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Preventing Gas Expansion

About the Bill
Bill Highlights
Contact Your Legislators
Talking Points & Sample Tweets
Write a Letter to the Editor
Read More
About the Bill
Contact Your Legislators
Social Media
Write a Letter
Read More
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About the Bill

Full title: An Act preventing gas expansion to protect climate, community health and safety (H.3547 / S.2290)

Lead Sponsors: Rep. Bud Williams & Adrianne Ramos; Sen. Adam Gomez

The Issue

In 2021, Massachusetts set a commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and later created interim goals for 2025 and 2030. With ever-more dire warnings coming out of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we must act to meet the urgency of the crisis, and that requires a plan to rapidly and equitably decarbonize our economy. Meeting our goals and responding to climate realities are irreconcilable with proposals to expand fossil fuel infrastructure. In 2023, our Department of Public Utilities was clear in a key order on the future of gas: there is no long-term future for it in Massachusetts, and the time for transition is now.

As we transition away from a fossil fuel economy, it is important that we do right by the energy sector workforce. A clean energy economy must be one with good-paying jobs, and energy sector workers should be able to access those jobs and the transition should not be allowed to become an excuse for greedy CEOs to leave behind their workers. 

The Solution

This bill would help accelerate a just transition to a green energy economy by 

  • Preventing new gas facility construction or expansion within 5 miles of any environmental justice neighborhood 
  • Requiring gas companies to submit just transition plans, including not only measures to meet zero-emissions goals but also measures to do right by their workforce through workforce, development, training, staffing, pension system solvency, and other steps 
  • Creating a training fund for workers in the alternative fuel industry 
  • Establishing a Just Transition Office in the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development to ensure that workers in the energy sector displaced due to the energy transition have access to jobs in the clean energy economy and a Just Transition Advisory Committee to develop a plan for the Commonwealth 
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Contact Your Legislators

Find your legislators’ contact information here.

MA needs to take bold action on climate change. I urge you to support H.3547/S.2290, An Act preventing gas expansion to protect climate, community health and safety.

The science is clear: we need to transition away from fossil fuels and toward a clean energy economy. That means preventing new gas infrastructure in the Commonwealth that would create a lock-in effect of decades more of fossil fuel extraction.

But we also need to make sure that the transition to a green energy economy is a just and equitable one. That’s why this bill centers a just transition framework that requires a plan to ensure that current energy sector workers are able to benefit from the investments in a green energy economy and are not left behind.

Can I count on you to co-sponsor H.3547/S.2290 and accelerate a just transition in our economy? 

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Talking Points & Sample Tweets

  • MA needs a #JustTransition to a clean energy economy. The No More Gas Expansion Bill (H.3547/S.2290) allows us to leave gas in the past and build a better future. 
  • We need to put gas in the past, invest in the clean energy economy, and do right by workers. H.3547/S.2290 charts the course for a #JustTransition to a clean energy economy. 
  • The science is clear: we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground. We need to pass H.3547/S.2290 and stop the expansion of gas infrastructure. #KeepItInTheGround
  • The DPU has made clear that there is no future for gas in the Commonwealth. H.3547/S.2290 helps us chart a future to an equitable clean energy economy.  #JustTransition 
  • The future clean energy economy must be a pro-worker economy. Let’s put gas in the past and put workers and clean energy first in the future by passing H.3547/S.2290. #JustTransition #KeepItInTheGround 
  • Let’s pass H.3547/S.2290 so that we can end our reliance on fossil fuels and build a green and equitable economy that works for all.
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Write a Letter to the Editor

Adapt the template below! Or email us at issues@progressivemass.com for help!

With every year breaking new heat records, the science is clear: we need bold action on climate change, and that requires leaving fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Accordingly, Massachusetts cannot continue to expand gas infrastructure with pipelines and other facilities that would create decades of lock-in for dirty energy.

We need to accelerate the transition to clean and green energy, and we need to ensure that this transition is an equitable and just one. That’s why I’m so supportive of H.3547/S.2290, An Act preventing gas expansion to protect climate, community health and safety. These bills not only prevent the expansion of dirty energy infrastructure; they also require gas companies to submit plans to do right by their workforce in the transition to net-zero emissions, create a training fund for workers in alternative fuels, and establish a Just Transition Office to oversee the transition to an equitable green economy.

Let’s embrace this just transition framework and do right by the data, right by our planet, and right by our workers. 

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