Category - Massachusetts

By Matthew Riddle, CPE Staff Economist

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, grabbed headlines in Massachusetts recently when Governor Deval Patrick signed onto it, committing Massachusetts to a cut in its emissions of greenhouse gasses from power plants, and reversing Mitt Romney’s decision to abandon the agreement. In addition to rejoining RGGI, Patrick also outlined some proposals for its implementation, which may prove to be even more significant than his decision to join.

The 2006 Election(s)
By John J. Fitzgerald

The 2006 Election cycle has come and gone. Just like the 2006 Hurricane season it has not performed exactly as predicted, but it has left some changes in its wake. We might actually have experienced several different elections rather than just one. A lot of decision-making got formalized on the 7th of November.

Here are some of the highlights:

My Recommendations for Election 2006
By John J. Fitzgerald

One of the most patriotic things that anyone, who loves this country, can do in the next few weeks has to be focused on voting. (I know that voting is not the only road for activists, but it does have some value.)

I would like to make a few recommendations to enlarge the effect of voting in 2006.

By Kiaran Honderich, CPE Staff Economist

(Reprinted from CPE’s newsletter, “The Popular Economist,” Spring, 2002.)

Over the last year activists have made important progress in the battle against global AIDS. Developing countries won a partial victory at the WTO ministerial meeting in Doha in November, affirming their right to produce affordable generic drugs in a health crisis. And the appalling mainstream consensus that treatment with antiretroviral drugs was too expensive and complex to be made available in poor countries–writing off literally tens of millions of lives at a stroke–is finally giving way to acknowledgement that treatment is possible in resource-poor settings, although it seems likely to be rolled out in a way that neglects rural populations. These battles are by no means finished–the WTO is still hashing out whether poor countries too small to produce their own generic drugs should be permitted to import them from another country; if Bush gains fast track authority then he will be able to take back the gains of Doha; and South Africa’s ANC government is being dragged kicking and screaming by activists towards the treatment programs that its country needs–but real progress is being made.