We began 2024 talking about climate change and cleaner energy. This ended up being a big topic throughout the year.
Reporter Chris Lisinski of the State House News Service explains how far Massachusetts got this year in advancing clean energy.
Chris Lisinksi, SHNS: Quite far, frankly. There were some bumps along the way. There was a lot of start-and-stop, but lawmakers got to Gov. Healey (and she signed into law) a pretty sweeping new clean energy package that reforms the process for siting and permitting clean energy infrastructure and a whole host of other reforms designed to help spur Massachusetts toward greener sources of power, including the offshore wind industry that is on the books.
Carrie Healy, NEPM: And it was a complicated year for that key strategy for Massachusetts, as you say — wind energy. It's only going to get even more complicated with the arrival of the second Trump administration. What lies ahead there?
That's right. President-elect Donald Trump, both during his first term and on the campaign trail, has been a vocal skeptic of offshore wind energy in particular. There are a lot of fears circulating in the industry and among its supporters that the Trump administration next year could slow or even stop federal permitting and review of projects that are coming into the pipeline here in Massachusetts.
Remember, we've only got one installation that's actually in the ground — so to speak — or in the water, capable of generating power. And everything else is still just in the planning phase. So, there's a lot that could happen to upend that.
Chris, I want to ask you two big-picture reflection questions about 2024 — the biggest political story of the year and the biggest state government story. So, let's start with state government.
I think that there's no way to think about state government in 2024 without thinking about the response to the Steward Health Care crisis. Some might quibble that that's not exactly a state government story. It's a health care story or a private company story.
But basically, everyone on Beacon Hill spent most of the year in a frenzy trying to figure out how to navigate the bankruptcy of a major hospital chain, how to keep hospitals open, what to do. We saw the state intervene to help keep some of those facilities open, unable to help keep Carney Hospital and the Nashoba Valley Medical Center open.
We saw really significant legislative efforts unfold to change the guardrails around hospital systems. Obviously, those never got all the way across the finish line, but it's really the topic that probably took up the most oxygen in state government.
And now, what was the big Massachusetts political story for you in 2024?
I'll cheat a little bit, because this is arguably state government related, but the primary thrust of it is political. And that was the ballot question campaign season, specifically focused on [the] Question 1 legislative audit. That has set off so many fights over the past year.
Legislative leaders continue to try and resist it, continue to suggest that maybe it's not constitutional. So, this is not something that's going away heading into the year ahead. But the really wide margin of support for this measure suggests that voters are not all that happy with the way business is done up on Beacon Hill and want some more transparency and want a closer look at how their elected officials are doing business. And that is something that carries quite a lot of political weight.
All right, Chris, one final question. It's predictions time. So, what are we going to be talking about next year at this time?
You know, something that I'm absolutely certain we will still be trying to unpack is the emergency shelter crisis. Two years in a row now, that has been one of the biggest stories on year-end lists, and all signs suggest that that will probably still be a factor in the year ahead.
The Healey administration is still forecasting roughly $1 billion in spending needed for that. There's going to be a new funding injection needed sometime close to the start of the year. And there's all the variables that could pop up once Donald Trump takes office and does or does not pursue pretty substantial immigration reforms.