Bruce Mohl
CW Magazine
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Past articles by Bruce:
Senate leader calls for banning Avangrid from future projects
THE SENATE’S top budget official is calling for Avangrid to be banned from bidding on any future projects in the state if it terminates its current offshore wind contract. Avangrid agreed to the terms of a 20-year power purchase agreement last year and just before it won final regulatory approval the company stepped forward to(...) → Read More
Healey budget moves means-tested fares off back burner
AN MBTA means-tested fare seems to be getting on track on Beacon Hill with the Healey administration’s decision to include $5 million for the initiative in its budget proposal for fiscal 2024. The Legislature in 2019 approved a lower fare pilot for income-qualifying residents, but former governor Charlie Baker vetoed the measure because it didn’t(...) → Read More
GLX rescuer Dalton set to leave MBTA at end of month
JOHN DALTON, the manager who got the Green Line extension into Medford and Somerville built, is leaving the MBTA at the end of the month for a new job. A T spokesman on Friday confirmed Dalton is leaving but provided no information on where he is headed. Dalton’s departure is a major loss for the(...) → Read More
Diehl, through signature effort, finds an issue
REPUBLICAN GUBERNATORIAL candidate Geoff Diehl, whose campaign has been searching for an issue to run on, apparently helped create one. Proponents of an initiative petition overturning a law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses said on Wednesday they had gathered more than twice as many signatures as they need to put the measure on the November ballot — and they said… → Read More
‘Free’ getting another test during Orange Line shutdown
THE ONE-MONTH Orange Line shutdown is a big test of thinking big when it comes to subway maintenance work, but it is also providing the opportunity to experiment with another innovative transportation strategy – free fares. Hoping to cram five years of weekend and night work into a single month, the MBTA shut down the entire Orange Line on Friday and sought to minimize the inconvenience for… → Read More
Healey regrets 2020 comment on ‘how forests grow’
ON JUNE 2, 2020, eight days after the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, Attorney General Maura Healey gave a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in which she focused on the lack of progress in addressing racial inequality and the storm of protests churned up by the killing. As she ended her remarks, Healey offered a metaphor for the racial reckoning the country was… → Read More
In secretary of state race, it’s experience vs. lived experience
SECRETARY OF STATE William Galvin and Tanisha Sullivan engaged in a lively debate on Wednesday at which the incumbent urged voters to trust the knowledge and experience he has gained from 27 years on the job while the challenger promised to be less reactive and more proactive and use her “lived experience” to get out(...) → Read More
Abortion rights gaining currency in down-ballot races
WITH POLLS showing Massachusetts voters highly concerned about abortion rights, candidates for office – even for down-ballot jobs that seemingly have little to do with the issue – are coming up with ways to demonstrate it’s a high priority. Tanisha Sullivan, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state, made abortion rights a centerpiece of her(...) → Read More
Is Mass. eyeing out-of-state nuke, wind power for clean energy?
THE CLIMATE AND ENERGY bill sitting on the governor’s desk contains two policy sections that could open the door to clean energy procurements involving onshore wind from Maine and nuclear power from Connecticut, according to one of the key drafters of the legislation. Rep. Jeffrey Roy of Franklin, the House chair of the Legislature’s Telecommunications,(...) → Read More
Handful of Democrats called out for voting to suspend rules
A CONSERVATIVE advocacy group on Monday called out a handful of Democratic lawmakers who in early 2021 voted for more time to study bills coming out of conference committees but last week voted to suspend the Legislature’s existing rules to take up climate change legislation immediately. The joint rules of the Massachusetts House and Senate(...) → Read More
Here’s what’s in the Legislature’s energy/climate change legislation
THE LEGISLATURE suspended its rules and whisked through a climate change bill on Thursday that seeks to make Massachusetts the “Saudi Arabia of wind,” promotes the adoption of zero emission vehicles, and allows 10 communities to bar fossil fuel infrastructure in new construction. The precise contents of the bill were not available and the funding(...) → Read More
T called worse off now than during snowmageddon
THE LEAD CAR of an Orange Line train crossing the Mystic River caught fire early Thursday morning, prompting panic on board the train and the evacuation of close to 200 people, including one person who jumped from the bridge into the water. The image of flames leaping out from underneath the train car followed by(...) → Read More
New temporary elevated highway may be needed with I-90 Allston project
THE I-90 ALLSTON interchange has always been a challenge to design, particularly squeezing the Massachusetts Turnpike, Soldiers Field Road, and four railroad tracks at ground level into in the narrow area called the throat between Boston University and the Charles River. But as the state seeks federal funding for the nearly $2 billion project, the(...) → Read More
Lawmakers eye $250m for East-West rail
A TRANSPORTATION BOND BILL headed for a vote this week in the House includes language authorizing $250 million in spending on East-West rail, but nothing about the creation of a new authority to oversee the project’s development. The bill, if it is approved by the Legislature, would steer the $250 million to planning, design, land(...) → Read More
Utilities facing pushback on clean energy contract compensation
THE THREE MASSACHUSETTS utilities, accustomed to getting their way on Beacon Hill, are facing pushback on a provision in state law that allows them to collect from electricity ratepayers up to 2.75 percent of the value of any clean energy procurement for simply carrying the contract on their books. House and Senate negotiators trying to(...) → Read More
Officials reassure Mass. residents on abortion rights, gird for battle
A SMALL GROUP of top Massachusetts elected officials hastily gathered in front of the State House on Tuesday morning to reassure residents that abortion rights will remain intact in the state no matter what the Supreme Court does with Roe v Wade and to lay out the welcome mat for women from other states who(...) → Read More
MBTA seeks to charge $3 for ‘new’ Charlie Cards
THE MBTA is seeking approval from its oversight board to charge riders $3 for newly designed Charlie Cards as part of the rollout of a new fare collection system. The new fare collection system will allow payment using new or temporary Charlie Cards, a mobile Charlie Card app, as well as contactless credit cards and(...) → Read More
New work week: Tuesday through Thursday
A NEW DASHBOARD showing average travel times on roadways coming into and out of Boston indicates more people working hybrid schedules are driving in the middle part of the week rather than at the beginning or the end. “We’re seeing a pattern on a number of these roadways. The new work week seems to be(...) → Read More
Vineyard Wind signs port deal with Salem
SALEM, A LATECOMER to the scramble for offshore wind business, snagged a deal on Thursday with Vineyard Wind, which promised to help make the North Shore community the state’s second major wind port if the company wins an upcoming power contract. The deal, announced in Salem at a press conference with Mayor Kim Driscoll and(...) → Read More
2 offshore wind developers submit bids
THE HEADLINES detailing the emergence of a US offshore wind supply chain in its infancy are starting to pop up in all sorts of places – a $250 million monopile facility in New Jersey in partnership with wind farm developer Orsted and a wind tower manufacturing operation in Albany, New York, in conjunction with wind(...) → Read More