Telegram & Gazette | Matthew Beaton, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs (ret.) | May 4, 2019
https://www.telegram.com/news/20190504/as-i-see-it-thank-you-central-massachusetts—and-beyond
I am blessed to have had the opportunity to grow up exploring central Massachusetts and its many beautiful natural resources. These experiences and an elementary school science fair project on “The Environment” at St. Mary School in Shrewsbury instilled in me an insatiable passion for the outdoors and subsequently, a life dedicated to studying and preserving the many wonderful resources bestowed upon us as residents of Massachusetts.
It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs in the Baker-Polito Administration. Their strong and empathetic leadership along with the dedication of thousands of public servants and collaboration with the legislature provided us the opportunity to accomplish many great successes over the past four and half years.
New England faces some of the most complex energy challenges in the nation and we need to balance lowering emissions, reliability and the high cost of energy. Our energy policies, focused on these central tenets, diversified the Commonwealth’s energy portfolio and stabilized electric rates through passage and implementation of comprehensive energy legislation, leading to the two largest renewable energy procurements of hydropower and offshore wind in state history.
We maintained our leadership as the #1 state in energy efficiency for eight straight years and invested over $220 million in modernizing the electrical grid. One of our proudest achievements was the creation of new programs to make energy efficiency and renewable energy more accessible to low-income residents across the Commonwealth.
During our administration, Massachusetts has seen over ten feet of snow, the worst drought on record, winter tornadoes and massive coastal storm damage, and we’ve become all too familiar with terms like “bombogenesis” and “polar vortex.” One thing is clear, our climate is changing. These observations and reflections on science and data led to the creation of a Climate Change office, an Executive Order and ultimately legislation that created a nation-leading State Hazard Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Plan and the innovative and wildly successful Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program to provide funding to cities and towns to complete a community-driven process to identify hazards and develop strategies to improve resilience.
In two years, we have enrolled over half of Massachusetts’ communities in this initiative. We also authored a $2.4 billion Environmental Bond Bill which authorized capital investments to safeguard residents, municipalities and businesses from the impacts of climate change, protect environmental resources, and improve recreational opportunities.
As Secretary, I continued to explore and fuel my passion for the outdoors as a frequent user of our parks, recreational areas and natural spaces. These experiences helped shape a plan to develop new stewardship programs to improve the ecological value of previously conserved lands. We allotted over $488 million in funding for capital projects in state parks and renovated numerous playgrounds, spray decks, and campgrounds. Two personal favorites were the construction of DCR’s new Walden Pond visitor center and the acquisition of Paine Campground in the heart of Cape Cod National Seashore. Additionally, we continued to improve the quality of our air, water and soil, create new innovative opportunities for our agricultural community and develop new solutions to challenges facing our commercial fishing industry that focused on the conservation of our precious marine resources.
To read the full op-ed, please click here.