Massachusetts has a proud legacy of climate leadership, thanks to bold policies passed every single session to drive forward our needed transition to clean energy. And last year, we did it again with a massive win: a landmark climate omnibus bill thanks to people like you.
Now, we’re at a crossroads.
After a week of broiling heat in Massachusetts and DC, it could not be clearer that states must step up. Governor Maura Healey has introduced a new bill aimed at advancing clean energy and tackling rising energy costs. While there are promising ideas in the bill, it stops short of answering the most critical question:
👉 Is our energy future being built for the people — or for energy profits?
Below are our top legislative energy-related priorities and how they compare to this bill:
Limiting the expensive and dangerous expansion of new pipelines: We pay for new methane pipelines and power plants on our energy bills. In 2023, our bills funded $1.5B of capital investments. Legislators should prevent reckless, unjustified expansion projects, especially within communities that are already polluted. Nothing in H.4144 addresses those costs. Legislators should advance H.3547, which would prevent new large methane projects within 5 miles of an environmental justice community.
Prohibiting utilities spending ratepayer dollars on lobbying, promotion and profits: Gas and electric utilities should only charge customers for services necessary to provide safe, affordable, and reliable utility services. Loopholes in Massachusetts law permit utilities to charge ratepayers for influence activities, such as trade associations, image promotions, and perks. These charges are buried in mountains of paperwork, typically reviewed every five years or less during rate cases, and are inscrutable to the public. H.4144 strengthens prohibitions on this inappropriate ratepayer spending but fails to include important annual transparency reporting requirements found in H.3400.
Accelerate solar on rooftops and disturbed land: Solar is key to Massachusetts clean energy transition. The bill takes small steps to make small-scale solar easier to build, such as creating more standardized permitting conditions, updating our solar incentive program, and improving the time it takes for solar to be connected to the grid (Sections 6, 57, 10, 41). With federal support poised to dissolve, the bill must go further and update the solar tax credit, remove small project delays by exempting them from group studies, allow government properties to be exempt from incentive (net metering) caps, and make residential rooftop permitting easier. (Sections 1-4, 6-9 of H.3520)
Labor protections: Workers are the backbone of our energy system. H.4144 makes strides in ensuring clean energy jobs are good jobs by requiring labor standards for thermal energy networks and protections for clean energy projects receiving public funding. It also requires utilities to create “just transition plans.” (Section 11, 41, 59)
Protection from the explosive growth of data centers for ratepayers, communities, and the environment: The Department of Energy expects data centers to triple their electricity consumption by 2028, accounting for one-eighth of the country's total electricity use. The expansion of AI and data centers has immense real and current costs that disproportionately affect Black and brown frontline communities. Data centers are the primary drivers of energy demand, increasing utility bills while also increasing pollution. Nothing in H.4144 prepares us for this future. We need provisions mandating renewable energy, requiring demand response programs, and requiring data centers to pay for the grid investments needed to handle their rapidly changing power consumption. We should prohibit unnecessary ratepayer subsidies for private industry and ban diesel and other fossil-fuel generators.
Transition Mass Save leadership to a neutral third party: Mass Save is our flagship efficiency and home energy improvements program. For every dollar invested in Mass Save, ratepayers are getting $2.72 in return over time. Mass Save is currently administered by our investor-owned utilities, whose profit model relies on charging customers to build new infrastructure like pipes, poles, and wires. This model is at odds with technologies that reduce the need for infrastructure spending, like energy efficiency and solar. H.4144 modernizes and streamlines Mass Save, adds guardrails, and transitions full Mass Save administration to the electric utilities, which currently administer all incentives. However, reform should go further. Mass Save administrators should have no conflict of interest. A final bill should also remove electric utilities as administrators and transfer Mass Save over to a neutral third party, a model that already works well in Vermont and Maine. (Sections 2-3)
OPPOSE: Making it easier to build new nuclear reactors: Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are all the rage, but their promises have not been borne out in the real world. They share all problems of traditional reactors—including waste management, cost overruns, and project delays. H.4144 removes barriers to constructing new nuclear power, such as SMRs. While money is wasted to prop up this unproven technology, we are losing precious time to implement the real energy solutions that are ready, affordable, and effective today. (Section 45)
Tell the legislature to lead with courage and put people first. In the face of federal defunding and destruction, they must prioritize bold, just policies that, when necessary, challenge the interests of big corporations, including utilities.
