Sweeping energy bill in House paused amid pushback

BOSTON — A House committee plans to remove a contentious proposal to ease Massachusetts’ mandatory 2030 climate target from an energy affordability bill, and the House will likely not take up the bill before formal sessions end for the year on Wednesday, according to the House budget chief.

The 2030 limit — a legally binding requirement enacted in a 2021 climate law — obligates Massachusetts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 1990 levels by the end of the decade. In 2021, the most recent year with data available, state officials reported they had reduced emissions 28% below 1990 levels.

House members of the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee last week advanced a bill with language that would make the 2030 target non-binding under certain conditions and grant the state legal immunity if the goal is missed. Environmental and climate groups and advocates have criticized the change.

”I know that some of the rollback pieces on the 2030 numbers have gotten a lot of interest, a lot of energy behind it — no pun intended there — but we are certainly wanting to focus on affordability, and not necessarily on things of that nature,” House Ways and Means Chair Aaron Michlewitz told reporters. ”I do not think it will be in this vehicle as we move forward.”

Climate advocates have warned that a shift like the one the House committee proposed would upend the enforceability of the state’s climate benchmark and could encourage state agencies to slow-walk or reverse emissions regulations. While Michlewitz made clear Monday that leadership is not prepared to reopen the 2030 mandate in this legislation, he said they plan to revisit the idea.

”We are probably going to have to have a conversation at some point related to whether we can meet our goals for 2030,” he said. ”I think that’s a real challenge that we’re facing, particularly when you have a federal government that is kind of trying to thwart us at every possible turn in relation to trying to get to those goals. So having that conversation is certainly coming to a head at some point, but I do not think it will be in this vehicle.”

The wide-ranging bill, drafted by the committee’s House chair, Mark Cusack, represents an effort by House Democrats to redefine the state’s energy transition around affordability and competitiveness. In several key areas, it marks a significant shift from the climate-forward orientation of recent Massachusetts laws.

The bill would scale back planned spending in the next Mass Save energy efficiency plan, from $4.5 billion to $4 billion. It would decouple the program from greenhouse gas reduction goals, returning it to a cost-effectiveness focus. It would also remove the prohibition on Mass Save incentives for efficient gas heating systems.

The bill would also relax restrictions on gas and nuclear energy, repealing the requirement for statewide voter approval before building new nuclear facilities. It would extend the deadline for procuring 5,600 megawatts of offshore wind and use clean peak energy credits to enhance hydropower’s market position. It would also shift oversight of clean energy procurements to a newly created Division of Clean Energy Procurement within the Department of Energy Resources.

Michlewitz spoke to reporters Monday after House leadership met earlier in the day. He indicated that the affordability components — without the language related to the 2030 goals — would not move before the Legislature’s six-week recess starts later this week.

”I think it’s still something that we’re working on, and I don’t foresee us necessarily getting to it before the end of the week,” he said. Instead, the chamber will spend its final days taking up an infrastructure program for colleges and universities, a closeout supplemental budget for fiscal year 2025, a workplace violence prevention bill, and consideration of a resolution opposing a national constitutional convention.

Senate Ways and Means Chair Michael Rodrigues said Monday he has not reviewed the energy bill. 

Senate President Karen Spilka gave a similar answer last week. “We in the Senate really haven’t seen it,” Spilka said on Thursday. 

She said she thinks legislators can strike a balance on affordability and being green.

“I believe, the senators believe, that we have been a leader in both affordability and climate, and I believe we can continue to do both. Any bill that we put out would have both as a priority,” she said. 

More than 100 climate and environmental groups have been urging the Legislature to reject any effort to weaken the 2030 mandate or reduce Mass Save funding. In a Nov. 14 letter to Michlewitz and House Speaker Ron Mariano, the groups wrote that they ”vigorously oppose any efforts to undermine the Commonwealth’s 2030 climate mandates or to reduce essential Mass Save funding.”

“Abandoning our climate commitments and cutting money-saving programs would be a grave misstep at a time when climate change and an overreliance on fossil fuel infrastructure continue to drive energy costs higher,” they wrote. “While it is clear that there are and will be major challenges, thanks to a hostile federal administration, Massachusetts must intensify its work to create an affordable clean energy future.”