donderdag 18 december 2025

MASS GOP: BEATING THE SAME DEAD HORSES!

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THE COMMONWEALTH BEACON WROTE ABOUT ANOTHER CHALLENGE TO THE 

CHARLIE BAKER'S MBTA COMMUNITIES ACT....CLEARLY EXPLAINED: 


December 18, 2025

By Jennifer Smith

The deadline for the final batch of communities to submit plans on how they expect to boost multifamily housing near transit is now just two weeks away, but the controversial MBTA Communities housing law saga will drag into 2026.

Most cities and towns, the state housing office regularly emphasizes, have gotten on board and submitted plans to zone for a district of multifamily housing near MBTA service areas, as called for in the 2021 law. But a group of holdouts is banking on the very court that declared the legislation mandatory – and enforceable – in January to rule that the mandate is illegal without dedicated funding included in the law.

Marshfield was one of a bundle of towns that wanted a Plymouth County Superior Court judge to declare they cannot be forced to rezone and bear the potential burden of more density. Lawmakers are not permitted to hand down “unfunded mandates” that create financial obligations on cities and towns without a way to pay for them.

But Superior Court Judge Mark Gildea dismissed suits brought by Duxbury, Hanson, Holden, Marshfield, Middleton, Wenham, Weston, and Wrentham, plus taxpayers in Hamilton. Gildea said the towns’ anticipated possible costs were “indirect,” nonspecific, and therefore not in need of dedicated funding from the state. Beyond that, he wrote, there are already available grants for infrastructure needs and the process.

Marshfield appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, which agreed to take the case directly to consider the unfunded mandate question. The town argues that Gildea should not have agreed to dismiss the case, asserting that they did describe all the elements of an unfunded mandate in their complaint.

“In addition to suffering a irreparable loss of awarded grant funds in enumerated grant programs, it is/was foreclosed from all other discretionary grant funds not mentioned in the statute,” the town argues in its brief. Plus, the town says, there were costs associated with evaluating and drafting the zoning bylaws and presenting them to the Town Meeting, and they expect to have additional costs based on the rezoning.

The Healey administration has provided nearly $8 million worth of technical assistance and grants to more than 150 MBTA Communities to support the implementation of this law, the housing office said.

More Context


WHICH REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR PROMOTED THE MBTA COMMUNITIES ACT? 

SLOW ZONE SHORTSLEEVE IGNORED MBTA PROBLEMS - NOW WANTS TO REPEAL MBTA COMMUNITIES ACT? WHERE WAS HE? COULDN'T SOLVE PROBLEMS ON THE MBTA, NOW GRANDSTANDS?


MIKE KENNEALY : JUST ANOTHER REPUBLICAN HACK IGNORING FACTS ...SMOKE & MIRRORS!

MIKE KENNEALY

MIKE KENNEALY excerpt:

"We focus on affordability, affordability in three dimensions, housing, energy and taxes," says Kennealy, the former Secretary of Housing and Economic Development under Gov. Charlie Baker who says he blanked the presidential race all three times Trump has been on the ballot. 

"And I think for those issues, it's state policy that's driving the affordability agenda. We simply don't have enough housing, and we took important steps in the Baker administration to try to drive the production of more housing. And I don't think the [Healey] administration has the right strategy on that. Energy costs are simply way too high, a lot due to state policy, and taxes -- you know, this administration, Beacon Hill keeps coming up with new proposals for new taxes, so no I don't think I agree with that." 


MBTA Communities Act

Kennealy was critical of the way the Healey administration has enforced the MBTA Communities Act, a Baker-era law that requires cities and towns served by the T to allow more multi-family housing or risk losing state grants. 

CBS MIKE KENNEALY

HOW COME YOU DIDN'T GET IT DONE MIKE? MAURA HEALEY DID!

 
MAGA MIKE KENNEALY whines on CBS (the NEW MAGA DISINFORMATION STATION) about HIGH ENERGY COSTS.... 
Did he INFORM HIMSELF? 

If REPUBLICANS didn't LIE no one would ELECT THEM! 
And "R" voters never research or scrutinize candidates because they're LAZY! 

TRUMP is sending LNG (METHANE - GAS) offshore - TRUMP is 
increasing YOUR ENERGY COSTS! 

Trump’s Surging LNG Exports 

Cost US Consumers $12 Billion 

in Just 9 Months


US LNG Unloaded At Revithoussa Terminal Near Athens

After departing from Lake Charles Port in the United States, the liquefied natural gas tanker BW MAGNOLIA unloads 

US LNG at the Revithoussa terminal in Megara, Greece, on December 1, 2025.

 (Photo by Nicolas Koutsokostas/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Underscoring expert warnings that exporting liquefied natural gas not only worsens the climate emergency but also drives up energy prices for Americans, Public Citizen revealed Tuesday that as LNG exports surged under the Trump administration, US households paid $12 billion more in utility bills from January through September than they did last year.

In other words, “the costs borne by residential consumers in the first nine months of 2025 are up 22%,” or an average of $124 per family, according to an analysis of federal data by Tyson Slocum, director of the consumer advocacy group’s Energy Program and author of the new report. “LNG exports are also up 22% over that same time.”

His report highlights President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign pledges, pointing to a Newsweek op-ed and various speeches across the country. Slocum said in a statement that “Trump explicitly promised voters he would slash utility bills by half within the first year, yet in the first nine months of his term, they surged, squeezing some of the country’s most vulnerable households.”

Now, “1 in 6 Americans—21 million households—are behind on their energy bills,” which “are rising at twice the rate of inflation,” the report states. “Even registered Republican voters are increasingly blaming President Trump for the affordability crisis.”

“Limiting or prohibiting LNG exports would provide immediate relief for households across the country, but it would require action from the White House.”

It’s not just “higher domestic natural gas prices, driven primarily by record LNG exports,” affecting US utility prices, the report acknowledges. Other factors include “electric transmission and distribution costs, which include extreme weather and wildfire liabilities. These costs are administered by state or federal regulators and have been exacerbated by climate change.”

“Electricity demand load growth, driven by the rise of artificial intelligence data centers, along with transportation electrification,” is also having an impact, the document details. Additionally, “Trump’s unprecedented cancellation and revocation of billions of dollars of permitted renewable energy projects, combined with his unlawful abuse of emergency authorities to impose punitive tariffs, have injected chaos into domestic supply chains, stifling domestic investment in energy infrastructure.”

As the report explains:

Of these four factors, record natural gas exports not only represent the largest impact on natural gas prices, but feature clear statutory solutions to help protect consumers. The Natural Gas Act—passed by Congress during the Great Depression—asserts in Section 1 that “the business of transporting and selling natural gas for ultimate distribution to the public is affected with a public interest,” with the US Supreme Court affirming that the “primary aim” of this 87-year-old law is “to protect consumers against exploitation at the hands of natural gas companies.” Section 3 of the law forbids exports of natural gas unless the Department of Energy determines the exports to non-Free Trade Agreement countries are “consistent with the public interest.”

Rather than living up to those obligations, Slocum said, “Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have acted as global gas salesmen, traveling to Europe to push exports and gut European methane regulations while attacking mainstream climate science. Meanwhile, Trump has done nothing to keep prices down at home.”

“Limiting or prohibiting LNG exports would provide immediate relief for households across the country, but it would require action from the White House,” he added. “Trump would need to stand up to some of his fossil fuel donors to make our energy more affordable.”

It’s not just Public Citizen pushing for action by the president. US Sen. Edward Markey (D–Mass.)—the upper chamber’s leading champion of the Green New Deal—joined a press event for the group’s new report. He stressed that “record-breaking levels of natural gas exports are breaking the bank on your monthly energy bill.”

Public Citizen released the report just a day after Bloomberg also noted what the export boom means for US energy prices.

“We have been talking about, in apocalyptic terms, for a decade now when the world would start taking away America’s cheap gas,” Peter Gardett, CEO of Noreva, an energy trading platform specializing in power, told Bloomberg. “Well, we’re here.”





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