TESTIMONY | GreenWorks Bill
February 25, 2020
On Tuesday, February 25th Isabella Gambill, A Better City’s Policy Advisor on Climate, Energy, & Resilience, testified in support of Speaker DeLeo’s GreenWorks bill. This is a climate bond bill accounting for $1.3 billion over 10 years to be devoted to climate resiliency through programs like the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program as well as to mitigation measures, like microgrid infrastructure and electric vehicle expansion.
While A Better City applauds the Speaker’s leadership in proposing a piece of legislation that can work across mitigation and adaptation in parallel, we see this as just a down payment on the extensive work that needs to be done in order to protect our Commonwealth. We look forward to engaging in climate finance conversations in order to establish more robust and diverse sources of climate funding that could be distributed equitably across sectors.
A Better City also recommends that GreenWorks be amended to include public-private partnerships in the implementation and siting of microgrid infrastructure, as well as in anticipated studies of electric vehicle infrastructure expansion. Finally, we recommend that GreenWorks be applied at a regional scale when possible to address our critical infrastructure needs and that proposals providing co-benefits across MassWorks projects as well as across mitigation and adaptation needs be given preferential treatment in the allocation of GreenWorks funding. A Better City looks forward to working with Speaker DeLeo, Chair Golden, and other leaders in both the House and the Senate to ensure that our Commonwealth is protected and resilient in the face of climate change.
