State clean energy bill compromise may see informal session vote before election
Photo | Courtesy of BlueWave
A BlueWave solar project in Palmer
Another significant piece of legislation is ready to spring from protracted negotiations and onto the House and Senate floors for possible votes before the Nov. 5 elections.
House and Senate Democrats announced a breakthrough Thursday morning on "comprehensive climate and clean energy siting and permitting legislation," calling for a vote soon on a major bill that stumbled at the traditional end of formal legislative business in July.
Rep. Jeff Roy of Franklin and Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, the lead negotiators tasked with achieving compromise on wide-reaching bills (S 2838 / H 4884) each branch approved this year, said they were finalizing details and plan to submit a final proposal "in the coming days."
"We are proud to announce that we have reached an agreement in principle that resolves the differences between the House and Senate versions of the comprehensive climate and clean energy siting and permitting legislation," the duo said in a statement. "Massachusetts must continue to be a national leader in the effort to combat climate change, a prerequisite for which will be transitioning to a clean energy economy and creating high-quality jobs in the process."
In separate interviews, both chairs of the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee described their negotiations as complicated, difficult and exhaustive. But both sang from the same hymn sheet Thursday and described the final product as a "great" bill that includes priorities of each branch -- and one that they think is likely to win the governor's signature as well.
"It comes with the turf," Roy said Thursday about the months of bumpy negotiations to get to Thursday's announcement of an agreement. "I mean, this is probably one of the most complex areas of government today. So I'm not surprised, but I'm glad we're here."
Barrett told the News Service, "Everything that ends well has to be considered worthwhile, and this process was labyrinthine but to a very good end. I think the House gets a lot of what it wants. I know the Senate is very satisfied."
The agreement, which has not yet been filed in actual bill form, revolves around the permitting and siting reform language that Roy, Barrett and the Healey administration previously agreed to, Roy said. Barrett said the conference agreement uses siting and permitting language from the Healey administration as a "base case," but lawmakers made a "few improvements."
There is general agreement among developers and activists that the current process for permitting and siting clean energy projects is too slow and cumbersome, and that changes are necessary if the state is to scale up its clean energy efforts as much as will be required to meet its mid-century net-zero commitment.
After the branches failed to reach agreement at the end of formal sessions, Healey, who did not file her own climate bill, attached siting and permitting reform language her administration drafted to a closeout budget bill in an attempt to renew action on that front.
"Governor Healey is excited that the Legislature has reached an agreement on this critical climate bill that will strengthen Massachusetts' global leadership in creating clean energy jobs and reducing costs," a spokesperson for the governor said Thursday morning. "She looks forward to receiving it."
Barrett said Healey's proposal to tackle just about only permitting and siting through a different bill while he and Roy continued to negotiate a larger energy compromise was "not helpful." He said the lesson from this conference committee is that "the Legislature keeps on working past any interim deadlines it might set for itself."
"It's important for the administration to acknowledge the Legislature gets to 'yes' if left on its own," Barrett said. "I hope that point is not lost on anyone."
Crafting A Compromise
Acknowledging that building out the grid for clean energy will increase electric bills for Massachusetts residents, the Senate included in its energy bill a focus on ramping down natural gas programs as a way to shield ratepayers. While the Senate had to forgo some of its ideas in the compromise, the agreement is expected to amend the regulatory definition of a gas company to allow those utilities to make, sell or distribute network geothermal energy, which could open the door to a shift in business model for some existing gas companies.
Roy said his concern all along was that the Senate's approach "was moving too fast to decommission gas" at a time when 50 to 60 percent of the energy being generated on any given day comes from natural gas supplies.
"Until we had a robust renewable network in place, I didn't think we could rush into that," he said. "Luckily, we reached a compromise that the decommissioning is not going to take place as fast and the Senate did agree to soften the language to give us more time."
Barrett, who has for years argued that it is critical for the state to offset the higher costs of electrification so ratepayers don't rebel against the broader clean energy transition, said he is satisfied that the compromise will still "protect ratepayers on the gas side even as we build out the electric grid."
Roy added, "I ran this all by the unions who are stakeholders in this process and the utilities who are stakeholders in this process. Once we got buy-in from them, we felt comfortable moving forward."
The agreement will also include language related to the procurement of energy storage and an option for purchasing nuclear power from Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut or Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire, the senator said. That could be key to a deal Healey has reportedly been discussing with Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont to get his state to buy into an offshore wind project with Massachusetts. On the offshore wind front, the agreement will give the state the ability to negotiate 30-year contracts for power rather than the current 20-year deals.
Roy described the nuclear power procurement option in the agreement as "a limited one" that allows the administration to coordinate with other states "to enter into contracts to procure clean energy, and we specifically made reference to opening it up to existing nuclear facilities."
Barrett said the agreement is also expected to include "lots of important breakthroughs in terms of outfitting the state with an EV charger network, some very important housekeeping details around heat pumps," and changes to the Massachusetts Port Authority charter that will require the agency to consider reductions in greenhouse gas emissions along with regional economic growth.
The Senate's bid to outlaw the competitive electric supply industry from taking new customers, an idea supported by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, and its attempt to overhaul the state's bottle deposit bill did not survive into the final product.
House-originated language to require the Department of Energy Resources to forecast EV charger demand through 2045 and to create a statewide network for fast-charging hubs will be included, according to Roy, as will language shifting the regulation of EV infrastructure from DOER to the Division of Standards.
And Massachusetts would become the first state in the nation to recognize fusion energy in its list of RPS Class 1 renewable generation sources. For decades, researchers have been trying to make fusion a realistic option for carbon-free energy generation and "a major scientific breakthrough decades in the making" in late 2022 has brought it closer to reality. In Devens, Commonwealth Fusion Systems is working on "a compact fusion device that will prove fusion can work as a commercial energy source for the first time in history."
"Us taking that step is a real boost for that industry and I'm happy we're first in the nation on that," Roy said.
Process To Passage
Almost all Republicans voted against the original bills in each chamber, complicating -- but not prohibiting -- the route to final passage during this post-July 31 period of informal sessions when any single lawmaker's objection can stall a bill's movement. Roy and Barrett both said they are talking to the minority leaders in their chambers about advancing their compromise. Roy noted that House Minority Leader Brad Jones is a member of the clean energy conference committee and participated in its discussions and said his conversations with Jones have been about "seeing if it's something he would be comfortable recommending to his members."
"We'll see the response on that. And if that's not done, I think we'll have to just bring in more members to have a quorum on the day we do it," he said.
Informal sessions almost always take place without a quorum (half of the members of a branch plus one) and the method that any lawmaker can use to stop something from advancing is to doubt the presence of a quorum. Last December, House Republicans used that tactic to stall action on a key spending bill that featured funds for emergency family shelter. But after three failed attempts, House leaders got enough Democrats to attend an informal session and were able to pass the bill over the GOP dissent.
Barrett noted that the clean energy compromise will come up first in the Senate and said he hopes the branches can pass the conference agreement onto the governor's desk "relatively soon." He also mentioned the potential for the Senate to call in enough Democrats to constitute a quorum in order to muscle the compromise through over Republican opposition.
"But we will definitely get there," he said, dismissing possible minority party-related delays as temporary.
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