350 Mass, Mass Power Forward, and allies from across the climate movement just stopped Corporate Democrats from ramming a massive Climate Rollback Bill (H.4744) through the legislature. So many of you called, emailed, and contacted your legislators that there was a truly unprecedented rebellion against leadership's control. We stopped this Climate Rollback Bill in its tracks. Now, we need to move beyond stopping bad legislation to passing truly transformative bills that build a clean, affordable future. Join us at the Mass Power Forward Distributed Lobby Day the second week of December. RSVP here.

Read on for more detail on what happened, what was in the bill, and where we go from here.

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What happened last week?

Last Monday (11/10), the powerful House Energy Committee Chair, Rep. Cusack, asked committee members to vote on a 98 page energy bill. Many had barely started reading through the bill, which would not be released to the public until after voting was complete. While advertised as an energy affordability bill, its main goal was to reverse the last five years of hard fought climate progress.

By Wednesday, our movement had sprung into action. State House insiders reported inboxes piled high with constituent emails, phones ringing off the hook, and legislators growing concerned over what they had unleashed. While the committee vote that night did move H.4744 on in the legislative process to the House Ways and Means Committee, it was far from the typical Beacon Hill lockstep. Four committee members abstained from voting on the bill, either in protest of the undemocratic process or because they understood it will hurt them in their districts.

On Thursday, over 150 climate activists including 350 Mass members and allies packed the State House for the hearing on the People Over Energy Profits bill, H.3547/S.2290, that would prevent the expansion of big pipelines and power plants within 5 miles of an environmental justice community. It's rare to get an opportunity to criticize legislators to their face, but at the hearing advocate after advocate got a chance to tell the House chair just how bad his bill will be for our communities, our climate, and for its supposed goal of affordability. Eventually the chair simply left and gave up on chairing his own hearing!

This past weekend, analysts and advocates have worked overtime to prepare rebuttals to the now public bill and get our network ready.

This week, our whole movement stood up and stopped the bill.

On Monday, first we heard that House leadership was meeting to discuss the bill. We anticipated a poll to be launched for Ways and Means to vote on the bill any moment. Once they vote, the bill would go to the House floor, face a perfunctory amendment process heavily censored by leadership, then passed through the House.

Instead, there was no word from our allies on Ways and Means. By the time we reached the end of the day the news broke: House leadership had punted action on the bill into the new year. Activists sent several hundreds of letters through our Mass Power Forward action network alone, in addition to many more emails, calls, and letters. 

Per Jordan Wolman of the Commonwealth Beacon, the powerful chair of House Ways and Means credited our movement with this halt. “Some of the rollback pieces on the 2030 numbers have gotten a lot of interest, a lot of energy behind it, no pun intended there,” Michlewitz said of the blowback to the early House plan. “We are certainly wanting to focus on affordability and not necessarily on things of that nature,” he said, referring to the emissions deadlines. 

What was so bad in the bill?

What we're naming the Climate Rollback Bill (H.4744) will demolish the last five years of climate progress in MA. The most problematic sections remove our mandatory climate goals, severely limit Mass Save's ability to save residents money through clean heating, and throw our clean energy economy into chaos. There are many more poison pills, including a new pipeline tax and the removal of reduced rates for middle income ratepayers. These two alone will immediately raise costs for many. For the nitty gritty on what's in the bill, check out this analysis from our friends at the Acadia Center. It pulls some of the worst aspects of the bill, which would:

• Make 2030 Mass Save greenhouse gas target merely advisory;
• Cut another $330 million from the 2025-2027 Mass Save plan budget;
• Subject future three-year Mass Save plans to an unprecedented and arbitrary budget cap, completely dismissing the notion of energy efficiency as a cost-effective resource to be procured;
• Remove the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions from Mass Save’s cost-effectiveness test;
• Add rebates for natural gas heating systems back into the program;
• Remove demand management, beneficial electrification, and decarbonization from the program;
• Eliminate the newly created moderate-income discount rate;
• Appear to attempt to reverse the Supreme Judicial Court on ENGIE Gas & LNG v. Department of Public Utilities and Conservation Law Foundation v. Department of Public Utilities, which prohibits the Department of Public Utilities from authorizing electric distribution companies to enter into electric ratepayer-backed gas pipeline contracts;
• Decrease the yearly increase in the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) from 3% to 1% until 2033; and
• Require the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) to direct the utilities to coordinate an initiative to perform a customer bill-impact analysis assessment on costs from any programs associated with greenhouse gas reductions, clean energy, solar, workforce development, or electrification.

The bill wasn't exclusively bad policy. There were several bills from our allies on solar, biomass, and a just transition for workers that were attached to H.4744. Unfortunately, this was likely done to divide our movement. And when the Energy Committee reported out the bill, all of the cosponsors for those good bills were lumped on to this awful one.

At the same time, the bill did nothing to target the main cause of high energy bills: rebuilding and maintaining our outdated gas infrastructure. For more details, check out today's op-ed from former chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities Jamie Van Nostrand.

That's likely because there were fossil fuel fingerprints all over it. The House Chair has received over $4,000 in fossil fuel donations over the last week alone; gas lobby group the "Coalition for Sustainable Energy" have put out a public statement of support; and the FAQ's the chair sent out to the entire House Wednesday night appears to have been written by lobbyists who count fossil fuel companies as their clients.

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Where We Go From Here (How you can help)

As soon as you can, send your Representative a thank you note. Many took a big risk defying leadership. It's critical that we reward bravery as loudly as we denounce cowardice. You can find your Representative's contact information here and if they are on the Ways and Means Committee here.

Feel free to copy and paste this script here: 

Dear Representative _____,

I am [name], your constituent living at [address] and a member of the statewide climate action group 350 Mass.

I am grateful that the House listened to their constituents across the state and paused motion on the costly Climate Rollback Bill, H.4744. Our district needs a future powered by clean, affordable energy, not dirty, expensive gas. Because of your leadership, we were able to halt this step backward. I'm excited to work with you in support of legislation that achieves that goal.

Thank you,

[name]

350 Mass is at the State House today (Tuesday, 11/18) for a hearing on climate bank bill. While here, we delivered literature in support of clean, affordable energy to all Representatives and thank our champions.

Next, we need you to join us at the Mass Power Forward Distributed Lobby Day the second week of December. RSVP here.

Our pressure shook the House. Because we kep it up, beyond winning this one battle, we sent a strong signal to the Senate and Governor that caving on climate will hurt them politically and drive up costs for ratepayers. Together, we won.