Representative Day On Reforming Energy Facilities Siting Board To Protect Communities

As we in the Legislature address our state’s ever-changing energy needs, many of our cities and towns are facing major infrastructure proposals that would place new electric transmission lines, natural gas pipelines and other energy storage facilities within their borders, often over their objections and without regard to their legitimate concerns over safety, property value diminution and major disruptions to business operations and everyday life.

Our community is no different.

Shortly after I was elected in 2014, and before I even took office, I became aware of a proposal by Eversource to construct a major underground electric transmission pipeline through Stoneham and Winchester. I signed a letter as “Representative-Elect” to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) voicing my objection to the proposal and expressing my support for a different project that would have utilized abandoned railroad lines and bike paths to accomplish the same ends of providing electricity reliability to the Greater Boston area.

As you likely know, FERC chose to approve the Eversource project instead. At that stage, the proposal moved to our state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board (“EFSB”), a nine-member review board charged with ensuring, “a reliable energy supply for the Commonwealth with a minimum impact on the environment at the lowest possible cost.”

As I quickly became enmeshed in the EFSB process, I realized that the statutory framework governing it was deficient in a number of important areas. For example, by prioritizing the lowest possible cost above other important considerations, the EFSB does not necessarily take into account the very harmful and real life consequences of proposed projects on our residents.

This realization led me to file, along with Senator Lewis, two bills that would change the way the EFSB operates.

While there is indisputably a need for additional energy capacity in our region, the municipalities that find themselves on a utility company’s preferred route are disproportionately burdened by these projects. An Act relative to the Energy Facility Siting Board (H.1736/S.1859) will clarify the EFSB’s charge to make explicit that it must first consider the proposal’s impact on the environment and public health before the bottom-line price tag of a proposed project. The legislation will charge the EFSB with prioritizing a minimum impact on the overall wellbeing of residents abutting the project over the “lowest possible cost” of the proposal when considering whether or not to grant a permit.

These proposed projects involve the imposition of significant burdens on cities and towns, and the utility companies proposing them do not always offer acceptable solutions or mitigation proposals to the municipalities affected. To best advocate for their residents, municipalities are too often forced to spend a great deal of money researching, drafting and filing petitions, motions and official responses with the EFSB. We filed An Act relative to reasonable municipal expenses (H.1737/S.1860) because of the significant costs absorbed by municipalities who are forced to file and appear as intervenors before the EFSB on projects that directly impact them, as both Stoneham and Winchester have done on the Eversource proposal.

This bill would allow a city or town to seek reimbursement from utilities for reasonable expenses, such as legal fees, incurred as a result of that municipality’s involvement in the siting process.

I recognize that we must address the ever-climbing price of energy in our region, and we all want a stable and reliable energy grid at low cost. However, the towns that find themselves in the path of new infrastructure proposals should not have to bear the overwhelming brunt of the burdens imposed by these infrastructure projects in the name of regional benefits without due consideration of their own legitimate environmental and safety concerns. These bills, if enacted, would provide important protections and safeguards for our towns, and I am working to build a statewide coalition dedicated to their passage.