GOV. MAURA HEALEY’S sweeping energy affordability bill received a largely positive reception from lawmakers at a nearly six-hour hearing on Wednesday, but even lawmakers who lauded the proposal had some concerns.
Healey unveiled the bill in May in response to a winter that saw sharp increases in natural gas bills across the state. The legislation aims to reduce certain charges on energy bills, keep unnecessary costs from being passed to ratepayers, and expand the state’s authority to explore new nuclear power technologies.
After a cold winter that had residents across the state struggling to make ends meet, Healey’s aim is to lower rate payer bills while still moving forward on the state’s mandated climate goals. She faces a challenging balancing act as the Trump administration pulls federal funding from climate efforts and takes aim at offshore wind – a potentially abundant source of clean energy for Massachusetts.
Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington, the chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy who was the driving force behind the climate law which passed in November 2024, said that he was “impressed with the sheer intelligence and ingenuity of the fine print” of the bill.
But he also questioned whether Healey’s plan to allow the Department of Public Utilities to authorize utility companies to issue bonds to fund Mass Save would cost ratepayers more in the long run. “We would move from pay-as-you-go to an alternative that requires the payment of interest on long-term bonds,” said Barrett. “One would think that would be an additional financing cost, and that over the entire cost of the useful life of the project, more dollars might wind up being spent either by our taxpayers or by our ratepayers.”
Mass Save, which is currently funded entirely through surcharges on utility customers, accounted for the biggest portion of the increase in natural gas rates this past winter. The program’s cost is updated only every three years, and an unusually cold winter amplified the effect of the rate increase.
Rebecca Tepper, the state secretary of energy and environmental affairs, said the DPU would be reviewing any plan to issue bonds for Mass Save, and that the agency would only move forward on allowing this means of financing if it is in the interest of customers. The utility companies would not make a profit on the bonds, she added.
Barrett also expressed concern that, in the absence of offshore wind, the state would be more reliant on solar but that the proposed legislation would lower the rate – known as the “net metering compensation rate” – non-residential solar panel owners are compensated when they send energy back into the grid. According to the Healey administration, Massachusetts has the highest net metering rate in the country, and lowering the rate will save customers an estimated $380 million over 10 years. High net metering rates can mean that the costs of maintaining the electric grid are disproportionately borne by non-solar customers and utility companies might have to raise rates for all customers to offset the revenue lost from paying solar producers at a higher rate.
“We want to indicate we need more solar because offshore wind is going to be very slow off the mark, given what President Trump is doing,” said Barrett. “But in the next breath, we assure people that we’re going to reduce the value of net metering. How are you going to get more solar during a period – when it may be our primary source of clean energy over the next four years – and somehow make it less lucrative to the developers?”
Healey’s undersecretary of energy, Michael Judge, testified that the lowered net metering rate would only impact certain large net metering facilities. Currently, those facilities receive close to “double what any other state in the country provides to solar,” he said.
“I don’t think it should have any … negative impact on solar development or the pace of solar development in Massachusetts, but it should allow us to build it at a lower cost,” he added.
The legislation gives the state more flexibility in how energy is procured from the state. Barrett asked Healey to clarify if the state would include sources like solar, nuclear, and hydropower under the new procurement framework. Elizabeth Mahoney, commissioner of the Department of Energy Resources, said that all different sources will be part of the procurement plan to meet the state’s climate goals.
Rep. Jeffrey Turco, who represents Winthrop and parts of Revere, expressed doubts that energy affordability and the transition to green energy could go hand in hand.
“What is the priority of the administration: Green energy or rate pay relief?” asked Turco. “Because it seems to me that the reality of the last year or two with our rates is that you can’t have both.”
In response, Healey said she was taking an “all of the above approach” to get as much energy as possible onto the grid from different sources. She said that she is looking at “all options” and that she wants to address some of the “immediate hurt” of the energy affordability crisis.
“[With] some of the programs that have served the Commonwealth well – where can we scale back right now?” said Healey. “Because people have got to be able to put food on the table, especially with the other the other cuts that that we’re likely to see from the federal administration.”
Healey’s legislation would also phase out a program that provides incentives to businesses for installing “alternative energy systems” that contribute to the state’s clean energy goals by increasing energy efficiency, reform the competitive supply market to protect customers from predatory practices by third-party electric suppliers, and allow the Department of Public Utilities to cap the amount of month-to-month bill increases.
Carrie Katan from the nonprofit Green Energy Consumer Alliance said that her group supports the consumer protections in Healey’s bill around third-party electric suppliers – which have come under fire for predatory marketing and major price hikes. Many environmental and energy affordability advocates, including Katan, as well as more than a dozen municipal leaders across the state support an outright ban on third-party suppliers.
“If we cannot get a ban, we would love if there is legislation that protects people from the worst abuses of the system,” Katan said in an interview. “That would still be a massive win for the people of the commonwealth.”