Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The Honorable Mark J. Cusack
The Honorable Michael J. Barrett
The Honorable Aaron M. Michlewitz
The Honorable Cynthia Stone Creem
The Honorable Bradley H. Jones, Jr.
The Honorable Bruce E. Tarr
State House, Boston
Dear Chair Cusack, Chair Barrett, and Distinguished Members of the Conference Committee,
On behalf of the cities and towns of the Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Municipal Association (MMA) is writing to share comments on H. 5175 and S. 3166, the two energy affordability proposals before you.
First, we are appreciative of the Legislature’s continued attention to energy policy over the past several legislative sessions. We are also thankful for your consideration of how rising costs impact residents and businesses in every city and town, which remains a priority for municipal leaders. State and local governments share a responsibility to position Massachusetts as a great place to call home and promote long-term success. We know energy affordability remains an important factor for this, which is why we are thankful for the House and Senate’s continued attention to this matter.
Throughout Massachusetts, municipal leaders have sought out opportunities to provide greater energy affordability to residents, businesses, and taxpayers. State and local clean energy and climate goals both recognize the environmental and public health benefits of decarbonization, electrification, and energy efficiency. Cities and towns are also deeply thankful for the cost savings that can be achieved through these energy policies. Installing solar arrays on municipal buildings can generate meaningful energy bill savings, reducing the financial impact baseline municipal operations has on taxpayers. Initiating a municipal aggregation program can allow residents to benefit from energy rates for their own residential energy supply below the basic service rate of their ‘default’ utility company.
Localized energy cost savings can be generated from many actions, small and large. But, policies supported and advanced by the Legislature and the Healey-Driscoll Administration have the ability to produce significant savings across the entire Commonwealth. We appreciate your efforts to meet our residents where they are, providing impactful change that can truly address affordability concerns.
Key Municipal Provisions
It’s with this shared goal that we offer the municipal perspective on several provisions included within these proposals:
Both the House and Senate energy affordability bills include a provision that would address the municipal net metering cap. This cap represents the limit on the amount of solar generation for which a city or town government may obtain net metering credits for municipal solar projects. Currently, Section 139 of Chapter 164 of the Massachusetts General Laws imposes a 10 megawatt cap per municipality. This limit is one that many cities and towns run up against, where further solar projects would not be eligible to receive net metering credits. We greatly appreciate the Legislature’s attention towards this cap, and the possibility to promote further solar development in Massachusetts by addressing this limit.
Local governments from across the Commonwealth can attest to the fact that receiving net metering credits for municipal projects does incentivize municipal deployment of solar arrays. They represent a true ‘carrot’ to support clean energy, and should not be rigidly limited. The MMA strongly supports Section 69 of S. 3166, which completely removes the net metering cap for municipal net metering facilities. While Section 48 of H. 5175 would raise the cap from 10 to 20 megawatts, a complete removal of this cap is preferred for all municipalities. This would allow municipalities greater incentive to take part in a clean energy transition while providing more predictability, avoiding a need to revisit the cap in the future. We urge the conference committee to include Section 69 of S. 3166 in future iterations of the bill.
The MMA is also pleased to support Section 40 of S. 3166, which explicitly enables cities and towns to utilize Section 53G consultants in the new consolidated local permitting process for clean energy infrastructure projects. This important technical fix would be instrumental in assisting smaller and less-resourced communities as they work to comply with the new streamlined 12-month review process for solar, battery, and other clean energy project proposals. Please retain Section 40 of S. 3166 in future versions of the bill.
We also strongly support the many provisions in both bills relating to third-party competitive energy suppliers, marketers, and brokers. Over the past several years, research has identified certain repeated bad-faith practices within the competitive energy supply industry. We appreciate the Legislature’s attention to this issue and the compromise language reached allowing a city or town to prohibit a supplier, marketer, or broker, from executing or renewing contracts in their municipality. This local option, paired with other consumer protection measures in both bills, will be beneficial to local governments, but most importantly, to residents and energy customers. We are pleased to support the local option third-party supplier bans in Section 14 of H. 5175 and Section 39 of S. 3166 and urge the conference committee to retain proposals in the final version of the bill.
Ongoing Concerns
Apart from the above sections we support, we also wish to express our concerns on several sections that would negatively impact cities and towns.
We continue to have serious concerns with various proposals mandating the use of a “smart solar permitting platform” for residential solar projects. These provisions are found within Section 13 of H. 5175, establishing a new Section 25 of Chapter 25A, and within Section 36 of S. 3166, creating a new Section 26 of Chapter 25A. In short, both would require the use of an automated, online permitting platform for residential solar projects and associated equipment on one- and two-family dwellings, or a similar, suitable alternative.
As you can imagine, requiring all 351 cities and towns to use an online platform for permit review, especially a system that does not require any manual review beyond code-compliance checks and a final inspection, will not have the same impact on each city and town. With many different approaches to permitting residential solar projects currently employed in the Commonwealth, such a fast onramp to a completely virtual permit process will be especially burdensome for smaller communities.
Many municipalities may not even accept online permit applications for any project, let alone solar or clean energy projects with specific electrical and fire considerations. The specification of requirements articulated in both the House and Senate affordability proposals make this requirement incredibly burdensome for local governments. Therefore, we strongly urge the conference committee to reconsider this permitting change, especially so soon after sweeping clean energy infrastructure permitting reforms have just begun to take effect.
The MMA does appreciate the language included in Section 36 of S. 3166 designed to mitigate some of these concerns, including a requirement for the Department of Energy Resources to provide the state’s platform at no cost to cities and towns, and provide training to use it. Further, one provision in Section 36 aims to address liability of municipalities (and through them, their taxpayers). However, we are not convinced that this one provision can adequately shield municipalities from liability for injuries caused by permits issued by these platforms.
Manual review can be incredibly valuable when new technology is installed and operated, and final inspections must remain on the table in a timeframe that is feasible for all 351 cities and towns. Liability protection must be further explored and examined to ensure this streamlined permitting process does not have unintended consequences for municipal governments, staff, and consultants engaged in this online permitting process. We urge the conferees to reconsider these proposals, especially through their impact on all 351 cities and towns.
We thank you for your consideration of the municipal perspective of this important effort, not only as impacted stakeholders, but also as implementation partners in the clean energy transition ahead. We appreciate your attention to these challenges and opportunities, and your acknowledgement of the practical concerns of local governments. If you have any questions or desire further information, please do not hesitate to have your office contact me or MMA Senior Legislative Analyst Josie Ahlberg at any time.
Sincerely,
Adam Chapdelaine
MMA Executive Director and CEO