From: rddonnellymd@aol.com
Sent: Friday, June 7, 2019 12:03 PM
To: RPS, DOER (ENE)
Cc: maria.robinson@mahouse.gov; karen.spilka@masenate.gov
Subject: changes to RPS and APS re wood burning.
I am writing to try to express how furious I am at this idea of
encouraging more greenwashing in the form of changes to the RPS and APS that
would encourage more harvesting of trees and essentially burning them
directly for electricity generation.
Here is what I think.First,the backslapping and congratulations for increasing
the RPS standard from 1 to 2% ,as opposed to 3% is unwarranted.I have had it
with politicians proposing some weak improvement that might pass,then having
business and the fossil fuel industries lobby for half of what was barely
sufficient.The RPS standard needs to be at least increasing 5% yearly.and it
needs to be with clean renewable generation.
How might we get there?First,don't knock yourselves out,since you're obviously
not up to the task.Just copy the leaders.
California has mandated,after many meetings,that every new house and building
have solar on it.Just copy them,beginning in
2020.
Mandate that every new hotel,business,school,municipal building,etc have solar
on
it.
If they must have parking lots,mandate that they have a certain amount of solar
canopies over the parking
lots.
Mandate that every house sale,over a certain price-e.g-$500,000 have an energy
audit and solar retrofit if possible.
Mandate that according to the building code,every garage in a house being sold
for over $300,000 has a Level II charger in the
garage. Move
to time of use electricity payments,this will encourage electric car owners to
charge at night.
Pass a carbon fee and green debit card bill. Begin with $25 per ton,increasing
$10 per year, returned as a green debit card progressively to taxpayers in the
state.
Increase the rebates for purchase of electric cars.Copy California's system for
this,giving greater rebates to lower income
folks.
I understand that GM and company are regretting their lobbying against the
proposed fuel emission standards for 2025.Let Mass. beginning in 2020 require
those registering new gasoline cars and trucks costing over $35,000 pay an
additional $1000 pollution surcharge to register those cars.Increase it yearly
by $1000. Use the monies collected to fund purchases of electric school buses
and city buses.If people want a new polluting expensive gasoline car or
truck,they should have to pay for the privilege,since we are paying for the
increased health and climate
costs.
Finally,every day I have to listen to news from Washington,where Trump and
McConnell,far from addressing the problem,are actively trying to make it
worse.I don't want to hear that my own state is doing the same.