Massachusetts First

Are they coming for your wallet and your liberties?

While you are busy working and paying taxes, Climate Action Plans are underway that will change your life, increase your cost of living and threaten your civil liberties.

Climate Action Plans are used by various cities and towns to meet Net Zero emissions targets by some date in the future. In Massachusetts, 120 cities or towns are either creating or implementing a Climate Action Plan.

How are Climate Action Plans created?

At the start, localities appoint a committee to study the matter and come up with a draft plan. Generally, the committee includes members of state and local agencies, utilities, and interested citizens. They run workshops to get input from citizens and other interested parties.

In my own town, they are in the process of designing a plan and recently presented a draft proposal via Zoom call. The town has over 15,000 citizens of voting age. Only 60 people showed up.

In examining various Climate Action Plans from around the country, this seemed to be a common occurrence – that a small minority of citizens were participating in the process of designing and implementing a Climate Action Plan.

Who would you expect to show up and participate in creating these plans? Logically, it would be those most concerned about climate change. A recent Gallup Poll found that only 3% of Americans thought climate change was a “most important issue”. So this tiny minority of people concerned about climate change is making life-changing decisions for the rest of us on an issue a vast majority does not consider “most important”.

It is not too late to get involved. Why get involved? Climate Action plans are being proposed and implemented by bureaucrats and special interest groups. They may not have your best interests in mind. They may not even know or care about your best interests.

If supplies of fossil fuels are closed before they can be replaced by reliable, affordable alternatives, the consequences will be enormous. One only has to look at Germany and other countries in Europe to see what can happen when inadequate climate plans meet unexpected events.

What is in a Climate Action Plan?

While these plans can vary quite a bit, they have a number of proposals in common. A typical plan will address:

• Reducing emissions from private homes and businesses
• Reducing emissions from transportation sources
• Increasing the content of clean energy in the energy supply
• Changes in natural systems to mitigate against climate effects
• Methods of Implementation and Management

So how might these plans impact your life?

Reducing emissions from homes

Do you own a home?

Here is a vision of what planners see as your home of the future:

You will have:

• Solar panels or some other eco-friendly roof
• Insulation, windows, and doors to meet energy standards
• Heat pumps to replace gas or oil-fueled furnaces, driers, water heaters
• EVs with charger
• Induction stoves to replace gas stoves
• Electrified:
  • Lawnmowers and tractors
  • Leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, etc.
  • Snow blowers
  • Recreational vehicles

What will this cost and who pays for it?

Who pays for it is easy. You. You might get some help with some government subsidies or financing.

What will it cost depends on the situation. It turns out that some organizations are researching this. Home Innovation Research Labs published a 60-page study on the costs of electrification.

They created a reference home as a guide – a four-bedroom home with about 2600 square feet. Electrification is more efficient in warmer climates than in colder ones, so they accounted for that. Here is what they found:

Retrofitting a house with gas appliances to electric

• Warm Climate: $26.639
• Cold Climate: $30.991

Building a new home with electric appliances instead of gas

• Warm Climate: $3,988
• Cold Climate: $15,000

Annual energy use costs

• Cold Climate: $84 – $650 more for electric
• Warm Climate: $264 less to $18 more for electric

Costs not included in this analysis were:

• Cost of the gas or electric hookups
• Cost impact from the useful life of the appliances
  • Gas furnace – 20 years
  • Heat pump – 15 years
  • Gas water heater – 20 years
  • Heat pump water heater – 12 years
• EVs vs an ICE car
• Electric landscaping equipment, recreational vehicles, etc.

One item that has not seen evaluation is reliability. Gas distribution is underground, electricity is mostly above ground. This makes electricity more vulnerable to outages due to weather, accidents, etc.

Also, the gas distribution network is largely in place whereas the electric grid is not yet configured for loads expected from full electrification. I asked ChatGPT to tell us what it would cost to upgrade the US electric grid to comply with NetZero 2050 targets. Here is the answer:

The cost of upgrading the US electric grid to accept renewable energy sources and achieve net zero emissions by 2050 will depend on several factors such as the scale of the upgrades required, the technologies deployed, and the timeline for implementation.
However, it is estimated that a significant investment will be required to achieve this goal. According to a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the United States would need to invest between $1.7 trillion and $4.5 trillion by 2050 to achieve a fully decarbonized electricity sector.
This investment would be required to upgrade and expand the electric grid infrastructure to accommodate the integration of large amounts of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. It would also require investments in energy storage, demand response technologies, and transmission infrastructure.
It’s important to note that the investment required to upgrade the US electric grid to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 is substantial, but it is also likely to generate significant economic benefits, including job creation and reduced energy costs over the long term.

Different areas of the country rely on different energy supplies and the impact of upgrading the grid will differ from place to place.

Rental properties and tenants

The way in which many of these plans approach rental properties is quite surprising. Actually, I found it shocking in some cases.

Most concerning is a proposal from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. This organization is a government agency that supports the greater Boston metropolitan area. They are proposing that cities and towns in the area adopt what they call an “energy efficiency license” to control emissions from apartment buildings.

Here are the details of this proposal as found in “Climate-Smart Zoning and Permitting”

Some items of note:

• The “Split Incentive”
• Fees
• Inspections
• Voluntary versus mandated compliance

The impact of this proposal depends on how it is enforced. Under normal circumstances, if a water heater breaks, the landlord replaces it. The cost of replacement is included in the rental fees. After all, that’s why many people rent – to avoid these types of unpredictable expenses.

Now let’s say there is one of these inspections under this “energy efficiency licensing” and the landlord is told to replace a functioning gas water heater with an electric one. Who do you think would actually pay for that? The tenant in higher rents.

This idea of a “spit incentive” is nothing but a bureaucratic language trick. They claim the landlord pays for the electrified “upgrade” but the tenant gets the “benefits”. Well, if a landlord follows the instructions from an inspection, what benefits does the tenant get? The tenant would have all the same types of appliances, but they run on electricity instead of gas. In warmer climates, they might get a break on energy use costs, but elsewhere they would pay more.

Fees – there is no mention of a fee, but I suspect most localities would not pass up on a fee for these inspections just like they do for other inspections. And who pays that fee? At the time of a new lease, the landlord increases the rent so the tenant pays for it. It’s like any other business – companies don’t pay taxes, their customers do.

Inspections – in my opinion, these inspections are unreasonable. They represent an added cost for the landlord and tenant with no clear benefit. This is especially true if the inspections are mandated and result in a forced replacement of a landlord’s functional assets. This amounts to an illegal search and seizure.

This document also exposes the dishonest nature of how this program is proposed.

From the MAPC document itself on Energy Efficiency Licenses:

Consider starting with a voluntary program with recognition for joining the program, ramping up to required rental licensing over time.

Make it voluntary at the start then mandate it. Put the frog in some cool water, then turn up the heat and boil it. Will this be the way that most localities will manage their entire Climate Action Plans?

If you think that is a cynical point of view, consider this. For the most part, the people pushing these plans are activists and bureaucrats. Many activists believe that climate change represents an existential threat. If one really believed that then mandates are automatically justified. With bureaucrats, it is a matter of following the money and power.

Reducing emissions from transportation

The preferred mode of transport in these plans seems to follow the following order of preference:

• Stay home
• Walking
• Bicycles
• Public transportation
• eBikes or eScooters, etc.
• Ridesharing EVs
• EVs

Most plans propose spending money on re-designing roads to make them more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. They also suggest electrifying municipal fleets including school buses. I presume this would mean electrifying as they replace old ICE vehicles (mandates for thee, but not for them).

Chargers for EVs are always planned, but the plight of people that do not have off-street parking is glibly addressed by “expanding EV charging”. This will cause people to spend hours of unproductive time charging their EVs.

Parking is the usual target of disincentives. A vast array of fees, permits, and taxes awaits to discourage car ownership so the demand for parking is reduced.

• Increased excise tax rates for 2nd, and 3rd cars
• Increased parking fees
• Parking freezes to limit the number of spaces
• Limit parking by converting on-street parking spaces into bike lanes, pedestrian plazas, or parklets.

Greening the energy supply

Most localities are highly dependent on utilities to generate power. But Climate Action Plans propose the creation of incentives for the installation of solar panels and battery storage.

Examples:

• Make renewables exempt from sales taxes and real estate taxes
• State and local tax deductions or credits for installing renewable energy systems
• Exploit government assets to generate green energy
• School, municipal building rooftop solar
• Land for community solar
• Government property for battery storage
• Transitioning municipal vehicles from ICE to electric
• Banning gas hookups

Natural system management to mitigate against climate effects

Virtually all plans contain something about providing more open spaces and vegetation to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere. How they do this can vary.

• Revise zoning and development to require open space
• Provide incentives for developments to include more open space and tree plantings
• Buying private properties and converting them to open spaces with trees, vegetation

Coastal cities and towns face the additional expense of mitigating against rising sea levels that are predicted. From ChatGPT:

The cost estimate for mitigating coastal flooding in the United States varies depending on various factors such as the severity and frequency of flooding, the specific location, the type of infrastructure or measures required, and the approach taken to address the issue.
According to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States could face billions of dollars in damages and economic losses due to coastal flooding caused by sea-level rise in the coming decades. The report estimates that the cost of adapting to sea-level rise and coastal flooding in the United States could range from $20 billion to $100 billion per year by the year 2100.
However, it is important to note that this is just an estimate, and the actual cost of mitigating coastal flooding could vary significantly depending on the specific circumstances of each location. Additionally, the cost of inaction could be even higher in terms of damages and losses due to flooding.

So expect your property taxes to rise to cover some of this, especially if you live in a lower-lying coastal area.

Methods of Implementation and Management

Reading this so far, one might think I am against these Climate Action Plans. On the contrary, as long as the proposals are voluntary, much of what they propose makes sense. Fossil fuels will become less plentiful and more expensive. Alternatives are needed to meet the increasing demand for energy without drastic increases in price.

However; there are many questions that are left unanswered in these plans. When you examine how the results of these plans will be managed, the only metrics are climate-related. There are virtually no plans that measure the economic impact of their recommendations. They could monitor a number of items that would indicate harm to the public:

• Increases in rent
• Evictions
• Business closures
• Utility rates
• Frequency of brownouts, blackouts, rolling blackouts

Also missing in these plans is an assessment of risks to success. If grids are not able to provide enough clean energy will managers of these action plans slow down electrification to match the power available? We are already closing down fossil fuel plants more quickly than we are replacing that energy with renewables. And there is a big problem in connecting renewable projects to the grid. For example, projects in the PJM Interconnection (mid-Atlantic area) have been put on hold until 2026 because they do not have enough power engineers to handle the work.

Action plans present no recommendations if the plans fail to meet goals. And their definition of success – reduced CO2 emissions – is very limited in scope.

Will they try to mandate their programs or will they extend their goal from a Net Zero 2040 to Net Zero 2045? With shortages in energy supply, mandates could be a recipe for brownouts and blackouts.

Given that they are not even monitoring the economic impact of their proposals, I suspect they will attempt the mandate route. This is consistent with some of the strategies mentioned above – voluntary first then mandates. And, if one believes climate change risks are existential, then of course mandates make sense. But only 3% of the public call climate change a “most important issue”. Mandates will not be popular. IMO climate change mandates are an unreasonable intrusion on our civil liberties. And where is the evidence that these Climate Action Plans will reduce CO2 emissions to the extent there will be an impact on global temperature?

What is even more disturbing is the concept of “eco-authoritarianism”. There are some that believe a democracy acts too slowly in controlling greenhouse gas emissions. An authoritarian government is required to force the change necessary to control emissions.

The British newspaper The Guardian provided a good summary on the topic of eco-authoritarianism with the article “The big idea: Is democracy up to the task of climate change?” With tactics such as the Metropolitan Area Planning Council suggests, this is a topic worth following.

Call to Action – get involved!

Your standard of living and your civil liberties are at risk. The people implementing these plans are a small but vocal minority with a higher level of concern about CO2 emissions than the vast majority of the population. And it is not too late to get involved. Getting involved can influence these plans to account for the economic impact of their recommendations. It can act to preserve our standard of living and expose the abuse of power.

How do you get involved?

1. Check your town’s website: Many towns and cities will post information about their climate action plans on their website. Look for a section related to sustainability, climate change, or environmental initiatives.
2. Contact your local government: If you can’t find information about a climate action plan on your town’s website, you can contact your local government directly. The town hall or city hall should be able to provide you with information about any climate action plans that have been developed.
3. Check with local environmental organizations: There may be environmental organizations in your town or city that are aware of any climate action plans that have been developed. Contacting them can be a good way to find out if your town has a climate action plan.
4. Attend town council meetings: Town council meetings often discuss environmental issues, including climate action plans. Attending these meetings can be a good way to find out if your town has a climate action plan and to learn more about local environmental initiatives.
5. Search online: You can also try searching online for information about climate action plans in your town. Look for news articles, blog posts, or other information that may be available.

In closing, we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels, but the transition must account for our standard of living, economic costs and preservation of our civil liberties. Only by getting more people involved do we have a chance to accomplish that.

by Harold Richards