STOP SUPER-EMITTER PRIVATE JET EXPANSION AT HANSCOM -- OR ANY AIRPORT

Dear Governor Healey,

We, the undersigned, respectfully and urgently ask you to use the full measure of your powers to stop Massport’s expansion plans for private luxury jet capacity at Hanscom Field, a project which will facilitate hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions, in opposition to every Climate goal that our towns, our Commonwealth, and the nation are working arduously to achieve.

Hanscom Field is already the largest private jetport in New England. The proposal to triple the private jet capacity at Hanscom field will enable tens of thousands more flights per year, with a resultant greenhouse gas emission rate cancelling out the climate benefit of about a quarter of all the solar PV installations in Massachusetts.

This is an issue of environmental justice: a single private luxury jet trip to Asia generates more CO2e than a typical family in India generates in an entire lifetime.

Governments are beginning to acknowledge that we must stop growing private jet traffic. According to a 4/4/23 CNN report, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport has recently proposed a ban on private jets by 2026 because of climate impacts and justice issues.

Instead of working to reduce the number of these super-emitters, we subsidize them: private jets are exempt from sales tax; their facilities are exempt from property tax; and they provide huge tax breaks to their owners.

We applaud you, Governor Healey, for the bold and ambitious Climate goals you have set forth for our Commonwealth. Yet under no scenario can we afford a major setback and permit the expansion of greenhouse gas emissions by hundreds of thousands of tons.

Massport benefits from private jet expansion, yet disclaims any responsibility for the resultant greenhouse gas emissions. Massport is not subject to any control by the legislature.

Only the governor has any power over Massport.

We, therefore, appeal to you to apply your leadership and authority to renounce expansion of private jet capacity at Hanscom – or at any airport – and thereby send a message to Massport, and every other airport owner, that such expansions are incompatible with the drastic and unprecedented steps we are now called upon to take to reduce CO2 emissions.

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Campaign to Stop Super-Emitter Private Jet Expansion at Hanscom--or Any Airport