by the Board of Health) to reduce the use of disposable food service ware, polystyrene foam, and black plastic.

It will prohibit... 

Tina Grosowsky

There's an important bill we're supporting and we need your help.

Green Energy Consumers Alliance, HEETlabs, and Rewiring America invite you to join us for an informational webinar on Massachusetts' Tactical Transition Bill (Senate Bill 2249/House Bill 3539). This legislation provides a framework to protect consumers from unsustainable gas infrastructure costs, avoid billions in stranded assets, and ensure livable wages for gas workers transitioning to clean energy jobs.

Webinar Sessions (Same Content, Two Options; Click on one to sign up):

May 19,12-1 PM

OR

May 20, 7-8 PM

What You'll Learn:

1. The Tactical Transition Bill Overview & Affordability Connections
2. Bill Specifics & Legislative Mechanisms
3. Communication Strategies
4. Tools & Action Steps

This webinar will equip your organization with the knowledge and resources needed to understand and advocate for this important legislation.

Tina Grosowsky

This work on climate change and migration highlights coverage of various climate-related issues such as water scarcity, sea level rise and wildfire. On the Move explores climate-driven migration in the United States. The author traveled the country learning how areas are preparing, or not, for the impacts of climate change.

Tina Grosowsky

From impervious-to-water, non-toxic adhesives stronger than any humans have created, to shells harder than most ceramics but created without heat, nature's astounding solutions to many needs will remind you of its creative power, honed over the eons of life.

Maiyim Baron

A "masterful, bracing" (David Wallace-Wells) examination of the impact that temperature rise will have on our lives and on our planet, offering a vital new look on where we are headed, how we can prepare, and what is at stake if we fail to act.

Tina Grosowsky

Rick Lent recommends this.

No book has told the story of climate change this way: hyper-local, full of surprises, full of true stories of life and death in one neighborhood.

Written by Mike Tidwell, the director of CCAN, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.

Ed Woll

Chris Ives outlines his environmental ethic as a series of concentric circles, beginning with ourselves and then moving outward into our communities.

The book considers actions bringing about lifestyle change and activism directed toward structural change. Discover a way of living that can help you slow down and stay grounded -

and at the same time reduce your ecological impact.

Written by ECA Mass member, Chris Ives.

Thanks to our wonderful photographer, Stan Eichner, for capturing these images from our April Chapter Meeting, in person at Robbins Library.

We send announcements of our meetings and Action Alerts to eca-mass@googlegroups.com, which includes all those on our active list. 

Please contact Dawn Edell if you want to confirm you are on our active list.

Be a fan and follow ECA Mass on Instagram!