By Eva Morgan
For the past year, our state leaders have been attempting to respond to increasing concerns about affordability in Massachusetts. Multiple bills proposed by the Governor, the House, and now the Senate have thought up ways to cut our energy bills, with mixed reception from the climate movement.
On Wednesday, June 24th, the Massachusetts Senate released their version of the energy omnibus bill. With only a week to read the 163 page bill and advocate for amendments before the Senate votes on July 1st, here is a brief summary.
What’s in the Senate bill?
Overall, this bill reflects a similar perspective as the governor. Finding ways to change the financial and technical aspects of how regulated utilities operate is the main way to save ratepayers money. We see fewer attacks on renewable energy, energy efficiency, or outright support for doubling down on expanding gas/fossil fuel infrastructure that was in the bill originally put forward by House Energy Chair Mark Cusack. We also see the Senate taking action on some provisions that we’ve been advocating for for years, namely an earlier ramp down of GSEP, a program that utilities have been exploiting which has resulted in high energy bills. Notably, the $1 billion dollar cut to Mass Save, our energy efficiency program, that was a prominent feature in the House bill did not make it into the Senate bill.
Good
- Protects our climate goals and energy efficiency program: does not cut funding to our state’s premier energy efficiency program, Mass Save. This program was a target for the House, who cut $1 billion dollars from its funding.
- Prevents some unnecessary utility charges: includes language to prohibit utilities from using ratepayer money (money from our energy bills) for memberships to trade organizations and lobbying.
- Health and safety protections: prohibits shutoffs when the temperature is over 85 degrees for 3 consecutive days.
- Protections from competitive electric retail suppliers: allows individual cities and towns to ban these suppliers as well as other protections from their predatory practices.
- Maintains the public right to vote on new nuclear in the state: departing from the parallel House bill that repealed this democratic power.
- Earlier phase out of an expensive gas infrastructure program: the gas system enhancement program has been exploited by utilities for over a decade, driving up costs and creating future stranded assets.The language in this bill sunsets the program by 2030 which is better than nothing, but not the sweeping progress that we hoped to see.
Mixed
- Allows for plug in solar, but with restrictions: doesn’t go as far as the house bill, and has a lower threshold for requiring an electrician.
Bad
- Introduces greenwashed solutions for gas: allows utilities to create a new rate to sell Renewable Natural Gas (a harmful false solution) to commercial and industrial customers.
- Reforms Mass Save, creating barriers and increasing corporate control: removes the self-verification for low and moderate income households within this program, creating an unnecessary hurdle. Adds big business presence in the advisory council.
- Reduces the targets for the Renewable Portfolio Standard: instead of the target percentages growing 3% per year, this reduces it to 1% temporarily and then permanently increases the target percentage growth (which we support). This temporary reduction would result in decreased alternative compliance payments which fund important clean energy and housing decarbonization programs.
What’s missing?
- Preventing gas buildout and related costs: does not include language to stop gas expansion within 5 miles of Environmental Justice communities, which organizations across the state have been fighting for. And does not codify the prohibition of having all ratepayers cover the cost to hook up new gas customers through line extensions.
- Even stronger protections from utility profiteering: although the bill includes some protections from utility spending, it does not go far enough to prohibit them from recovering the costs of institutional advertising and rate cases from customers. It also doesn’t include any reporting requirement for utilities.
- Protection from the explosive growth of data centers: for ratepayers, communities, and the environment.
- Doesn’t address biomass subsidies: currently Municipal Light Plants are able to count burning biomass towards their clean energy targets, despite it causing an array of health and environmental harms.
- Protecting funding for low income housing decarbonization and renewable energy production. At the moment, alternative compliance payments, payments made in lieu of meeting APS, RPS, and CPS goals, can go to crucial programs that promote low income housing decarbonization and renewable energy development. Gov. Healey and the House both want to take this funding away from those programs.
- Lowering high utility profit margins, which recent analyses have argued are far out of line with what is just and reasonable.
What are our priorities and next steps?
- Reducing bills through reining in gas infrastructure build out and utility spending and profiteering: amendments will be filed introducing language to stop gas expansion near EJ communities, prohibiting utilities from using ratepayer money for institutional advertising, and studying the profit margins that utilities are allowed to gain from us.
- Protecting Massachusetts residents from harm: including from data center development that raises energy bills, uses and pollutes our water, and worsens air quality, and subsidizing biomass burning for MLPs.
- Ensuring that the programs cut to save us money align with our climate goals: continuing to advocate around no cuts to mass save and a rapid sunset of the GSEP program.