State-Local Partnerships Critical In Dealing With Climate Change

A release from the office of State Representative Paul Brodeur:

Earlier this session I was proud to cast a vote in favor of passing An Act promoting climate change adaptation, environmental and natural resource protection, and investment in recreational assets and opportunity. This bipartisan legislation, which Governor Baker signed into law on August 9, authorizes over $2.4 billion in capital investments safeguarding residents, municipalities and businesses from the impacts of climate change, protecting environmental resources, and improving recreational opportunities for all our residents.

As the saying goes, “think global, act local”, and I am particularly excited about the resources being made available to our cities and towns because of this legislation. The legislation allocates $581 million to continue supporting communities around the Commonwealth and the environmental stewardship work they do, including $405 million for community investment grant programs for municipalities, regional planning agencies and other eligible entities, $35 million for tree planting and forest land protection programs, and $55 million for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Complete Streets Program which provides funding to communities to provide safe and accessible options for all travel modes - walking, biking, transit and vehicles.

This recognition of the need for coordinated planning and local input is the guiding principle behind a major provision of the act that empowers local cities and towns to conduct their own municipally-led climate action plans and to coordinate with regional and state authorities. These programs, including the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness grant program and the Statewide Hazard Mitigation and Adaptation Plan, represent a proactive, coordinated partnership to ensure a comprehensive approach to mitigation and resiliency planning.

With help from a grant program to be established by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, municipalities will be able to complete a community-led resilience building process and vulnerability assessment that enables climate change information and adaptation actions to be directly incorporated into existing municipal plans, policies and spending programs.

Melrose was an early grant recipient, and I have had the opportunity to participate in the Community Resilience Building Workshops and follow-on sessions. Stakeholders at the table included first responders, DPW, IT professionals, utilities, transportation officials, elder advocates, housing advocates, the Chamber of
Commerce, and many others. I am impressed by the thoughtfulness and comprehensiveness of the discussions and planning effort the city is undertaking.

(A summary of the workshop findings is available at www.cityofmelrose.org).

In the same way that we need to plan for infrastructure maintenance, turnover in our schools, changing demographics, and financial outlooks, we must also determine what concrete steps our communities will take to prepare and mitigate climate change. The grant program, and planning activities it enables, will
empower our communities to develop these reports and plans more robustly and to implement them more effectively.

Our community will emerge stronger, better informed, and more committed to sustainability across sectors. For a problem as encompassing and sometimes unfathomable as climate change, I believe taking this community based approach to change is imperative. I was proud to support these initiatives with my vote and
am will continue to support the state-local partnerships that will be critical to our long-term commitment to dealing with climate change.