Welcome to my personal website. I hope you find it to be a source of useful information about the work I'm doing on behalf of Brookline, as well as for the people of the Commonwealth more broadly.

At the end of this past July, the legislature concluded its formal sessions for the year. At that time, I sent a letter to my colleagues summarizing all of our environmental accomplishments from the 2007-2008 legislative session. For your convenience, I've uploaded it, and you can read it by clicking here.

We have now begun a new session, and we have a new Speaker of the House, as well. I am proud that Speaker DeLeo has named me as the first Chairman of a new Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, where I will be in a position to focus on this issue – an issue which I think of as one of the defining challenges of our time – and ensure that we build on last session’s successes by advocating for further legislation that addresses climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Going forward, I believe we must re-tool our economy to make it a sustainable one, and promote emerging technologies that can lessen our dependence on fossil fuels. In our transportation sector, we know we have major financing problems, but we must ensure that any and all solutions take into account our goals for reductions in carbon emissions, as well. With regards to our built environment, we must encourage smart growth and ensure that green buildings become the norm. And, underpinning all of this, we need to continue to drive renewable energy options to the mainstream of our culture and our economy in order to ensure a sustainable quality of life for future generations.

As bills move through the legislative process this session, each of the relevant Joint Committees will continue to have jurisdiction over their own issue areas, of course, but our new committee will work to make sure that global warming issues are considered in their deliberations across the board. Realizing real and lasting change will require policy coordination and collaborative state action across every agency in state government, and achieving that is my goal for this new committee.

Having said all that, I do have other, non-environmentally focused priorities. Outside of the environmental arena, addressing the foreclosure crisis with bills focusing on how to help homeowners and tenants will continue to be a priority for me, as will reform of the CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) system. If you are a constituent and would like to discuss any legislative issue of interest with me, please do not hesitate to contact my office.

Posted by Frank (February 19, 2009)