Joan serves on the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure, Joint Committee on Export Development, and Joint Committee on Advanced Information Technology, the Internet and Cybersecurity. She is appointed to the Metropolitan Beaches Commission and the Ocean Advisory Commission. She is also a co-chair of the newly formed Massachusetts Legislative Climate Alliance Caucus, and she serves as a Board Member of the Massachusetts Caucus of Women Legislators, where she works alongside her fellow legislators to encourage and support women in government and pursue women’s economic advancement.
Representative Joan Meschino is a leading champion on Beacon Hill in the fight against climate change. Her signature legislation during the 2019-20 legislative session was An Act to create a 2050 Roadmap to a Clean and Thriving Commonwealth, also known as the 2050 Roadmap Bill. The bill updates the Global Warming Solutions Act to change the state’s carbon emissions reduction goal to net zero emissions by 2050. It requires that the state set strong intermediate goals for 2030 and 2040 as well, and requires the state to create a plan to reach those goals. The 2050 Roadmap bill was passed by the Massachusetts House in July 2020, at which point it entered a conference committee with the Senate. The bill was released as S.2995, An Act creating a next-generation roadmap for Massachusetts climate policy, and subsequently passed by the House and Senate in early January 2021. After the Governor vetoed the bill and the 191st session came to a close, the Chairs Golden and Barrett refiled the conferenced bill as S.9. The Governor proposed amendments, and the Legislature ultimately rejected efforts to slow the rate of progress toward net-zero emissions by 2050, while accepting a number of substantive and technical amendments that improve the bill. The final bill was signed by the Governor on March 26th, 2021. But the climate crisis is already upon us, and Massachusetts communities also need resources to adapt to the changing environment. When it comes to community resiliency in the face of looming climate change, Representative Meschino’s focus is forward. A fierce supporter of the House’s GreenWorks proposals, she has long been advocating for policies and funding to support local infrastructure projects that address impacts of sea level rise and other effects of climate change. In the 191st legislative session, she voted for GreenWorks which would provide $1.3 billion bonding authorization to fund $100 million per year in grants to municipalities for the construction of adaptation and mitigation measures. This includes repairs, upgrades and adaptations to seawalls, culverts, bridges, roadways, energy, utilities, and communications infrastructure. For residents of Massachusetts’ South Shore, where her district lies, “climate change and sea level rise are real to us right now. We need to address the impacts as individuals and as communities working together,†said Rep. Meschino. “We have to make sure that our local communities have the resources to prepare for, and respond to, increasingly powerful storms.†Rep. Meschino has helped secure grant funding to towns in her district to address the effects of coastal flooding and extreme storms.