Dueling lawsuits emerge in hydropower saga and four more stories: The Saturday Send

 

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The Saturday Send

Welcome back to the Saturday Send, a weekly digest of stories from CommonWealth Beacon that you may have missed. This week, dueling lawsuits were filed between Massachusetts’s electric suppliers and the Canadian hydropower company tasked with delivering energy into New England. The cases call into question the viability of a project intended to provide 20 percent of Massachusetts’s electricity — and exposes just how volatile the state’s energy mix continues to be. Jordan Wolman has more on the unfolding legal drama. Plus, as projected sea-level rise has Massachusetts considering whether communities should retreat from the coast altogether, Plymouth — one of the towns facing an uncertain future as encroaching waters threaten its people, economy, and tax base — might have a solution; an election year, surging utility costs, and an energy grid stretched to its limits has set the stage for a delicate dance between Gov. Maura Healey and the state’s utility companies; financial reports released this week show that each of the nine ballot questions that will appear before voters this November has prompted at least six figures of spending, much of it originating from wealthy individual donors; and what happens if any of those nine ballot questions actually win at the polls? Check out those stories below, and, as always, thanks for reading. — The CommonWealth Beacon team

Utility companies serving Massachusetts are locked in a legal battle with Hydro-Quebec over a new hydropower transmission line.

Massachusetts utilities, Canadian hydro company file dueling lawsuits over new transmission line By Jordan Wolman The unfolding legal drama marks a major pivot point for a project intended to provide 20 percent of Massachusetts’s electricity — and exposes just how fragile and volatile the state’s energy mix continues to be.

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A pilot program in Plymouth hopes to crack the code on insurance in coastal communities By Jordan Wolman The insurance challenge for coastal states like Massachusetts has been a vexing one. Inflation and tariffs are scrambling rebuilding costs, and the rise in climate-driven natural disasters has contributed to a recent increase in private insurers not renewing policies and the state’s insurer-of-last-resort seeing a growth in the number of enrollees.

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For Healey, a delicate dance with the utilities emerges during election season By Jordan Wolman Healey can cast the utility companies as a critical partner when it’s advantageous for her to do so — or turn them into a political punching bag and convenient foil when it benefits her.

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Deep-pocketed donors flood the ballot-question field with cash By Chris Lisinski Newly filed financial reports shed light on this election’s battle lines, which will pit business groups against unions, the marijuana industry against an out-of-state opponent, and transparency advocates against Beacon Hill itself.

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Let’s say a ballot question passes in November. What happens next? By Chris Lisinski Nine ballot questions are in the mix for November. Here’s what you need to know about what happens if they win approval from voters.

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Massachusetts’s dwindling maternity care This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Hallie Claflin talks with Alecia McGregor, assistant professor of health policy and politics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Katie Murphy, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. They dig into the consequences of recent maternity unit closures in Springfield and Methuen, discuss where Massachusetts stands in terms of maternal health care access, and detail what power the state has, if any, to regulate health service closures and consolidations. LISTEN NOW

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