clear skies ahead: Massachusetts's Supreme Judicial Court has reaffirmed that cutting climate-damaging emissions is the law of the land.

PositionPROGRESS REPORT

THE PROBLEM

The Global Warming Solutions Act mandates that Massachusetts ratchet down its carbon pollution by 2050. In August of 2017, the State released groundbreaking regulations as part of the landmark law that requires state-based power plants to lower their climate-damaging emissions each year. The power plants balked at the new regulations, however, choosing to take the State to court rather than get their carbon pollution under control.

CLF IN ACTION

CLF helped to write and pass the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2008. At the time, it was one of the country's strongest climate laws, but the State didn't follow through on the law's promise when it missed a deadline for rolling out the necessary regulations to reach the law's emissions goals.

To force the Commonwealth to act, CLF, the Mass Energy Consumers Alliance, and four courageous teenage plaintiffs sued the State. In May 2016, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously in CLF's favor--affirming that the State must act now to reduce greenhouse gases.

CLF then moved from opposition to ally, working with the State as it developed the delayed regulations. Ultimately, the regulations were twofold, capping power plant emissions every year through 2050 while requiring that 80 percent of the electricity sold in the Commonwealth come from clean energy sources by the same year.

When the power industry sued, CLF stood by the State to help defend the law, arguing as a "friend of the...

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