Mass. House passes major energy affordability bill, cutting Mass Save

Boston – With thousands of residents still in the dark after a massive blizzard, the Massachusetts House voted Thursday to advance a bill to address the high utility bills that are taking a deeper cut of personal budgets across the state.

While “there’s a lot to like in this bill,” director of state program implementation at the Acadia Center, Kyle Murray, said, “The cuts to Mass Save are this big beacon that is really, really distressing to see.” The cut would “devastate” Mass Save and have “significant spillover” into other parts of the program outside of the administration and marketing, he added. “There is not a billion dollars in those departments that’s going to be there in the last year of the program,” Murray said.

“People have focused on the costs quite a bit, but not on the benefits. From 2016 to 2024, without Mass Save, on purely electric and gas supply and infrastructure costs, we would have had to pay $16 billion, if Mass Save didn’t exist,” Murray continued. “We spent $8 billion on Mass Save during that period. That’s a benefit that’s on every ratepayer.”

To read the full article from the New Bedford Light, click here.