Is Massachusetts Showing the Way Towards a Comprehensive Environmental Law?
I. Introduction
In Massachusetts, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) recently announced two significant new initiatives. In October 2007, Massachusetts became one of the first states in the nation to require assessment of greenhouse gas emissions as part of an environmental policy act review process, issuing its final MEPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Policy and Protocol (“GHG Policy”). The policy requires proponents of projects subject to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act, or MEPA, M.G.L. ch. 30, §§ 61-62I, to assess the greenhouse gas impacts of such developments. The requirement applies not only to direct impacts, such as stack emissions, but also to indirect impacts, such as electricity demand and traffic generation.
Second, In January 2008, EEA issued a draft guidance for public comment on “Integrated MEPA/Permitting Review.” The purpose of the Integrated Review Guidance is to make the MEPA process the true focus of a comprehensive review of project permitting, in order to avoid the more haphazard coordination between MEPA and permitting agencies that has been the rule in the past.
Both of these developments are important in their own right for anyone practicing environmental law or doing development in Massachusetts. However, they are significant for another reason as well -- in both of these efforts, one can detect a glimmer of an effort by EEA to craft one comprehensive environmental protection statute for Massachusetts.
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