Massachusetts lawmakers are considering a bill that environmentalist critics say would dramatically weaken the commonwealth’s goals for limiting climate change, undoing years of work on policies aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
This bill was put forth by Democratic state Rep. Mark Cusack earlier this month with the intention of controlling soaring energy prices while also taking a realistic look at the state’s emissions reduction goals.
“We’re looking at the real possibility here, in the objective analysis, that we are not going to make our greenhouse reduction mandates,” Cusack told the Commonwealth Beacon. “I have not found anyone who says that we are going to make our mandates.”
Massachusetts’ current goal is to slash greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
Under the bill’s current text, these targets would no longer be enforceable, instead considered “advisory in nature,” and the commonwealth would be granted “immunity” if it fails to reach those emissions limits.
The legislation also calls for the capping of the state’s budget for its energy efficiency program, known as Mass Save. The program’s budget was approved by the Department of Public Utilities at around $4.5 billion in late February of this year. Cusack’s bill recommends capping the budget at $4 billion.
The bill, if enacted, would further reduce the budget by more than $300 million over the course of three years until 2027, slashing funds for marketing and advertising initiatives.
Additionally, the legislation targets green energy targets by delaying Massachusetts’ statutory deadline to contract more than 5 gigawatts of offshore wind. The state is currently required to hit that target by 2027, though the bill would push the deadline to 2029.
Cusack has insisted that he is not looking to undermine the state’s broader climate goals, but rather to reassess its short-term mandates to lower energy bills and better grapple with the Trump administration’s efforts to curb renewable energy.
“We want to get there, but if we’re going to miss our mandates, and it’s not the fault of ours, it’s incumbent on us not to get sued and not have the ratepayers be on the hook,” he told the Commonwealth Beacon.
Cusack did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
The bill directly accuses the Trump administration of contributing to higher rates in Massachusetts, criticizing its crackdown on the development of offshore wind, the termination of funding for the Solar for All program, withholding of funding for electric vehicle infrastructure in the commonwealth, and its push to phase out clean energy tax credits.
These actions, the bill reads, threaten jobs, supply chain development, and emissions reduction goals in Massachusetts while also increasing regulatory risk and ratepayer burdens.
As a result, the bill affirms that the commonwealth must establish emissions reduction goals that help the region hit its 2050 targets while lowering energy costs for consumers.
Cusack’s legislation has the backing of many Democrats in the state House, and the bill was advanced out of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy on Wednesday.
However, it has received backlash from environmental and climate advocacy groups, who say it will threaten Massachusetts’ clean energy goals and that funding cuts to Mass Save could actually increase energy bills.
In 2024, program directors estimated that Mass Save generated around $2.8 billion in total benefits for participants, including over 1 million megawatt-hours in electric savings.
“We want good energy-affordability legislation. This is not that,” Amy Boyd Rabin, vice president of policy for the Environmental League of Massachusetts, told Canary Media. “The claim that climate policies are the thing making prices rise is just not based in fact.”
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Cusack has said he is aiming to put the bill to a vote in the state House by Nov. 19, when lawmakers break for the year.
It will also need to pass in the state Senate before heading to the governor’s desk, though it likely faces an uphill battle, as many legislators previously backed some of the measures the legislation looks to change.