A smaller carbon footprint

SINCE global warming is the most serious environmental threat facing the planet, it makes sense that Massachusetts' principal law governing the environmental impact of big development projects should start requiring builders to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Last week, Secretary of Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles announced the state will now make climate change part of developers' environmental-impact reviews, once the state creates guidelines for measuring and mitigating greenhouse gases around July 1.

Since Governor Patrick campaigned on a promise of streamlining the permitting process for businesses, this new level of environmental review might seem to be a step backward. But the guidelines will not impose hard and fast standards on allowable emissions by developments, and the existing air quality review already requires an assessment similar to what a developer's consultants would do with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. So the guidelines are unlikely to pose an undue additional burden. Also, the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act places deadlines on Bowles's office for its action on environmental reviews, and those deadlines will remain the same even with the new climate change requirement.

High energy prices are already causing many builders of big housing or commercial developments to put a premium on efficiency in insulation and window treatments and in selecting high-quality equipment for lighting, heating, and cooling. The state climate change review process would also expect the developer to consider the "carbon footprint" of residents, shoppers, or workers traveling to and from the development in private cars. Mitigation measures to reduce such inefficient transportation could be to provide shuttle bus service from the development to a public-transit station or to subsidize the public transit fares of workers.

The governor's state permit ombudsman, Greg Bialecki, said that as long as the guidelines are clear and predictable they will not interfere with his mission of speeding up the permitting process. "Permit streamlining as Governor Patrick wants to do it," he said, "has nothing to do with lowering our environmental standards . . . you can raise environmental standards."

A decade ago, a proposal such as this to require a global warming review would have likely encountered opposition from the development community, but so far that has not materialized in reaction to the administration's plan. What's happened is that the country as a whole, including developers, recognizes what the Supreme Court concluded earlier this month: It is past time for government to start using all its regulatory muscle to curb the emissions that are radically changing the planet's climate.