Mass. Lawmakers Aiming for an Omnibus Climate Bill in 2024

Top legislators in Massachusetts this year hope to pass a major climate and energy bill, which could bring significant permitting and siting reform, and boost transportation and heating electrification.

“It’s going to be a really interesting time,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the Acadia Center, a climate-focused nonprofit. Murray praised the steps taken in the previous two bills but added that “we’ve got so many areas we still need to cover.”

Murray of the Acadia Center stressed the importance of securing funding for public transport in the state. According to a recent assessment by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, the state would need to invest an additional $2 billion annually through 2036 just to make all the necessary repairs for the existing system. This excludes any potential expansion, resilience or modernization efforts to help the state meet its climate goals.

“We need a more stable funding source for the MBTA [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority]. I really do think we need to address that at some point in the very near future,” said Murray, while acknowledging the added difficulty of the state’s current financial troubles. Gov. Healey recently proposed a $375 million budget cut to stave off an impending shortfall.

To read the full article from RTO Insider, click here.

Connecticut program aims to alleviate cost barriers to utility oversight process, but challenges remain

Connecticut’s utilities commission is the latest to begin offering payments to help environmental justice and ratepayer groups participate in regulatory proceedings.

The Stakeholder Group Compensation Program was required to take effect this month as part of an energy consumer protection bill passed by the state legislature last year. It seeks to encourage more diverse engagement in proceedings on utility regulation, which can set direction for grid resiliency, rate relief, clean energy development, corporate accountability, storm response and more.

“The process of engaging with proceedings at public utility commissions across the nation is historically exclusive,” wrote Jayson Velazquez, the climate and energy justice policy associate with the nonprofit Acadia Center, in comments on the PURA docket creating the new program. “Compensation can play a significant role in ensuring diverse stakeholders are included in proceedings, specifically at PURA.”

In the Acadia Center’s comments on the new program’s docket, Velazquez said PURA should also begin a broader look at equity and inclusion across all of its work, similar to a docket now underway in Hawaii.

To read the full article from Energy News Network, click here.

Technology to “Get more out of” electric grid attracts support

BOSTON, Mass. (SHNS)–Clean energy trade groups lined up Thursday in support of a new proposal from legislative Democrats that would embrace lower-cost, easy-to-install options for boosting the performance of the electric grid.

Bills filed by the House and Senate point people on energy and climate reforms, Rep. Jeffrey Roy and Sen. Michael Barrett, won praise as “commonsense” changes that could help the state move closer to its clean energy future without the same kind of major investment that other reforms will require.

“Put simply, grid enhancing technologies are often incredibly cost-effective technologies that help us maximize our existing infrastructure,” added Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director with the Acadia Center.

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Mass. efforts to limit natural gas could serve as national model

ENERGYWIRE | Massachusetts will require utilities to pursue alternatives to natural gas in a first-of-its-kind order that could serve as a model for other states trying to speed their transition to clean energy.

The sweeping order is “fairly unprecedented, even at a national level,” said Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the Boston-based environmental group Acadia Center. The state move comes as a major gas utility in the state — Eversource Energy — already works to reduce natural gas demand and switch to geothermal energy.

To read the full article from E&E News, click here.

Massachusetts just took a major step to phase out natural gas

To read the full article from Fast Company, click here.

The COP is the Scoreboard, not the Game

For two weeks every December, the giant global climate meeting—this year with at least 70,000 delegates, lobbyists, activists, and journalists enjoying the tacky spaceport that is Dubai—provides a cascade of feelings. This year that intensity is concentrated on a sentence in the “global stocktake” section: there’s much drama around whether it will include the phrase “phaseout of fossil fuels.” This morning’s update: Canada, gentle giant of the north, has been drafted to draft the relevant sentence.

In other energy and climate news:

+A perfect example of great activism paying off. In Massachusetts, which has some of the best climate organizers on the planet, Governor Maura Healey (elected in part because of her true climate bona fides) has now made it clear that natural gas will be, what do you know, phased out in the Commonwealth. As Sabrina Shankman reported in the Globe,

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities examined, and ultimately rejected, proposals from the utilities to meet the state’s climate objectives by replacing natural gas with so-called renewable natural gas, typically methane captured from organic materials, like landfills or livestock operations.

The DPU found that option costly, in short supply, and not a clear climate fix, though it said it may be the best option for certain industries where it’s hardest to find an alternative to natural gas.

Climate and clean energy advocates cheered the news. “This is potentially the most transformational climate decision in Massachusetts history,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the clean energy advocacy group the Acadia Center.

To read the full article from the Crucial Years, click here.

Massachusetts Just Took a Big Step Away from Natural Gas. Which States Might Follow?

Natural gas may be on the way out in Massachusetts.

State utility regulators on Wednesday issued a sweeping ruling that sets a framework for reducing the use of gas for heating as part of a larger strategy to address climate change.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities rejected arguments from utilities and the gas industry that had urged the use of “renewable natural gas” and hydrogen as lower-carbon alternatives to natural gas. Instead, the department ruled that the state should encourage a transition to using electricity for heating and other functions gas currently serves.

Massachusetts is the first state to take such a clear step to phase out natural gas, but it likely won’t be the last. At least 11 other states (California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington) as well as Washington, D.C., have ongoing regulatory cases that are exploring the future of natural gas.

The decision “has the potential to be one of the most transformative decisions in Massachusetts climate history,” said a statement from Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at Acadia Center, a Maine-based environmental advocacy group.

To read the full article from Inside Climate News, click here.

Massachusetts Moves to Limit New Gas Infrastructure

Massachusetts has moved to discourage new investment in natural gas infrastructure by blocking utilities from recovering costs unless they can show they first considered non-gas alternatives. 

The order issued Dec. 6 by the Department of Public Utilities in Docket No. 20-80 follows more than three years of work by the DPU to engineer a reduction in the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.  

But it is only a first step, an attempt to discourage and dissuade rather than to ban. Ratepayer discretion is preserved, and the order’s effectiveness will depend in large part on the decisions they make. 

There are many more steps to come as the DPU works to balance all the moving pieces, competing interests and still-unknown factors to create a climate-protection solution that is workable, affordable and equitable. 

The Acadia Center, which had been pushing for a strong statement by the DPU, applauded Wednesday’s order, calling it a potentially transformative measure that addresses many of the clean energy advocacy group’s priorities. 

Eversource Energy and National Grid, which combined have more than 1.5 million gas customers in the Bay State, said in separate statements they support the state’s net-zero goals and are reviewing details of the 140-page order. 

The Acadia Center said: “The 20-80 order today from the DPU has the potential to be one of the most transformative decisions in Massachusetts climate history. … That being said, implementation and follow-through will be incredibly important, as always. Thoughtful planning by the Department and the commonwealth will be needed to ensure positive outcomes on key areas such as customer affordability, a just transition for gas workers, and infrastructure planning and management. This order therefore serves as an important midpoint in a multiyear process, as this decision will now lead to other key dominos like evaluation of gas utility stranded asset risk, decoupling mechanism revisions, systematic consideration of non-gas pipeline alternatives, and reassessment of gas utility policies on new and existing customer connections.”

To read the full article from RTO Insider, click here.

State charts a new energy future for Mass., beyond natural gas

The state of Massachusetts appears to be breaking up with natural gas.

State officials on Wednesday laid out a new regulatory strategy to move utilities away from natural gas as part of a broader effort to effectively zero out emissions from fossil fuels by 2050. Though in general terms instead of specific instructions, the order from the Department of Public Utilities offers this vision for the state in the mid 21st century: minimal gas pipelines; buildings powered by solar and wind, and warmed by heat pumps; and people cooking on electric stoves.

The edict marks an abrupt about-face from the DPU’s more industry-friendly approach under the previous governor, Charlie Baker, and the new message is clear: the transition away from pipeline-delivered gas is happening — whether the utilities like it or not.

Climate and clean energy advocates cheered the news. “This is potentially the most transformational climate decision in Massachusetts history,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the clean energy advocacy group Acadia Center.

To read the full article in the Boston Globe, click here.

Mass. outlines new strategy for getting customers and utilities off of natural gas

As Massachusetts works to zero-out planet warming emission by 2050, one big question has been how the state will wean itself off of natural gas and heat the majority of homes and buildings with electricity instead. One big obstacle has been gas utilities, which make money off of maintaining existing pipelines and building new infrastructure.

Now, after more than three years of considering the future of the natural gas industry in Massachusetts and what role it can play in the state’s efforts to significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, the Department of Public Utilities issued an order Wednesday meant to signal to gas utilities that it won’t be business as usual going forward.

“I really do think that this is potentially the most transformative climate decision in Massachusetts history,” said Kyle Murray, a senior Massachusetts advocate with Acadia Center, a climate advocacy and research group. “The department really looked at everything and delivered a decision that is well thought out [and follows] the science and data and the available information.”

To read the full article from wbur, click here.