Colin A. Young
State House News Service
The State House was already abuzz Monday morning with representatives settling in for a week of budget debate when a group of climate protestors dressed as sloths caused a stir around the building.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Aaron Michlewitz was introducing his fiscal year 2027 budget plan in the House Chamber when the protestors with Extinction Rebellion disrupted the session with shouts from the gallery.
"Even sloths can pass a stool faster than Mass. bans fossil fuels," a woman dressed as a sloth chanted on the fourth floor outside the House gallery.
The group said Monday's action was meant to "demand faster action on the climate crisis," including a "demand for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to 90% of 1990 levels by 2030 and a stop to new fossil fuel infrastructure."
House Speaker Pro Tempore Kate Hogan, who was presiding at the time of the disruption, put the House in recess and ordered the court officers to close the public gallery. Two people in sloth costumes remained before being removed from the gallery by police.
Elsewhere in the State House, a group of sloth-dressed protestors used ropes to lower themselves and a large banner from the third-floor railing over Nurses Hall, leaving them hanging like the slow-moving rainforest mammals they were dressed as.
Once the protestors were removed and Michlewitz resumed his speech, he began by thanking court officers for "clearing the system here." He was met by applause.