From:                                                       Glen Ayers <glenayers@gmail.com>

Sent:                                                         Friday, July 26, 2019 4:57 PM

To:                                                            RPS, DOER (ENE)

Subject:                                                   Comments on proposed changes to RPS regulations

 

Dear DOER,

 

 

Please enter these comments into the record for the proposed changes to the RPS regulations.

 

1. These regulations create a procedural mechanism that establishes and relies heavily on "Guidelines" that are used as an extra-regulatory, and apparently outside of the MA APA (Chapter 30A) process for approval of regulations. These "Guidelines" constitute actual regulations, in that they contain standards and programmatic substance that are regulatory in nature. In other words, these purported "Guidelines" are actually regulations that are being improperly called "Guidelines" as a way to get them out of the process required by the constraints of the APA. This is regulating in bad faith. All components of the proposed regulations must be incorporated into the actual regulations. Actual guidelines can be written after the regulations are promulgated, and should be limited to content that helps to implement the standards in the regulations, instead of serving to frustrate the requirements of Chapter 30A.

 

2. These regulations do not comport with the clear direction of the Kain Decision. There is no publicly available evidence that shows that the proposed regulations have been subject to review by DEP for compliance with Section 3(d) of Chapter 21N. The Kain Decision requires that proposed regulations comply with the requirement to reduce GHG emissions. These proposed regulations contain no analysis that ensure an aggregate annual reduction in GHG emissions. This is a failure of the consultation process between DOER and DEP and must be remedied before these regulations can be approved. Both DOER and DEP have failed to fully respond to Public Records Requests made by the public for records associated with the consultation process. Until the requested records are released and reviewed, and the public is allowed to comment on the content and understand the extent of the consultation and analysis conducted during consultation, this comment period must be extended. This letter serves as a petition to extend the administrative rulemaking process until DOER and DEP have released all requested records associated with the consultation process and the public has had sufficient time to review the records. A reasonable amount of time would be at least 30-days after all requested records have been provided to the public. The appropriate time for consultation is during the regulatory rulemaking process. If such consultation has not occured, and there is no evidence to suggest that it has, then these regulations are premature and should be withdrawn until the results of consultation and analysis have been disclosed.

 

3. The proposed regulations do not provide any actual mechanism that physically or statutorily ties the production of forest-derived biomass feedstocks with any sort of monitoring or control on the purported regrowth of the forest stocks that underlie the rationale for regrowth or carbon reductions. These regulations have no meaningful relationship to the lands where biomass production will occur, as there are no standards for enforcement, no monitoring of remaining forest stocks, no consideration of forest degradation, or measurements that establish a baseline condition to which qualifying treatments will be applied, either currently or in the future. The regulations lack meaningful mechanisms for enforcement of the forest-derived biomass component. I suggest that the entire biomass-related section of the regs be withdrawn.

 

4. The DOER must conduct and disclose an analysis of the public health impacts from the likely increase in air quality impacts that will occur from incentivization of wood burning. The fact that DOER has not conducted a full Health Impact Assessment and disclosed the results of such analysis indicates that these regulations are not reasonable or supported by adequate analysis of the impacts. Thus, those sections of the regulations related to biomass, wood burning, and air quality impacts should be withdrawn until such a time as the completed analyses have been performed and disclosed to the public.

 

Please enter these comments into the record.

 

Sincerely,

 

Glen Ayers

254 Davis Street

Greenfield, MA 01301

413-834-5273l