There are several dozen bills sitting on Governor Charlie Baker's desk following the Massachusetts legislature's mad dash to pass legislation before the end of their two-year session last week. One of those bills would aim for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but Baker has still not indicated whether or not he will sign it into law. GBH Morning Edition host Joe Mathieu spoke with GBH News State House reporter Mike Deehan about where Baker stands on the climate change bill as well as some of the other bills now on the governor's desk. The transcript below has been edited for clarity.
Joe Mathieu: Does the governor have reservations about this [climate change] bill, or is it just taking a while?
Mike Deehan: He does on the particulars of it. It's a very Baker kind of way — he has his plan and the Democrats have theirs, and he would prefer his, essentially, is what it boils down to. Whether that boils over into rejecting the bill, vetoing it, or in this case, just letting it die, it remains to be seen whether or not Baker wants to do that. He doesn't oppose this goal of a net-zero Massachusetts. He wants essentially the same thing the Democrats want here, and that is to get to no net emissions by 2050. That's the big long term plan. But he rolled out his own plan last month that has 45 percent of the 1990 levels of emissions by 2030. That's kind of the big first step over the next nine years. That's opposed to the legislature's 50 percent in their legislative plan. So it's five percent off, and that's the margin that we're dealing with here. Baker is really focusing on affordability; he doesn't want to see spikes in electricity prices from bringing on more expensive or cleaner sources of power. And he wants a freer hand in getting to that net-zero plan. He wants to keep the authority in the executive instead of having the legislature dictate. It should also be noted that Baker's spearheading this new regional alliance of states to cap emissions, and that will essentially raise the price of gas. So it's more about competing plans and it is competing goals.
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Mathieu: Mike, I don't know if we should talk about this, but it's an open contest, it looks like, if Mayor Walsh goes to Washington, as he's planning to do. But as far as Beacon Hill is concerned, how about this proposal to eliminate a special mayoral election? Is that making waves? Is that of any controversy?
Deehan: It's starting some chatter up on Beacon Hill. It's one of these home rule petitions where first it has to pass the Boston City Council, then it will go to the legislature and the governor. So that means that every lawmaker across the state — in the Senate, in the House and Governor Baker — needs to approve this thing or they need to vote on it. So that's not exactly just Boston's business anymore. Councilor Arroyo will file this petition that will make its way to Beacon Hill. Some folks are talking about getting that through the legislature. It would have to be something of a rush job. There's really no telling how fast they'd have to do that before March, [and] Beacon Hill doesn't work that fast. I reached out to Chairman Aaron Michlewitz from the North End who's actually the top member of the Boston delegation and he didn't even respond to the question. So he's keeping his cards quite close to him. These home rule petitions don't get very far in the State House very often. Even a lot of Walsh's priorities die noble deaths on the other floors of the State House. So you're really going to have to look towards people like Michlewitz [and] like Sonia Chang-Díaz in the Senate, to push this forward. Not necessarily because they want to run for mayor, but because they want to make this as smooth as possible for the city of Boston.
