BOSTON — It’s up to state legislators to make the move to 100 percent renewable energy, a Cambridge lawmaker says, because no one else will.
“This is our job,” Rep. Marjorie Decker, D-Cambridge, said during a rain-soaked rally Tuesday. “If we don’t do it, who will? Not our president. Not Congress.”
At least 50 people gathered in support of S.1849, known as the 100 Renewables bill, before a hearing on it and several other energy initiatives filed by Decker, along with state Rep. Sean Garballey, D-Arlington, and Sen. Jamie Eldridge, D-Acton.
If passed, the bills would transition Massachusetts to 100 percent renewable energy by 2035. This would include the energy required for heating, electricity and transportation.
“What an incredible turnout on a rainy day,” Garballey said as someone held an umbrella for him under a steady downpour. “But don’t forget this rain came from a hurricane that was the direct result of climate change.”
Speaking about the passage of a 2015 bill in Hawaii that will transition the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045, Garballey said if Hawaii can do it, so can Massachusetts.
Massachusetts has proven before that it can reach ambitious energy goals.
In 2007, Gov. Deval Patrick set a goal of installing 250 megawatts of solar power by 2017, a goal that was reached four years early, in 2013. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Massachusetts has almost 1,700 megawatts of installed solar power to date, which is over the goal Patrick set for the year 2020.
However, the state still receives the majority of its power from non-renewable sources. In 2016, Massachusetts received 66 percent of its power from natural gas and a quarter of households used fuel oil as a primary source of home heating, more than five times the national average.
Opponents of the proposed bills testified to the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee that completely transitioning to renewable energy would leave the state without an energy backup.
Steve Dodge, executive director of the Massachusetts Petroleum Council, told the committee that Massachusetts can’t cut the cord completely due to heavy demands on oil and gas use and that without natural gas and established infrastructure, the state could open itself up to energy reliability problems.
Johanna Neumann, the New England regional director for Environment America, said the transition would certainly be difficult, but worth it for cleaner, safer energy.
“There’s no doubt about the fact that transitioning Massachusetts to 100 percent renewable energy will take a real investment in infrastructure,” Neumann told the Gazette in a telephone interview. “That’s why the initiative has a 30-year-plus time frame.”
In addition, she said the infrastructure in question is largely natural gas pipelines which have drawn a variety of public protests in western Massachusetts in the past few years.
The “Connecticut Expansion” of an existing Kinder Morgan pipeline through Berkshire County’s Otis State Forest is one such controversial project. Over the summer, numerous people were arrested protesting the expansion, 98-year-old Northampton peace activist Frances Crowe among them.
“Natural gas has serious environmental impacts,” Neumann said, “and there’s no reason for us to continue to suffer those impacts. We can do better.”
M.J. Tidwell writes for the Gazette from Boston University’s Statehouse Program.