By Jess Nahigian
After a winter of high energy bills, the Governor promised that she would address rising costs in an energy affordability bill. On Monday, that long-awaited energy bill arrived. And in a moment when decision-makers are floundering in the face of federal destruction, it isn't the rallying cry of leadership it should be.
The bill comprises a mash-up of lackluster policies looking for short-term cuts while avoiding larger existential questions about who our energy transition is for - communities, or the energy industry. The bill has clearly been through the political meatgrinder to the point that it won't offend anyone and, in doing so, will likely fail to excite anyone. Most disappointingly, the Governor throws concessions to the gas industry without extracting any cuts in reckless overspending.
It's hard to say how serious the administration is about these proposals. Legislators don't report much consultation or conversation, beyond the House's threat to kill the bill if the Governor introduced it in the Senate, once again showcasing Beacon Hill's preference for petty inter-chamber drama over productive lawmaking.
The bill now moves to the House, which has several options, including completely rewriting the bill.
It’s time to show the legislature we need stronger action!! Join our upcoming (distributed) Mass Power Forward lobby day on June 11th. Tell your legislators: it's time to wake up to the climate, justice, and federal crisis around them. They must protect our communities and put people over corporate energy profits. Come take action with others who care and make an impact. RSVP today so we know who is coming! Note that you don’t need to come to Boston to attend.
Can’t attend? Write or call the governor and the legislature to tell them you’re disappointed in the bill and hope they will take strong climate action that also reduces costs.
Bill highlights:
THE GOOD:
- Removes unnecessary and sometimes polluting charges: eliminates the remaining state subsidies for woody biomass generation; removes the alternative portfolio standard (an incentive for non-renewable, non-fossil fuel energy); clarifies prohibitions on ratepayer funding towards lobbying and advertising with penalties if utilities don’t comply
- Labor protections: Ensures geothermal is union-built; requires the gas utilities to develop just transition plans; requires peace agreements for public renewable/transmission projects and energy networks funded by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
- Health and safety protections: Prohibits shutoffs when the temperature is over 85 degrees for 3 consecutive days
- Rate reform: Tees up larger rate reform options, including a fixed charge and a review of the current rate structure; introduces new discount rates.
- Bringing new renewables online: creates a new procurement program run by the state, including for 10GW of offshore wind by 2040; takes steps toward addressing challenges of interconnecting to the grid; encourages new geothermal by allowing gas utilities and third parties to own and operate geothermal and allowing utilities to propose new loops outside their existing territories
- Cost controls for transmission and distribution projects: Adds oversight to transmission and electric distribution project costs
- Innovative financing of building decarbonization: Creates a new program that will allow people to pay for home energy improvements through their utility bills
THE BAD:
- Half measures on reining in residential competitive electric suppliers: The bill eliminates some harmful products, expands licensure requirements, increases consumer protections, and increases oversight, but stops short of altogether banning suppliers, who have proven to be immune to consumer safety regulations.
- Allowing limited uses for “renewable” natural gas: Allows gas companies to deliver “renewable” natural gas from landfills and digesters to commercial and industrial customers as long as no costs are covered by ratepayers. It’s a nice idea, but “renewable” natural gas, another form of methane (that is not renewable) and an unproven technology, has been the for-profit utility corporation’s excuse to maintain pipelines as usual. As the bill is written, it’s hard to imagine an example where gases would travel from, say, a digester to a customer in pipelines that weren’t paid for by the public, so the intent is unclear.
- Changes to net metering: While some changes make sense, such as making net metering a permanent program and lowering net metering for larger projects that don’t need it, this is in the “bad” category because it dramatically lowers the net metering rate for any new projects over 25kW, which could have a significant impact on new commercial solar projects.
- Making it easier to build new nuclear: Removes a statutory prohibition on new nuclear. The state claims this will support “modern” nuclear technologies, such as Small Modular Reactors, even though they share many of the same issues as traditional reactors—including waste management, cost overruns, and project delays.
THE MIXED:
- Securitization: Allows the utilities to issue bonds to fund the energy transition with minimal oversight. This will, theoretically, reduce bills and allow utilities to invest in projects with high up-front costs. It will also guarantee a return on all utility investments without a simultaneous profit reduction, bringing into question continuing high rates of return if they are no longer needed to attract investment.
- Requiring utility audits every five years with recommendations: This language comes with no penalties or enforcement mechanism.
- Adjustments to Mass Save: The bill will make small adjustments to our state’s largest decarbonization program, like removing the gas utilities as administrators, officially adding “building decarbonization” to the program’s purview, and requiring a new database of rebates and incentives. But it does not go far enough. It fails to address serious equity disparities, it does not transform Mass Save into a full one-stop decarbonization shop that includes technologies like solar and storage, and it does not remove the electric utilities as administrators. Mass Save must transform into a full one-stop shop that is INDEPENDENT of the utilities, which are at odds with technologies that cut into their ability to build new infrastructure (and make money.)
(A couple of) THE MISSING:
- Any cost reforms to prevent the overall expansion of our gas system, which, across all categories, cost ratepayers $1.5B in 2023.
- Reforming Mass Save into a one-stop shop for renewables as the governor's team herself has said they must, and removing all utility program administrators to ensure impartiality
- Protection from the explosive growth of data centers for ratepayers, communities, and the environment
- Nearly anything to lower high utility profits, especially considering that securitization would make utilities a very low-risk investment.