Big Pharma has a new scheme that will make them even more money: undermining patients' bargaining power and blaming anyone who gets in their way. If we want to solve the Rx cost crisis, we need to hold Big Pharma accountable. To find out how, go to saveourbenefitsma.org.
Between a “solar summit” in Boston and a “public safety roundtable” out in Holyoke, Gov. Maura Healey made a pit stop in Devens for a private meeting with President Trump’s energy chief.
The Monday meeting came as Healey, emerging from a summit with solar industry leaders, flayed the Trump administration for “restricting supply and driving up costs” in its energy policy moves. She has also been critical of the administration’s war on wind.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had made his own news the same day, promoting a new effort to “reinvigorate the American coal industry.”
Their meeting wasn’t on Healey’s public schedule, but her account on Twitter, the social media site currently known as X, highlighted the get-together the next day.
Wright did not tout the meeting with Healey, but he did spotlight where they met: the facilities at Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which takes up nearly 60 acres on land that once was a military post. Wright’s team let Healey’s office know he was coming to Massachusetts and asked for the meeting, according to a Healey official.
The company, which as its name suggests, focuses on fusion energy, is a spinoff from MIT, Wright’s alma mater. The company recently raised $863 million, for a total of nearly $3 billion, from investors that included the venture capital arm of chipmaker NVIDIA, according to the Boston Business Journal.
In a release from the company, Wright called fusion potentially “transformative for the world’s energy security.” On that, Healey and Wright seem to agree. Healey, when asked about it later, did not indicate points of disagreement brought up in their private meeting, which occurred in a sideroom on company property. Rebecca Tepper, Healey’s energy chief, was also present.
“We talked a lot about a range of energy sources, and the ways in which we can work together, Massachusetts and the federal government, New England states and the Northeast states working with one another and the federal government, hopefully as a partner in bringing more energy into the region,” Healey said.
Energy and its costs will likely be a hot topic in the 2026 race for governor, as her GOP rivals have hit Healey for a shift from opposition to new gas pipelines as attorney general to recent support for a natural gas transmission project.
When I asked her whether they discussed Trump’s hostility towards offshore wind, Healey said that’s come up in previous discussions with the administration. “They know where I stand on that,” she said. “It makes no sense to take wind away from us on the East Coast. We need it. We need it for reliability. We need it so they will help us lower energy costs, and electricity costs in particular. And also we've got jobs. Jobs up and down the East Coast that have been built around the wind industry. Vineyard Wind (near Martha’s Vineyard), right now, as we speak, is powering 200,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts. So I'm all of the above, and I've said, ‘Don't take wind away from us.’”
Asked if “all of the above” includes coal, Healey said, “No, no, no, no, no.”
She defines the term “all of the above” as “wind and solar and hydro and gas, fusion.” She added: “I'm talking about geothermal, battery storage, you know, all of those things, and we just need to continue to work on that in Massachusetts.”
Thanks to all the readers who responded to yesterday’s trivia item with “You called me a lizard!” That is indeed what Ray Flynn told another mayoral candidate, David Finnegan, in 1983. Finnegan had a radio ad calling Flynn and a chameleon, and Flynn had asked his aide Neil Sullivan what a chameleon was. “It’s a lizard that changes colors to fade into its environment,” Sullivan told him, and off Flynn went. My inbox is always open for political lore like that: [email protected].
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HAPPENING TODAY
8:00 | Mass. Budget and Policy Center hosts its inaugural policy conference, FOCUS2025, featuring several lawmakers and a keynote from former U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Sen. Jamie Eldridge is part of the conference's opening. | Devens Conference Center, 31 Andrews Parkway, Devens | Tickets
8:30 | Republican candidate for governor Brian Shortsleeve tours New Bedford and holds a roundtable in Fall River to meet with fishing industry leaders. | Tour starts at 62 Hassey St., New Bedford | Roundtable starts at 1 p.m., H&S Tool Engineering, 777 Airport Road, Fall River
10:00 | The Cannabis Control Commission meets for the first time since Chairwoman Shannon O'Brien was reinstated after about two years away. Agenda is expected to feature licensing review and approvals, an overview of the commission's 2025 goals, and working group updates. | Agenda and Access Info
11:30 | Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson cuts the ribbon on the new downtown location of the Frederick Douglass Collegiate Academy, and Eastern Bank’s Robert Rivers helps present a $2 million donation from the foundation to city schools. Education Secretary Patrick Tutwiler also attends. | 195 Market St., Lynn
1:00 | Former Vice President Mike Pence participates in a conversation at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate about "populism, conservatism, and civility." The event, which is free and open to the public, is moderated by Meghan McCain. | 210 Morrissey Blvd., Boston | Register
FROM BEACON HILL
DONOR TO GOV CANDIDATE: Michael Minogue, a top GOP donor and Donald Trump supporter, is entering the 2026 race for governor with a video launch. – Boston Herald
HEALEY ON SHUTDOWN: Gov. Maura Healey backed Democrats in the shutdown fight with the Republican-led federal government, but said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is not always “the best messenger.” Massachusetts has 25,000 federal workers and receives roughly $15 billion in federal funding. – GBH News and Axios Boston
TAX TAKE: State budget overseers say revenue estimates could be too high and they see “a lot of options” before taking scissors to spending plans. Top budget writers from the executive and legislative branch met yesterday for an economic roundtable as the federal government barreled toward a shutdown. – State House News Service
NEWS NEXT DOOR
ILLEGAL DEPORTATIONS: A Boston-based federal judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, ripped into Trump administration’s attempt to deport pro-Palestinian academics and activists, calling it an attack on free-speech rights. Further judicial proceedings are planned. – POLITICO
NEW TOWER: Mass General Brigham announced plans for a new inpatient building at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to replace its existing tower in the Longwood neighborhood. – Boston Business Journal
CAMBRIDGE SUPER PACS: Super PAC leaders in Cambridge say candidates overstate their impact on local politics. – Cambridge Day
MORE MONEY FOR MAYOR: A new audit showed that Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria received $31,000 in 2023 for a cost-of-living adjustment. DeMaria, who is facing a challenger in the November election, is also battling a state inspector general’s report showing a $180,000 overpayment that was tied to a so-called longevity bonus. – WCVB
LOTTERY NUMBERS: The state Lottery delivered just over a billion dollars in net profit in fiscal 2025, but overall revenue is dropping. – MassLive
LONGMEADOW VOTE:Voters in Longmeadow okayed a debt exclusion that allows the town to build a new middle school in a $151.6 million proposal to replace two aging facilities. – Western Mass. Politics & Insight
REPORTER RETIREMENT: Phillip Martin, an investigative reporter and 2024 inductee into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame, is retiring. – GBH News
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