We are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. If we don’t greatly accelerate our transition to clean energy, these impacts will worsen and we will bear the costs of severe environmental damage, degraded public health, and failing infrastructure.
In response to the climate crisis, Massachusetts has taken significant action by passing the Next Generation Roadmap Act, one of the strongest climate laws in the nation. The Act, signed into law on March 26, 2021, sets ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets and requires that the administration set interim targets overall and by sector. The law also contains important environmental justice (EJ) provisions which define an EJ community for the first time in statute and calls for the state to consider cumulative impacts from both existing and proposed new facilities when granting or denying permits.
This website includes information for all actions in the Roadmap Act that have a deadline through March 2022. If there is any activity underway for actions with deadlines further out, that is noted, but we will be updating this website as more information becomes available.
Note that the bill went into effect 90 days after it was signed, therefore, for any actions that did not have a deadline specified in the bill, the deadline is June 2021. We have included a few other important actions called for either through Executive Order or the state’s timeline for completing its 2030 Clean Energy and Climate Plan.
Status Key:
Completed: action has been completed
Incomplete: action’s due date has passed and the action has not been completed
In process: work has begun, but not complete, on a specific action
Ongoing: activity will continue with no end date
TBD: no action taken yet
