With all the talk about late budgets, overtime scandals, and, of course, contested primaries, the Massachusetts environmental bond bill (H.4613/S.249) has garnered little attention. At first glance, the bond bill, technically entitled An Act Promoting Climate Change Adaptation, Environmental and Natural Resource Protection, and Investment in Recreational Assets and Opportunity, looks rather innocuous. The most recent version of the bill includes a number of provisions long coveted by the environmental policy community, including funding for a property buyback program and the creation of an appointed advisory group to oversee state adaptation planning. However, save these items, few observers will find anything revolutionary about the bond bill, which allocates roughly $2 billion to support state adaptation programs.
Yet when considered against the backdrop of the larger national debate over climate change, the bond bill provides a potential blueprint for resuscitating the Democratic Party’s environmental policy agenda, particularly at the national level. Democrats have essentially punted on the issue of climate change in recent years. The party does not appear to have a coherent climate change messaging strategy, let alone an actual policy proposal. Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic went so far as to suggest the Democrats are “shockingly unprepared to fight climate change,” adding that the party has “struggled to formulate a post-Obama climate policy.” Indeed, in his now famous rebuttal to President Trump’s 2018 State of the Union Address, Representative Joe Kennedy did not even mention the term climate change once.
For years, environmentalists dismissed adaptation as an unsavory, if not unethical, alternative to climate mitigation. Many feared it falsely suggested to voters that we can somehow build our way out of the climate problem. But political gridlock coupled with increased recognition that many climate-related hazards were unavoidable, prompted environmentalists to eventually accept adaptation as a viable, if not essential, weapon in the fight to against climate change. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether policymakers got the memo. Save a handful of exceptions, the national government as well as most state governments have yet to launch any sort of comprehensive adaptation program.
Enter the Massachusetts environmental bond bill. Embedded within the more than 90-page document are scores of provisions that would funnel money into cities and towns across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Notable examples include, but are certainly not limited to, $60 million for coastal infrastructure and resiliency projects (e.g., seawalls, beach nourishment, and jetties); $74 million for the repair or removal of municipally owned dams; $55 million for wetland restoration; and $21 million for the construction, improvement, and rehabilitation of coastal and inland waterways.
Whereas many voters struggle to conceptualize the value of cap-and-trade programs and other emission reduction schemes, the bond bill funds projects that will have an immediate and observable impact on the lives of Massachusetts residents. In this respect, it promises to accomplish something seldom seen in the post-Obama climate policy era: It heightens the political salience of climate change policy. By freeing up money for critical infrastructure and resilience projects, the bond bill will create a much need political economy for adaptation policy.
Adaptation is not going to fix the climate problem. However, when paired with mitigation and clean energy programs, it may provide a useful strategy for activating a new climate coalition. Of course, testing this hypothesis will require that the state legislature actually pass the bill. As of this writing, the environmental bond bill is sitting in conference committee. While many of observers are optimistic it will find its way to the Governor Baker’s desk, time is quickly running out—the legislative session ends next week. Finger crossed the state legislature seizes on this opportunity to forge a new path for climate change policy. Their colleagues D.C. desperately need the help.