Candidates Weigh Environment Issues

The candidates for this fall’s Massachusetts gubernatorial election explained some of their solutions to the state’s environmental problems during the Gubernatorial Environment Forum at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium Wednesday night.

Despite diverging on issues such as Cape Wind—the plan to build America’s first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound—the candidates, including frontrunner Deval L. Patrick ’78 (D), seemed to be in general agreement on environmental issues in front of an audience of 1,100 people.

Four of the six candidates running in the primary elections for Massachusetts Governor, including three of the four Harvard alumni running, were present.

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, a Democrat, and Lt. Gov. Kerry M. Healey ’82, a Republican, were not in attendance.

Stephen T. Curwood ’69—host of NPR’s “Living on Earth”—moderated the forum, which was sponsored by the Sierra Club, Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters, the Environmental League of Massachusetts, and the Appalachian Mountain Club.

Curwood asked the candidates about issues such as climate change, renewable energy goals for businesses, and the candidates’ environmental records and past positions.

A panel of three local journalists also asked the candidates questions at the forum, while a few questions submitted by members of the audience were included at the tail-end of the event.

Patrick stressed that climate change requires a global response and suggested that the U.S. accept the Kyoto Protocol, which it has signed but not ratified. He also said that the Cape Wind project is a step in the right direction for renewable energy and stopping climate change. Patrick’s remarks drew loud applause from the crowd.

But not all candidates supported Cape Wind. Former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority board member Christy Mihos, who is running for governor as an Independent, shook his head after Patrick’s comment about Cape Wind.

Mihos expressed concern that Cape Wind would face cost overruns and never work as promised.

“If you like the Big Dig, you’ll love Cape Wind,” he said.

Reilly was not at the forum because “he was focused on the criminal investigation into the Big Dig tunnel,” the Attorney General’s deputy press secretary, Bryan M. Deangeles, said yesterday.

Healey declined the invitation to participate, according to event organizers.

Both Patrick and Christopher F. O. Gabrieli ’81, the 2002 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, committed to joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)—a pact among several Northeastern states to reduce carbon emissions that Governor W. Mitt Romney opposes.

Gabrieli, who is a member of the Dean’s Council at the Harvard School of Public Health, criticized Romney’s handling of environmental and science issues.

“Mitt hasn’t sought results,” he said, adding that the governor’s decision to pull out of RGGI was a poor one.

Gabrieli said that, “unlike our president or our governor,” he aimed to be a part “of a community open to science” if he were to be the next governor of the Bay State. He also added criticism of Romney’s rejection of state stem cell research funding.

Patrick used his closing remarks to address the Cape Wind project, saying that those people who are against the project are not all beachfront property owners, and those who support it can not be easily labeled either.

Earlier in the forum, Gabrieli also called for cooperation among environmentalists, saying that it was easy for environmental groups to “be against whatever they’re supposed to be against,” but such groups should, he said, not “cave in to fear. Sometimes we have to be true scientists.”

Some attendees of the event said that they would have liked the moderator to ask the candidates more questions written by audience members, rather than by the journalists or organizers.

“I disagree with the time we were allowed to talk,” said Jim R. Straub, the Coordinator for State Parks for the Department of Conservation and Recreation, adding that he felt the crowd would have been willing to stay longer if it meant more of their questions would be addressed. He was disappointed with the “sound bites” and “fuzzy comments” that the candidates were forced to give under the time constraints, he said.

—Staff writer Katherine M. Gray can be reached at kmgray@fas.harvard.edu.