.The House chairman of a key legislave committee said Wednesday that policymakers are reevaluating all of Massachusetts’ climate and emissions mandates, plans and goals in light of changes in federal energy policy.
That’s cracked open the door to the possibility of changes to the state’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
President Donald Trump has moved quickly in his second term to reshape national energy and climate policy, largely rejecting the transition from fossil fuels towards clean energy sources that President Joe Biden favored and states like Massachusetts pledged themselves to.
Here, the state government has committed to reducing carbon emissions by at least 50% compared to 1990 baselines by 2030, by at least 75% by 2040 and by at least 85% by 2050, with tag-along policies to get the state to net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.
The state also has numerous other mandates on the books, including around things like electric vehicles.
Those emission reduction requirements and others were the subject of debate as the House worked through budget amendments Wednesday morning.
State Rep. Marc Lombardo, R-22nd Middlesex, offered an amendment that would declare, “any statewide or sector-specific greenhouse gas emissions limits, benchmarks, or reduction requirements established therein shall be considered aspirational goals and shall not have the force of law as binding mandates.”
Lombardo, of Billerica, described it as a bid to restore “balance, flexibility and commonsense to the Massachusetts climate policy.”
Rep. Mark Cusack, D-5th Norfolk, who’s tapped this session to lead the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, urged representatives to reject Lombardo’s amendment and said there was already an effort underway to reconsider climate mandates.
“While we have passed major climate legislation the past few sessions, we are in the process of reviewing all of our climate and emission mandates, goals and plans,” Cusack, of Braintree, said.
“With the new administration in Washington pulling funding, and with the president’s executive order preventing the development of new offshore wind, we must reevaluate and try to figure out the new reality of meeting our climate change goals without a federal partner and without our planned energy diversification,” Cusack said.
He said those “difficult problems and solutions and approaches” deserve to be discussed in public hearings and with multiple interested groups. He also said that the energy affordability legislation that Gov. Maura Healey first announced more than two months ago is expected to be filed in May.
“In order to assess our new reality and where we go from here,” Cusack continued, “everything must remain on the table.”
Lombardo argued that his amendment would fit right into the effort Cusack described since it “removes a mandate and asks for an aspirational goal that provides the very flexibility that the gentleman was speaking about.”
“Affordability has been a massive talking point in the commonwealth for the last several years. We continuously see residents leaving the commonwealth for more affordable places to live,” he said.
“Energy costs [are] a direct way that we can help our residents, maintain the flexibility, have goals to diversify, but not lock us into a way that Nana and Grampy can’t pay for gas to heat their homes in the winter,” he continued. “And so I ask my colleagues to join me and support this amendment so that Nana doesn’t have to go cold in the winter.”
The House rejected Lombardo’s amendment. Twenty-one Republicans supported it.
Four of them — Minority Leader Brad Jones, 20th Middlesex, and First Assistant Minority Leader Kimberly Ferguson, R-1st Worcester, as well as Reps. Hannah Kane, R-11th Worcester, and Donald Wong, R-9th Essex, — joined all Democrats and independent Rep. Susannah Whipps in opposition.
The final tally was 21-134.
As of 2021, the most recent year with data available, state officials reported they had reduced emissions 28% below 1990 levels. The pandemic was credited with helping Massachusetts meet its 2020 commitment, but there has been great doubt around whether the state remains on track to hit its 2030 requirement.
State Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper said in March that the executive order Trump signed in January essentially halting all federal offshore wind actions “pending the completion of a comprehensive federal review of federal wind leasing and permitting practices” could make it much harder to reach the 2030 checkpoint.
“There is no doubt that the Trump administration has made it more difficult to meet the requirements, specifically on the generation side,” Tepper said at the time. “We had planned on having a significant amount of clean energy by 2030 from offshore wind. So that’s going to be a big headwind if that doesn’t happen.”
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