The Frontier State of Climate Policy Leadership

Speaker A: Welcome back to, uh, the Frontier State. My name is Ira Jackson. I'm joined by my colleague Tushar Kanaday. And today we are thrilled, uh, to have Melissa Hoffer, the Climate Chief of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as our guest in an informal conversation about her work, uh, leading in a pioneering way, Massachusetts as a frontier state of climate policy. Um, I must admit at the outset that Melissa is a friend and a public servant for whom I have enormous respect. And we're very grateful to you, Melissa, for joining us today.

Speaker B: Well, Ira, thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here with you this morning, somebody who has had such an important influence on Commonwealth and Tushar. It's very nice to meet you and I'm really glad to be here today.

Speaker A: We are just thrilled to have you because many reasons, but Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, your boss, our boss here in Team Massachusetts, has articulated a very bold vision. She wants Massachusetts to be competitive, inclusive, and sustainable. As the first state climate chief in the nation, Melissa Hoffer is on point to lead the effort to make Massachusetts perhaps the first truly sustainable state in, in America. What a bold and inspiring goal, and what a talented person to help achieve that goal. Let me just introduce a little bit about her background. Melissa Hoffer leads the Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience within the Governor's office. Chief Hoffer was a day one appointee of not only Governor Healey, but earlier, uh, of a day one appointment of President, uh, Joe Biden as Acting General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. Previously, she was Chief of the State Attorney General's Office of, uh, Energy and Environmental Policy. She also held senior roles at the Conservation Law foundation and for many years was a litigator and an environmental lawyer in private practice. Chief Hoffer is a graduate of Hampshire College and received her J.D. from Northeastern University. Again, Chief Hoffer, welcome to the Frontier State. And, uh, we are just thrilled to have you, uh, with us for this hour.

Speaker B: Thank you, Ira. Thanks for that wonderful introduction.

Speaker A: So what inspired Governor Healy to throw the long ball here and to create this position? And how's it going as the nation's first climate chief in any state of the nation?

Speaker B: Well, you know, you started off by talking a little bit about some of the core values that the Governor brings to her role. We want Massachusetts to be competitive in an increasingly economically competitive environment. Um, we want Massachusetts to be inclusive, and we also want it to be sustainable. And really now, Ira, uh, it's impossible to think about those things separately when you begin to think about the impact that Climate change is having on the economy, for example, it becomes very clear that, uh, regardless of how you may or may not feel about the environment, it is crucial for us to reduce our, uh, greenhouse gas emissions in order for us to be able to remain economically competitive. Climate change, as folks probably know, maybe your listeners know, really presents a systemic risk to financial markets. And I just want to give you kind of one big framing thought for this conversation because, you know, I do think most people tend to think about climate change as, you know, maybe they think about it as an air pollution problem, which of course it is. They might think about as a public health problem, which of course it is, and it's really a huge economic problem. Back in the spring of this year, Potsdam Institute did a study, and it's like a premier, um, research institute out of Germany. And what they were trying to figure out is what are the economic damages that are going to occur as a result of the greenhouse gas emissions that we've already emitted. This is what's already been, um, emitted through the past decades, um, that we really can't do anything about, at least not until we get direct air capture technology. So what Potsdam found is that by 2050, which is not that far from now, right? That's just a short 25 years from now, we're going to be looking globally at $38 trillion worth of damages annually from climate change. So that is a really big number. And one way to place it into some context is to think that in 20, global GDP was 105 trillion. You can see that that's a really big percentage. And that's dealing with things like floods, droughts, food shortages, crop loss, extreme weather events like we just saw with Hurricanes Helene and Milton, what happens is when the atmosphere is warming and the oceans have been incredibly warm for 2023 and 2024, have broken all kinds of records for ocean temperatures, and what is it drives much more powerful storm systems. So we'll see impacts like we saw with Hurricane Helene and Milton will just become normal. Um, and so that cost is really like, you can think of it as a not so hidden carbon tax. Right. We're all starting to pay for that now. And you might have heard, um, Federal Reserve Chair Powell in the spring gave testimony to Congress talking about, you know, inflation being so stubborn. And one of the reasons that he cited was increased insurance costs. So, you know, lots of insurers have been pulling out of certain markets. That's been happening in California, it's happening in Florida. It's happened to a lesser degree here. In Cape and the islands. Um, but they've also been pulling out of offering certain insurance products. They've taken pretty sustained losses over the past three years in the Midwest due to events there. And so what you can see is that climate price signal is starting to show up in insurance premiums and even availability of insurance. And as chair, uh, Powell said, that's having an impact or it's sort of placing continuing upward pressure on inflation. So when we think about our future and we think about what does it mean for us to be competitive, for us to be inclusive and to be sustainable, it means really getting a handle on climate change so that we can avoid to the greatest extent possible the future cost of today's emissions. That's a super important thing. You can see this is starting to impact supply chains around the world as well. Obviously when things become hard economically, that is always going to be more difficult for people who are already, um, on the economic margins. So it's another reason why. And when we think we just sort of like if we were together and we were to take out a map and see where the impacts of climate change are anticipated to be worst, of course that tends to be where some of our most vulnerable communities are already living. So if we really want to be inclusive and we really want to be thinking about, um, how to remain economically competitive, we have to get our arms around this. And so I think sustainability just flows from that.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Chief Offer for that framing and for that context for our listeners. Um, let me just outplay, you know, a bunch of questions we'll try to cover. We aim to target over the next one hour or so, uh, starting off, we would love to cover again going back to the pioneering position that Massachusetts has displayed both in creating the position of a state level cabinet chief and climate chief, but also what lessons can be learned from other states, how Massachusetts is leading this in the policy end. That's one part which we try to cover. We'll also try to cover public private partnerships and uh, you know, how Massachusetts overall is trying to uh, lead the conversation at the state policy level. And finally we'll also try to go through innovation ecosystems and uh, the future vision, uh, for, you know, for what Massachusetts brings to the table, what New York, what California, what others can learn within the U.S. and beyond. So yeah, over to you. Uh, the first question, so the pioneering position, right? How, how as the nation's first state climate chief, you're essentially defining a new model of state level climate leadership. Now what inspired Massachusetts to create this position and how do you see it potentially influencing other states? And finally, how does this role exemplify Massachusetts that's approached to being a frontier state in climate action, beyond the framing and the context that was so important.

Speaker B: Great. Well thank you. Thanks for that question. Um, Char and I think for Massachusetts, look, we've led uh, in many, many things. And climate is a space where the state has led for a long time. We were one of the first states among a handful to have a Global Warming Solutions act, which we passed in 2008. Obviously you know, Jim Milkey, who used to be the former um, chief of the Environmental Protection Division at ah, the Mass. AG's office argued Mass versus EPA to the United States Supreme Court, which was probably uh, perhaps one of the most influential Supreme Court decisions, um, at least in the environmental space and perhaps across the board in that it recognized that the Environmental Protection Agency does have the authority under the Clean Air act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, a holding that remains undisturbed even from the West Virginia case. So we've led in this space for a long time. We were one of the drivers of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which is the first ever regulated cap and trade program for the power sector. Um, so we know how to do this. One of the things when you think about climate change, um, it has largely been regulated um, um, in the purview of environmental and energy agencies. And this is true at the state level, like you see with um, MassDEP and our department of Public Utilities. And of course it's been true at the federal level where for the most part epa, the Environmental Protection Agency and ferc, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have been largely the spaces where you've seen, you know, leadership and efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions or to address um, uh, the expansion of fossil fuels. But that doesn't really work because climate change isn't just an environmental issue. We were just talking a lot about how it's this incredibly important, um, economic issue that's baked into um, lots of dynamics in our markets. Now that is also true, but it's also an incredible public health issue. When you think about the risk to people from climate change, the public health, it's huge. And it's not just the impacts, um, of a particular storm where you might see blunt traumas or um, uh, other effects that might happen in the immediate aftermath. We're also seeing many, many more people be impacted by heat, for example. That's going to be a big issue in the Commonwealth. Flooding. I remember talking to a doctor a few years ago, um, little Known, little covered. Fact is, when these floods take place, this doctor was out in the midw. Homes are flooded, you often see mold come in. So you have indoor air quality things. These are very expensive to remediate. Um, you have mental health effects from climate change, um, and it's not just the climate anxiety that many adolescents are experiencing today and that Britt Ray of Stanford has written about so eloquently, but it's also just the mental health effects of the stress of climate change, particularly if you're displaced, but not always. I was out in the western part of the state, um, not long ago talking to a group of farmers that have sustained floods, other impacts from climate change recently, and one of them raised the issue of the need for additional support for farmers who are experiencing these mental health impacts. It's a transportation issue, it's a public safety issue, it's obviously an economic development issue. It doesn't really work to just have energy and environment agencies thinking about it. You need your best people across the board thinking about it. So when President Biden first came in, he created the Office of Domestic Climate Policy, which was run by former EPA administrator, um, Gene McCarthy. That was a blueprint. And you can also think back to Commonwealth Development when Doug Foy came in in the Romney administration and was really working and coordinating environment, transportation and land use. So there are some models for this and I'm standing on some tall shoulders here, but the job is really drive climate across all of these missions and agendas. So the executive order that created my position gives me the authority to do that. People have to be thinking about climate change and it gave us an administrative structure that each one of the secretariats has a secretariat Climate officer. Now these aren't new positions, but these are new responsibilities for folks who have a key understanding of the mission of their particular secretariat and an interest or an aptitude in working on climate, um, change. And so it gives us that apparatus to ensure that that's happening. Now as a practical matter with this particular cabinet, we've got leaders across the board who are passionate about climate change and who really understand its importance. So we have worked very collaboratively and also I've been the beneficiary of um, um some incredible leadership and thinking on these. I come into this as an environmental lawyer, as Ira said in my introduction. So I have lots of knowledge about climate change and climate science and climate. What I don't know is all the leverage points within each of their own worlds that can get us to a better climate result. And I do want to just give you one quick example of this, which is, um, working very effectively with Secretary Walsh and through her connections with Mass Hospital Association. This year, hospitals contract with the state for reimbursement for Medicaid expenditures. As a part of that contract, um, we can also sometimes ask for things. So if you want to be eligible for reimbursement, here are some things that we may want you to do. This year, we asked if the hospitals would be willing to agree to contract with us to begin to, um, track their scope one and scope two greenhouse gas emissions. That's a really big deal because now they're in a contract and that's a contractual obligation. And then MHA has stepped up to say, okay, we're going to. We're doing this. We're with you guys on this 100%. And we're going to help hospitals understand, like, as they're tracking their emissions. And these can be things from, like, anesthetic gases or, you know, the building fuel that's used for the hospital. We're going to help you figure out how to lower them. And then we have NGOs, like Healthcare Without Harm stepping up to say, and we can provide some services to hospitals, too, to help you, to help you through this transition. So that's where we really benefit from somebody like Secretary Walsh, who's got. She knows, you know, how we might be able to move these things, and then, you know, I can come in and work with her on that. And we followed up that with a terrific convening that we just had about two weeks or so ago, bringing all the hospital CEOs and sustainability managers together to hear what, what's working for them and what's not. Because there are things the state needs to do to actually make it a little easier for hospitals to get to the net zero goal. But I hope that gives you some sense of the idea. Is climate change not just an environmental issue, not ghettoized as an environment or energy issue, but that everybody begins to see that it is very relevant to everything that state government and, in fact, federal government does. M. For a long time, the United States military has, um, characterized climate change as a threat multiplier for everybody to see how climate fits into what they are doing and to begin to ensure that all of our policy across the board is consistent with our climate goals. I just want to share one other quick example, which is when we first came in, um, Secretary Gorkowitz, who is the secretary of ANF Administration and Finance, one of the first things that we did, and his staff were Terrific leaders on this. This. We said, well, wait a minute, we have a capital investment planning process here. We really shouldn't be spending money in a way that's not aligned with our climate goals. So how do we change that? What do we need to do to make sure that, you know, when folks come in with their capital investment plan, if they're building something, it's going to be decarbonized. If they're buying a vehicle, it's not going to be an internal combustion engine vehicle. How do we start to put that screen on everything that we're doing? So, so I really benefited from their expertise there in our first and second years of putting that together. Of course that's iterative. You go through it and you learn things and you improve. But that has been in the way since the get go when we got in the door.

Speaker A: I just comment, uh, Melissa, that it's really a breathtaking vision. It's not only non siloed, but it's whole of government, it's holistic, uh, and it's, you're leading not only other cabinet secretaries and having them build climate resiliency and accountability into their activities, but also working through them with the private sector and the larger community. It's a new form of government and governance that I think positions, uh, you and Massachusetts truly as a pioneering state in this existential issue that every state and every nation faces. So just, just a word and a compliment to the breadth, uh, and depth of this reconception of what government's role is. And you're not just another cabinet secretary or Tsarina. You're really trying to, as, as best I understand it, build this into the DNA of uh, not only every governmental unit, but all of government's partners in the private sector as well.

Speaker B: That's exactly right, Ira. And that's how I often think about it and speak about it. It's sort of injecting it into the DNA of these other agencies. And I will say this may be the first cabinet level climate position, but I'm confident that it won't be the last. And I think you will begin to see it in C suites, um, in non governmental organizations as well. Because the issue is the defining mega trend of our time and it's just going to be. I don't know if you guys have read Tim Morton's terrific book, um, Hyper Objects, but it's just one of these things that's so huge and we're just starting to get our arms around it. When I first started working in this space, we were really dealing with it primarily as a air pollution issue, Clean Air act regulation.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: That's how we're going to get at it. That works well with power sector point, uh, sources, but, but not so well with other sectors. And what I, what I see now is the light going off everywhere in private sector, in government, in the NGO world about how are we going to finance this, how are we. It's a much realer conversation because I think people can see now the signal of climate change. So that's a good thing in that uh, we're sort of um, coalescing with that understanding. It's also challenging because we have lost an awful lot of time. So now we're at this point where we're dealing not just with the need to bend that emissions curve very dramatically. We also need to do it while we're making ourselves more resilient and we also need to do it while we're going to be experiencing some of the social transformation that will be, be brought about by these more, um, serious impacts of climate change that we've been unable to avoid.

Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely. And that's again a, uh, great addition to this conversation so far. Uh, we would definitely come to the whole of government innovation question maybe later on in the conversation once again as we reflect on life sciences from Massachusetts perspective. But I would love to pick on a couple of your points, um, on both this not being the first and only position, but may just be a template for so many more. Right. I can recall Time magazine for for instance, having a chief climate officer. I can recall so many private and nonprofit, uh, organizations already looking at and implementing this example. Um, and therefore I would love to switch gears to state level comparisons at this point. You know, let's spend maybe the next couple of questions on how, uh, Massachusetts perhaps in your opinion, but also objectively compare with New York State or California. Uh, first question. Uh, all three states, California, New York, Massachusetts have ah, historically competed to be environmental leaders. In which areas do you see Massachusetts leading versus learning from these other frontier states? How do you think about balancing regional coordination while maintaining Massachusetts competitive edge in climate innovation? This is broad. We may have a specific question for both of these states later on, but over to you. Onto you.

Speaker B: Yeah, so Massachusetts and California, New York have worked so closely together for so many years and you know, I will just note, um, they will be our, our partners, um, in the, you know, in the course of the next four years, pushing back on what I'm sure will be even more powerful, um, attempts to roll back the authority of federal Agencies really, even, even just to enforce basic Bread and butter, Clean Water act and Clean Air act laws. So you know, the importance of the states in this moment can't be overstated. And it's one of the reasons frankly why I was interested in heading back to state government. We um, have effectively lost, um, the Supreme Court. It's going to be very difficult for us to secure, um, wins there, uh, on the environment and climate front. And as you can see there's a silver lining in all of this and I want to make sure that your listeners are aware of this too. But there is a relatively little known case called Pork Producers, um, that was decided during the Biden administration. That case involved California's authority to create more humane standards for housing sows. These are female pigs in a meat production process. So a number of other states sued California over it and basically alleging uh, a dormant commerce clause violation. And the argument is sort of, hey, wait a minute California, your regulation effectively has an economic impact on our commerce and you can't do that. That's unconstitutional. As it turns out, states rights are a pretty important thing these days. There's ah, subtext to that argument that I think was not lost on anyone. Of course that turns on um, state's relative orientation when it comes to reproductive um, rights. So we're in a moment where states abilities um, to determine what happens within their own borders is kind of like a zenith. Right? And I think that helps states who are also trying to move on clean energy. So you know, we look at folks like um, now Justice Gorsuch, you know, when he was a judge on the appellate bench in the 10th Circuit, you know, having, having a pretty states rights orientation, strongly upholding California, Colorado's uh, ability to have renewable portfolio standard. And so that's where we can maybe begin to think about how that framing helps what we're trying to do on the energy side. So, so that's sort of thing one when we're thinking about the courts, um, you know, thing two is this concept of states as laboratories. This is where it's going to happen. These opportunities for us to move a clean energy economy, to move um, building energy standards to try different things when it comes. Like here we are trying to stand up, uh, an offshore wind industry on the East Coast. That state leadership is going to be an extremely important counterpoint to what we're going to see occurring at the federal level. So when I think about California and New York, I think about them first as critically important partners to everything that we're trying to do. And we do go things differently. If I were to. How can one not envy AB32 in California, which I think yielded something like $5 billion last year in revenue? Do I wish we had something like that here? Of course I do. It would be really important for us to have that revenue, and that will be a part of the conversation. This transition provide provides a lot of benefits. And if we begin to monetize those things. Just to loop back to the initial point as we're decarbonizing, and when I say decarbonize for your listeners, what I mean is getting the fossil fuels out. As we get the fossil fuels out of the power sector, out of transportation and out of building sector, there's enormous operational savings. I drive an ev. It's like it basically costs nothing to drive an evidence. Um, I have heat pumps in my home now. And as I've increased the insulation on my home, I know that that's going to yield operation savings over time. And when you put them into new homes, um, that are built efficiently with necessary insulation, you're going to get operating savings. But the initial transition is going to require some investment. And that investment gets us, uh, energy cost savings, it gets us health improvements that can be monetized. And we know this. And it also gets us avoided future climate damages like we were talking about in the beginning of the conversation. So getting people to think about the investment here and what we're actually getting, that bang for our buck is important. And so when I look at California, I wish that we had those additional revenue streams. And I think that that's going to become an increased focus for really every state that's trying to move the needle on climate change. Um, but I think in large part you see us experimenting, um, with different ways to approach things. And, um, sometimes when states step up and look at the example of the Berkeley gas ban. So that ban was, um, really visionary in a lot of ways. Let's make sure we don't have new gas hookups for new construction. That sounds pretty reasonable. We know that. Um, and let's not call it natural gas. Right? It's methane, CH4 on the periodic table. It has one of the, you know, like highest global warming potentials, um, of, of all of greenhouse gases. It's particularly impactful in like the, the first one to two decades after it's emitted. So it's one of those things where if you're talking to climate scientists and physicists, they will say you have to bring down methane first. It doesn't last in the, um, atmosphere as long. But while it is there, it is like 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It's dangerous and we should be thinking of it as dangerous. Methane is a really important thing to target. As it so happens there was an immediate legal challenge to that which went all the way up to the 9th Circuit that decided that what Berkeley had done was preempted by the Federal Energy Policy, uh, Act epka. And so with epca, you know, essentially, you know, the ninth Circuit's holding was you can't really do anything with respect to um, appliance fuels, um, because that's too much sort of in this federal space that's regulated and we can't do that. So um, then New York came out first, New York City with its own gas, um, ban. And then I think the, the state as a whole adopted it. So Massachusetts is not, not going to be doing that because we can see that those, those types of ways to skin the cat are probably going to run into a lot of legal difficulty. Um, and sure enough, I think shortly after the um, New York State did its gas ban, it was challenged in federal court. And I haven't tracked that case, but I do believe that um, I think the case survived a motion to dismiss, but um, at least I think the number of defendants has been narrowed. So that thinking about how to get at this stuff is really hard. I must say, as somebody who's been doing this for a long time, and just maybe to point it out to your listeners, the incredible irony of what happens with a case like this, because it's the same thing and it's a form of denial that we're still getting from the fossil fuel industry. So you guys might remember a case, Connecticut vs. AEP and this case was decided in like the early aughts. I think basically Connecticut threw up its hands and said, for heaven's sake, the federal government isn't acting on climate change. We're going to go after fossil fuel emissions in our state with our state nuisance law, our state common law nuisance law. And then of course the response to it was from the fossil fuel entities and others. Oh, hey, wait a minute. The only way that we can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel fired power plants is under the federal Clean Air Act. No way. And so then the Supreme Court says, well we think that's right. You know, it's got to go under the federal Clean Air Act. And hey guys, why don't you look at section 111 of the Clean Air Act? Okay, so EPA goes back dutifully writes the clean power plant under the authority identified by the supreme court M Section 111 of the Clean Air Act. And then the fossil industry says, oh wait a minute, wait a minute, you can't use section 111 for this. And even if you do, you can't do it through this generation shifting. That's a terrible thing to do. Even though of course that's how regulated power companies deal with lots of things in terms of climate pollution. So this is what happens. And so I think it's a similar thing. I bet you my eye teeth if, uh, we lived in a different world and EPCO turned around tomorrow and said, hey, we're going to ban fossil fuel hookups in the future, there would be some industry challenge to that saying, oh no, you can't do that. Even though they've just taken the position in the California case that EPCA would be the appropriate regulatory entity to go after it. So you're kind of dealing with this sort of, um, I don't know what you want to call it, uh, uh, nefariousness, um, when it comes to moving some of these regulatory agendas. But what it means for us is, and this is the really important part of, doesn't mean there aren't any pathways. So we learn from each other. California tries this, New York tries this, Massachusetts watches and we go, okay, we're going to do something different. So we do our 10 city fossil fuel pilot. We are looking at what we can do with appliances under our existing Clean Air act authority. We are looking at building performance standards, we are looking at indoor air quality, we are looking at all the things that we think give us a, a more straightforward legal pathway. Um, similarly we look at what just happened with congestion pricing in New York. That was very surprising. That was um, a real model. And a lot of time went into working that through. A lot of time went into working through the potential environmental justice impacts of it. Congestion pricing can be tricky in that way. Um, and so we were all sort of excited to see what happens with that. Does that mean we're not going to consider it here? No, we will consider it here. Whether we'll do it or not is going to be, you know, a decision of Secretary Tibbets Nut and the governor. But it's certainly something we're thinking about and I think we would take from it, um, you know, maybe some thinking about design or phasing in or things like that. So we're, I think we all see ourselves as learning from each other, um, intensely, um, you know, much in the same way that Reggie was the model. Right. Reggie was actually a model for the federal Clean Power Plan. Um, and I, I believe, I think I'm telling you the right thing. I think most of the statutes that adopted Reggie actually have sunset provisions that, such as when a federal program akin to it would come into place, you know, Reggie would cede to it. So I think that's how I see the interaction of us and working together now more important than ever.

Speaker C: Got it. Now, uh, these are some excellent points. I think you've covered so much base and that therefore I'll stick to two specific questions on California and New York. I love the framing around the intersectionality of transportation pollution, Clean Air act and so many other laws. Right. That you mentioned. So the first question is on California.

Speaker A: You froze on us for a second there.

Speaker C: Oh, uh, am I good? We can edit this if I froze. But um, I love the fact that uh, you covered so much ground around the intersectionality of pollution, of clean air, of transportation and of course of climate. So I think the first question to follow up from your uh, commentary is on California again. Now California's Advanced Clean Trucks rule mandates for instance 55 to 75% zero emission truck sales by 2035. And uh, they've set aggressive locomotive and fleet electrification targets. How does Massachusetts approach to transportation decarbonization differ from California's? What unique regional factors influence Massachusetts strategy? And I'll have a similar question for New York, but I would love to hear your thoughts on CA particularly.

Speaker B: So you know the, the way the Clean Air act works is a two car standard. And California, due to its historic pollution and smog problems, has always had the ability to create more stringent standards. Um, so then there are states under section 177 of the act that can choose. Then you can either uh, choose to follow the national standard that is set by the Environmental Protection Agency or you can opt to follow what California and that's always more stringent. So Massachusetts has long time been a 177 state. Um, we have adopted advanced clean trucks, um, and we have adopted the Knox rule, um, which will also have an impact on the trucking fleet. We've also adopted the passenger, um, vehicle standards which have us phasing out the sales of new internal combustion engine vehicles in the Commonwealth by 2035. So we are already on that path. Um, for us I want to just say I want to come back to the heavy duty trucks because it's such a huge part of emissions and it's also just a huge part of Traditional, or what's called criteria air pollutants under the act, things like NOx and SO2 and particulate matter. And these are things that, that really cause pulmonary and cardiac issues for folks who are located close to where those trucks, um, drive most frequently. So let's come back to those for a moment. But for us here, and I think this is really true across the board, the number One thing that MassDOT has learned when it's sort of surveying people about the transition to electric vehicles is still the issue with range anxiety. So if there is not, um, the perception that it's going to be as easy for you to pull up and charge as it would be for you to pull up to a gas station, I don't think we see the response in terms of electric vehicle adoption that we really need until we get that in place. So a big part of what the Biden administration did through its National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program was give grants to states to get that charging infrastructure built. So Massachusetts has $50 million, um, and we are in the process now of beginning the build out of a charging network. So all the sort of main highways in the state, like, you know, Route 2 in 495 and 95 and 91, you know, all of those highways, you will not drive farther than 50 miles without having access to a direct current fast charger. And those are going to start to be constructed in 2025. So just in a few months. That's really important because I think when people feel secure about that, that's going to open up. And we've done, you know, we've done pretty well. But if you, if you look at our report card, you can see like, we are behind in our own, you know, sector targets for the rate of EV adoption that we need to get to the decarbonization of our transportation sector. So charging is what's going to be really important there.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Charging is going to be really important. And for the Mass pike, because that is not a federally, uh, funded highway, um, we are going through a different process, but we will also see fast, um, chargers at all of the Mass pike plazas. And that's also underway, and that's getting baked into the franchise agreements. So I feel like we're making good progress on that on heavy duty. I think the state needs to step up here also. We're going to have to really ensure that we're doing our part. Now that the federal government and Massachusetts adopted these more stringent rules for heavy duty trucks. We need to make sure that there is a charging system in place for those trucks as well. Um, you know, those folks are going to need to be able to, because that's important to our economy. You know, ideally we would shift as much as we could to freight, which is less freight rail, which is less polluting. But we're going to be using our trucking system for a while and we need that to be safe and effective and affordable for our partners in the trucking industry. It's super important that the commodities get delivered and get delivered on time. So that is something that we're starting to look at, um, with our Department of Environmental Protection to think about. How could we speed up expansion of a charging network? Because the, um, the OEMs, the original equipment manufacturers, you got to remember these are fleet wide standards. So these standards to reduce emissions don't um, inure to like one particular truck or one particular car. It's a fleet wide average that the manufacturers have to do. And what's great about all of this, I don't know if you guys are, um, uh, blue sky or maybe you're still on on Twitter, but on the, you know, the climate reads there, you can see, it's really amazing to see the OEMs early on signaling to the incoming administration, hey, please don't take away the tax credit for electric vehicles. Please don't do that. We see now that this is a part of our future and this is a part of how we're going to be successful as a company. So we want to make sure that those incentives remain in place. So please do not roll back those provisions of the ira. And I just think that's great to see. And I think it reflects really not only well in the Biden administration, but also I think it means like the companies have seen the future, they see the writing on the wall and they know that, you know, it's just like the, uh, this was many years ago. It's probably like in 2018 I had the opportunity to hear the CEO, this was the chief sustainability officer for Mars, and he said something like, you know, it's super hard to sell candy bars in a world that is, is destabilized by climate change. And it's like, right, I think everybody's getting that it's going to be hard to sell anything in a world that is destabilized by climate change. So if we want to continue to do business and we want to keep our folks employed and we want to keep rolling our product out and we want consumers who are going to buy it, we have to make sure that we have a more or less stable climate, so I think that's a part of what's happening.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for again laying down such a brilliant answer to the California question. Starting off right, uh, I'll roll over a couple of questions, um, into one, uh, before we move on to the climate report, as you mentioned, the Net zero recommendations and so on, uh, this is in New York but also in Massachusetts, leading through a different lens. So in New York, um, now we understand that New York State has taken some bold steps with their natural gas hookup ban and new buildings, their climate action fund with cap and invest elements. Their DAX program for instance, mandates 35% of clean energy benefits need to go to disadvantaged communities. How do Massachusetts building, electrification and environmental justice approaches compare what we learned from New York's implementation? And a related point, I'll uh, roll this question together. At the same time, the Massachusetts Community Climate bank is the nation's first green bank focused on affordable housing. How did your experience at EPA and also engaging the private sector shape your approach to this innovative financing model? How do you see this institution evolving as part of the broader climate innovation ecosystem?

Speaker B: All right, well that's great. I'm going to try to hit all those, but Tushar, let me know, let me know if I miss any of them. Um, so you know, New York, I believe this is true. I think New York is the only state that has uh, already completed some scent of the level of investment required to get to net zero by 2050. You know, um, that the governor required me to provide recommendations to her right around the six month mark in our first year, which I did. And the first to deal with that question, how do we get our arms around first, the level of investment required to get to net zero, 2050 and second, um, what are the best funding and financing mechanisms for us for resilience? Because we have a host of resilience needs. And I'll, I'll um, provide some more definition on that for a minute. So you know, New York I think was a model in that way. Again, I think lots of, of states and local governments are going to have to start doing this now, um, and figuring out, you know, if we, if you look at why, um, we've had, you know, like in Massachusetts I mentioned to you that we've had this great global warming solutions act on the book since 2008. And then in 2021 the legislature said, hey, you know, we really want you to like move on this and we're going to give you a legislatively mandated net 0, 20, 50 requirement. Like it's not for lack of laws. I think in part I look at it and I think, okay, it's a governance challenge. You got to get everybody pulling in the right direction. So I think we're on that. Two, it's an adaptive management challenge. You have to make sure that everybody then within those organizations knows that their missions might be shifting a little bit. It and then three, it's like a money challenge, right? How are you going to pay for this? Something like grid modernization. Just consider for a moment that estimates for the cost of grid modernization. That's stuff like two way, uh, communication on the grid. Things that would enable US to do V2G where for example electric cars could serve as batteries, um, for peak shaving on, on days when we have, you know, the most demand for power right now we do that with some of our dirtiest fossil fuel plants. Depending on peak shave on a, on the hottest day or we'll be shifting to a winter peaking system here. So that's like the time when you've, you know, everybody comes home from work and you've got all of these, you know, electric vehicles and suddenly the demand for electricity is going to go up in the winter months. So having that two way communication on a grid is important. The estimated cost for total grid modernization in Massachusetts only is 20 to 40 billion dollars. So if you begin to kind of think about all these costs and how we're going to pay for them, one thing is really clear, which is that you cannot put all these costs on the ratepayers. Right? You can't ask ratepayers to pay for all of that. So that raises questions about who will pay, how are we going to get there, what's the model for it? So New York a bit ahead of us in trying to at least take that first step to look at the total value of the investment. And we are underway, we've had a study underway for about six months now on both of those questions regarding decarbonization and resilience investments. Um, so new models are very important. One of the things the state, and not just our state, but many states, is we give a lot of money away. We do grant making and we're going to continue to do grant making. But we need to move to a model where we get some of that money back, more of a financing model. So that, that really inspired us with the um, Massachusetts Community Climate Bank. Because of the issue that you raised with equity, we wanted to make sure that the first big thing that we do out of the box is really going to benefit the folks who typically are the last to get the benefits or sometimes are completely left out in this kind of a transition. And so we wanted to seed it at mass housing because we knew that it would reach people who would, who would maybe not typically be first in line for benefits. And also because mass housing has been around for decades, they've handled billions of dollars worth of transactions. They are extremely sophisticated from a financial standpoint. So if you think about what we're trying to do here with this $27 billion worth of greenhouse gas reduction fund money that, that is, that is coming through epa, There's a very well understood financing model for affordable housing. And we're going to go into those units anyway just about every 10 years to put new windows or maybe new appliances or do whatever else needs to happen to the building to maintain it. That's when we want to get in there and put heat pumps in and make the improvements to the building envelopes globe. And we know how to finance that. So there we're using this existing financing model and we're bringing in these additional decarbonization dollars into that capital stack to get it done. And so the very first product, and this is Maggie Superchurch, who is just brilliant leadership over there, working with Crystal Cornegay and you know, their very first product, they surveyed people first, mass housing mortgage holders. What do you guys really want? What would you do if you had funding available, Got that feedback, Build a model based on what people wanted. Imagine that, what a great idea. And they give you a human being, a real person who's going to come to your house, see what work needs to be done there. And then we'll hold your hand through the process of getting that work done. And then we'll help you put together all the state and federal subsidies that are available for it. And then when there's a delta in what's available from subsidy and what the project costs, we will give you a low interest loan. You will get that loan to get the work done and then you can pay it back over time. So it's no surprise that in the first 48 hours of this program they had 250 applicants come in. They were, they were swamped with applications. So that for me is a little model within state government, or not so little model anymore for how we can begin to do things like that in other spaces. You know, ideas might include, you know, a bank for resilience investments, for example, um, but starting to think about, like, how do we recycle those funds so that they're available. Another example is our Climate Careers Fund. And there we worked with Social Finance. And Social Finance is an entity that can bring other investment, impact investment to the table. So they wanted to help us solve the problem of worker shortages for the energy transition. I think right now we still have, we have about 34,000 worker shortage. And this is for everything. You know, these are electricians, folks who install the pv, um, on rooftops and other locations, you know, windmill scientists, technicians, engineers, you name it. It's the whole thing. But it's big and it's a very significant obstacle. It's right up there with financing. So Social Finance approached us and said, well, what if we created a fund and they've done this in other states and you guys put in 5 million bucks and we'll put in 5 million bucks and then we'll have $10 million and we can give some loans to people. So, you know, this can be for, like, imagine you're an adult in a particular, um, profession. Now you want the ability to make some more money, but you can't afford to take off work for that training. So what this fund can do is pay for, um, your tuition. It can pay for any wraparound services you need, maybe child care, transportation, a laptop. And so those wraparound services are yours. You're not going to reimburse us for that, but you will reimburse us for your tuition. Once you get out there and have a job and are making $45,000, I think is the cutoff or more. So that's the way that that fund recycles and we get that money back again then over time to pay for other learners to access these programs. So we're trying to think about some of those models as a way to stretch our dollars so that we get more out of them. Um, and that, that money is going to be available across the board. And this was also just an awesome example of how we can work with, with, you know, a partner like Social Finance who's got, you know, interested investors who want to see, you know, positive social impact, um, and can help us really make that happen.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Again, a fantastic answer. There's so much ground to cover. I'm, I'm just, uh, you know, worried about running out of time. We can obviously have this chat all afternoon. I think we have another 10 minutes with you, if I'm not wrong. Uh, we had about three questions. I think we'll stick to two of those three. Uh, first up, the next frontier. Looking ahead, the next five to 10 years? What would success look like for Massachusetts as a climate innovation frontier state? What role do you see for emerging technologies like fusion energy or advanced materials in achieving the state's climate goals? And then after this we can discuss the last one, which is an equity and access. But over to you again.

Speaker B: So I think there's really three things that I would use to measure our success. Um, and number one is have we figured out a way to finance this transition that is also creating economic opportunity. Um, so I think that's number one. Number two is this is getting more to the um, the social piece of it. So I'll just kind of say what it is and then we can kind of come back to it. Um, so, you know, number two being, have we adequately prepared and helped our citizens and residents prepare for the impacts of climate change? That's really important. And then I think the last one is, have we done what we need to do to actually make our infrastructure more resilient across the board? So I think those are three things and I want to be upfront right away and say I don't think of equity as a separate category. It's baked into all of those things and that's really important to us. So you know, let's take the first one and you know, we've been spending some time talking about it, but really figuring out through these initial studies how are we going to fund and finances over time, how can we work with our private sector partners to get there? That's conversations that we're having. Um, how can we get some of that, like the IRA has been so very good at leveraging private sector investment. That was sort of the genius of it. How do we make sure that that model continues? So that's really important. The second piece I want to dwell on for a bit. When the governor and I had the great good fortune to travel to the Vatican earlier this spring, um, much of that was organized by um, Chancellor ah, Suarez Orozco at UMass, UM Boston and his longtime colleague Ram Ramanathan. Ram has been a climate scientist for about 50 years. He's a prominent physicist who has worked in this space for a long time. Rom also takes the view that we are past 1.5. Um, so 1.5 was the lower of the two Paris targets. 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels. And it was thought of as the safer, um, uh, of the two targets under Paris. And you know, we have had multiple months starting in February of this year where the average temperature has as global temperature has exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre industrial level. So Rahm's view is that's gone. And because we've taken so long to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need a third leg of the stool. We need mitigation, adaptation of infrastructure, but we also need to help people prepare for the social transformation that's here. And um, that is coming and that's all aspects of it. It's readying communities to be more resilient to the impacts of climate change and also understanding that underway now Massachusetts experiences. Now if you speak with scholars like Mary Waters at Harvard, she'll tell you climate migration is already happening in the United States. We see people moving in migration from one part of the United States to another. And we also see people coming here, fleeing, um, climate driven circumstances in their countries that have made it no longer safe, safe to be there. So that's a piece of social transformation. How do we get ready for that for Massachusetts in a place that's shedding, um, you know, um, you know, young people who are going to live in other places. How, how do we take advantage of some of these folks who want to come here? How do we, who do we want to be when they show up? How do we make Massachusetts be a welcoming place and how do we handle that integration in a way, um, that's going to be productive for everybody in the state. So that social transformation piece is something that Rahm really focused on. And the heads of, um, the subnational governments that attended that conference, including Governors Healey and Newscom and Hoco, all signed on to a planetary protocol that was organized around this concept of masked mitigation, adaptation and social transformation. So I think for us a marker of success will be have we ready our communities, have we instilled and have we helped set up, you know, essentially structures for mutual aid, for mutual learning so that people have the opportunity to reweave, in fact, some of the social fabric that we've lost over the past few decades. How can this be a good thing? How do we get communities and neighbors to know each other again? So I think that's part of it. And then the last piece, of course, is resilience. Because right now, you know, we're looking at a business as usual, um, increase of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Um, and that is unthinkable, that is nearly uninhabitable for humans. It's six feet of sea level rise in Boston by the end of the century. Um, so it's really important that as we're trying to pull out all the stops on research and development for climate change, um, and reducing emissions. We really have to think hard about how we are going to protect our coasts. If I could show you. MIT did a fabulous study with MassDOT recently and it's just, it's heart stopping. You know you look at this map of the blue line and you look at the flooding potential under different sea level rise, um, scenarios. You know, we really need to move much faster on these things because it's actually a lot cheaper to bring us full circle again to take the steps now to make ourselves more resilient and reduce emissions than it will be to deal with some of these future damages. So this is stuff like sea level rise. It's um, you know, making ourselves more resilient to riverine flooding. We've had lots of impacts this year and that, that requires stuff like we've got, I don't know, something like 21,000 culverts in the state, state that probably need to be resized. We have low lying highways, you all know this. You, you see Morrissey Boulevard, um, you know we've got the tunnel flooding issues in the T. So you know, these are the kinds of things that we really have to, to be working on. And that requires some conversations, some hard conversations and communities have to start taking the lead. The state's never going to come and knock on your door and say hey you guys, you got it, you got to migrate, right? You got to move from here. Um, this is not safe anymore. That's not our role. But it is the role for us to support local leaders who want to have that conversation, provide data, um, and work with them to make that happen.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: In all of this you talked about the economic development potential. I know Ira, you've had Emily come and speak a couple of times. She is a phenomenal leader in this space. Right now. Massachusetts is one of four states leading, you know, in climate tech across the country. And this is because, you know, we've got this ecosystem here already with our academic institutions, we attract entrepreneurs, we know how to finance these things. We've got universities here that have the laboratory equipment that can be used so you don't have to go out and buy it. Um, so these, these are kind of the elements that were helpful to us in the life sciences. And we think we've got that same opportunity here with Climatex. And you know it's not just, it's not just the science and the R D. Right? Then there's the accounting, then there's all the lawyers who are going to go after the patents and do the trademark registrations. It's like the whole thing provides a benefit. Not to mention, you know, folks are working here and they're going out for lunch and they're having lunch somewhere. It's really important to be thinking about the benefits to the whole economy. Which is why when the Donahue Institute studied our, uh, eco development bond bill, they found that it was going to be attracting, you know, for every dollar we put in, I forget the number, it was something like $12 in return. Right. That we get from this investment. So we are super excited about that and we think that this is a way also. This is what's really interesting about how Emily is thinking about it is, you know, we have the opportunity to develop resilience technology here as well. Well, it's not just about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That's a big part of it. And, you know, we already have folks here like, you know, Boston Metal. You're creating, like, decarbonized steel manufacturing. We've got Sublime Systems out in Holyoke. That's like a whole place that's booming there. And the way that Mass CEC is thinking about it is we don't. We want this to be a benefit to the whole state. And this kind of brings back to your equity question. If you look at the map that we have developed, it goes from Boston to Pittsfield, and it looks at, you know, these major m. Um areas across the state that have historic, um, attributes that make them more or less, you know, the place to be for certain kinds of manufacturing and development. And so that's what we're targeting. And this has been, you know, the governor's vision from the get go is that, you know, we've. We've got people across Massachusetts who are going to be involved in and benefiting from this economic boom that will come with climate tech.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's fantastic. Once again, such a rich response to our questions. I would love to wrap up and pass on to Ira, but I would love to compliment that your Youth Climate Council, for instance, brings new voices into climate policy. And there's so much more that you've spoken, we've discussed today that gives us much more hope that the gains we would notice from the transition and the climate scenario will be much more equitably distributed to so many more geographies and demographics across the state of Massachusetts. Thank you so much. Chief Hoffa, over to you, Ira, to wrap up.

Speaker A: This has just been so informative and inspiring. Melissa. Um, ah, on behalf of Tushar and our many listeners, uh, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for taking the time. We're uh, so grateful that you came back from D.C. and took on this important and very hard task. But what could be more important, uh, what could be more important to our future? This is the existential crisis of our time and you bring so much expertise, passion and enthusiasm to this new role. And in addition, I don't know that our, our listeners know that we've looked at a, a beautiful backdrop as you've been talking, that you're also a small farmer, uh, out, uh, in west in mid mid state and have a, a herd of Nigerian dwarf dairy goats that uh, that you raise. So you're a remarkable person and uh, we wish you, uh, especially at this time, a happy holiday and continued success in pioneering Massachusetts as the frontier state of climate and innovation. We're so blessed to have you at the helm. Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you, Ira. Thank you, Tushar, very much. And I'm grateful to be in this role and grateful to the leadership of our governor and our entire cabinet. Thank you.

Speaker A: Happy holidays.

Speaker C: Thank you so much. Happy holidays too.