While the 2018 election season has been marked by spirited debate over an array of issues, few have garnered more attention from candidates running for office in Massachusetts than the environment and, more specifically, climate change. David Abel of The Boston Globe deemed climate change one of the central topics in the gubernatorial election, adding that “Baker’s record on environmental issues may be the most vulnerable flank in his bid for a second term.”
At the same time, progressive groups across the state have championed environmental policy as a key plank in their agenda. Progressive Massachusetts, for example, endorsed legislation to expand solar power (H. 2706/S. 1846) as well as a proposal to adopt carbon pricing within the state (H. 1726/S. 1821).
And, although he is not currently running for re-election, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh recently announced the city’s most ambitious climate change adaptation program to date, the “Resilient Boston Harbor” plan. The plan includes a myriad of projects aimed at protecting against climate-related flooding, including the restoration of various marshes and beaches, the construction of new seawalls, and the elevation of critical infrastructure.
All signs point to a sincere—and growing—interest in environmental issues within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But to what extent has this latest strain of environmentalism permeated down-ballot races for positions in the Massachusetts State Legislature? Do environmental issues resonate with state legislative hopefuls? And, if so, what types of environmental issues have these candidates championed on the campaign trail?
Within an eye toward these questions, we content analyzed the campaign websites of candidates for the Massachusetts State Legislature. Since it is obviously far beyond the scope of this blog post to gather data on each-and-every candidate in the state, we only considered the 50 candidates who won a contested primary in September. In total, we sampled 42 House and 8 Senate candidates. Our decision to focus on this cohort was purely a matter of convenience. We previously collected some of this data for a previous blog post on 2018 primary.
We recognize candidate websites are not a particularly strong indicator of policy priorities. There is obviously a big difference between referencing an issue online and shepherding an issue through the institutional pathways of the Massachusetts State Legislature. We harbor no illusions as to the methodological rigor of this post. Our findings need to be taken with a healthy grain of salt.
This said, our analysis reveals some interesting findings, particularly when considered against the backdrop of the larger debate over climate change playing out across the state. Nearly half of the candidates we sampled (46% to be exact) identify climate change as a policy priority, suggesting environmental issues loom large in state legislative races. In fact, this number would have been higher had we expanded the scope of our analysis to include other environmental issues, like wildlife protection and clean oceans, as a number of candidates reference these topics but do not explicitly link them to climate change.
Among those candidates that do express concern about climate change, the overwhelming majority (greater than 82%) cite clean energy and energy efficiency as a priority. A number of members express opposition to the construction of any new gas pipelines, a no doubt salient position among many voters in the wake of the Merrimack explosions. This said, wind and solar power are, without question, the preferred mechanisms for diversifying the state’s energy portfolio. Numerous candidates call for a robust expansion of the solar tax credit while others express interest in making new buildings more energy efficient.
Roughly 26% of the climate-referencing websites highlight the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Given that state environmental groups have doggedly advocated for policy combating motor vehicle emissions, we expected a larger percentage of candidates to express interest in climate change mitigation policy. Even more surprising, we only identified one candidate (Jon Santiago of the 9th Suffolk) who openly advocates for a tax on carbon, which has become the holy grail of environmental policy instruments within progressive circles.
Nor does climate change adaptation appear to be a particularly salient issue among state legislative candidates. Fewer than 18% of the websites we analyzed reference coastal resilience, extreme weather, the various risks associated with protracted heat waves, and other topics related to climate adaptation policy. Among those websites that do reference adaptation, all but one is for a candidate running in a coastal district. This finding is, of course, not surprising, given that coastal flooding is one of the more readily visible consequences of climate change. This said, proponents of increased adaptation funding are behooved to cobble together more robust and diverse constituencies from across the entire state, as ensuring climate resiliency will likely be an incredibly costly endeavor that will require widespread political mobilization.
Moreover, the progressive wave of 2018 has yet to translate into a widespread re-framing of climate change policy as an environmental justice issue. Like adaptation, a relatively small percentage of the candidates (approximately 17%) underscore the distinctive challenges climate change poses to marginalized communities.
In sum, our cursory analysis of state legislative websites indicates the Massachusetts political scene has indeed gone green in 2018, although most of this enthusiasm is directed toward clean energy initiatives. The state is well-positioned to redouble its ongoing efforts to expand wind and solar, however it is less clear whether this renewed interest in environmental issues portends action on other big ticket items, like carbon pricing and climate adaptation. Either way, Tuesday is fixing to be an exciting day for the environmental community.
This post was co-authored by Alex Duarte. Alex is an undergraduate student at Bentley University, where he is majoring in Public Policy and Business Studies.