Left In Lowell

Governor Patrick was in town today to attend Marty Meehan’s inauguration as Chancellor of UMass-Lowell. I was offered the chance to sit down with the Governor for a half hour and just chat.

Proposed Billerica Power Plant
One of the first things I really wanted to talk about was energy. First, in the form of dealing with the proposed Billerica power plant, which is of such a local concern. Right now, the proposal is up before the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB). Once upon a time, the EFSB never failed to site a new power plant, though the Governor mentioned that recently, they had. Which could be an interesting precedent. Governor Patrick has recently met with grassroots opponents of a proposed Brockton plant:

After meeting with opponents of the proposed Brockton power plant at his office Wednesday, Gov. Deval Patrick said he doesn’t believe the plant will produce “clean” energy, as claimed by the company behind the project.

In his first public comments on the project, Patrick said he would prefer not to have to build facilities such as the gas- and diesel-burning plant proposed by Brockton Power Co.

“The administration is seeking to maximize energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy opportunities to meet our growing power needs,” Patrick said in a statement. “That will reduce the number of new fossil-fuel power plants like this one to a minimum.”

The Governor also spoke about a bill going through the legislature right now which seeks to increase energy efficiency. When I asked him whether that was about efficiency in generating power, or in end-use, he said both. (I believe this might be the bill.) In reference to my concern about the peak power plant proposed for Billerica, he said, “What [this bill] does do is create some incentives to emphasize efficiency, and Ian Bowles, our Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs and his team believe that the efficiencies make peak power plants unnecessary.”

Let’s hope!

I also wanted to talk energy efficiency and renewable energy with consumer incentives. I’m a big fan of incentivizing consumers rather than directly subsidizing or giving tax breaks to corporations. As evidenced by the 100-year-old tax exemption on telephone polls, or the bloated corporate welfare federal farm subsidies (better to call them Big Agri subsidies if you ask me), once you give an incentive to a corporation, however well-meaning, it often sticks around long after it’s needed because industry can afford to buy politicians.

Governor Patrick was already one step ahead of me. He informed me of the Renewable Energy Trust and Commonwealth Solar, a fund which gives significant rebates for installing renewable energy on your own residence or business property. In fact, this post would have been written and published a while ago except I got all oooh-shiny playing around at their website. The rebates for eligible residents or businesses are quite significant. (For instance, if we ended up qualifying, we would get an $8,250 dollar 1.5 KW solar panel system for only $2,250, according to their calculator. They are not yet tax-exempt (meaning the rebate is considered taxable income) but they are trying to attain tax-exempt status for the program. It took me a while to figure out all the details but it was worth it. Patrick says there’s funding still available in the program currently and encourages people to apply.

Patrick also mentioned that there are programs to help you purchase energy-efficient appliances, boilers, and water heaters. It’s called MassSave.

Of course, I think it’s a great start, but we will need to keep growing the carrot-and-stick approach until all of us have made every transition humanly possible.

Patrick’s knowledge of existing technology for increasing efficiency was pretty amazing. He rattled off information about equipment that can determine when is the most efficient time to run your appliances (such as a dishwasher) and even turn these things on in the middle of the night. One of the things us bloggers found endearing about Patrick as a candidate was his wonkish knowledge of whatever issue was in front of him. That certainly hasn’t changed.

Health Care
I brought up the Commonwealth Care cost increases during our talk, and Governor Patrick did say that he does not think that “the Commonwealth Care net increase was in the double digits after all” but that “the fact that we have to debate this hard [about the cost increases of the state program] every year, about where the prices are going to be, doesn’t resolve the uncertainty and anxiety people have about health care costs…the shared responsibility, which I think is the good news about our reform, is under stress right now. People, individuals, have been asked to contribute more, and we’re still working out what more businesses should contribute, what more the state should contribute.” Later, he told me, “but there is still a need for the federal government to get involved and to be part of the solution.”

The Vision
Near the end of our talk, I asked Patrick what his vision was going forward. I think I’ll just quote him and let you read it.

[The green energy sector] is on the verge of becoming the 10th largest economic sector in the Commonwealth, 15,000 jobs…we’re working on this, and the energy bill is a big part of this. It’s got some great stuff in it. Secretary Bowles has done a wonderful job in working with the Senate and the House to get some good things out of this…Our focus all along is how we create good jobs at good wages, not just in the neighborhood within 128 but all around the state.

And acknowledging that there is an awful lot of economic anxiety out there right now, we’re putting together some elements of a stimulus initiative here in the short term.

When I asked him how the state would be able to afford such programs to stimulate the economy:

First of all, we have several bond bills coming through the legislature. That’s a seperate capital budget, we’ve developed a five year capital spending plan. Based on an affordability analysis we have showed that not just to the legislature but to the ratings agencies, Moody’s and S&P; they’ve blessed it. They’ve said, oh, we’ve never seen a five-year plan before, yes you can afford this, all the bond bills are based on that….All in, it’s about $14 billion plus over five years. There is investment in transportation; in affordable and public housing; in public higher ed, every single campus…every single community college and state college in Massachusetts…environmental, in terms of acquisition of open space and reinvesting in maintaining the open space we have. General government bond bills as well. So all of that…we’re looking at ready-to-go projects, projects where we can put money in the next 90-180 days, to start priming the pump, is the point.

That’s in the short run. We also think we can refinance, because our credit rating is great and we can still get access to credit at good rates as a state, unlike many businesses right now…we think we can refinance some transportation debt and get cash out of the money that’s already been authorized, and plow that back into roads and bridge projects around the Commonwealth…I’m talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. All in the next 90-180 days, so we get a lot of activity around the [state].

Then the longer term or medium term stuff; the Life Sciences bill is out of the House and Senate and is in conference…I hope to be able to sign that in about three weeks’ time, same with the energy bill. And we are looking at something that we’re [temporarily] calling “Growth Districts”…if you think of the Devons area, which is a very successful development site for us, because it’s planned, it’s pre-permitted, the utilities are in, and you can sell it as a place to get into business fast. We’ve identified I think about 16 mini-Devonses around the Commonwealth, where we can or have planned, can or will pre-permit, and the utilities are there…in many cases, brown sites. We’re very much focused on Gateway Cities as the economic hub for the regions.

So I’m going to be talking about those as well…and when I say medium term, I don’t mean years away from now, I mean within the next twelve months, we start moving projects into those places.

We have had some pretty serious differences. (I have no idea if Gov. Patrick ever read some of my anti-casino tirades or not.) But more than saying let bygones be bygones, he seemed interested in moving forward. I hope that this is a sign of his reconnection to the grassroots. I have to say I’m very encouraged.

On my way out, I stopped by where members of Greater Lowell for Peace and Justice were holding signs. (Pelosi was at the Meehan event, and this was an opportunity to protest the ongoing war.) I talked to a couple friends about my half hour with the Governor. One of them works in the public health sector. For what it’s worth, she said, the difference in working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health since Patrick was sworn in is like night and day. It’s not glamorous, no one in the media bothers to talk about it, but his replacements for Romney appointees really care about making government work, and have made a huge difference in getting her job done. This is a story I’ve heard more than a few times, and it deserves recognition.

It matters who you elect. It always matters.

Oh, and I’ll say that, at times, very infrequently, Governor Patrick almost talks as fast as I do. How the hell does anyone understand me when I’m speaking? Honestly…