The Massachusetts House gave its approval to a modest lift in the state’s cap on solar energy production, putting an end, for now, to the struggle environmentalists and clean energy developers have fought with the energy industry since last fall.
With the compromise bill clearing the House 152 to 1 Wednesday afternoon, DeLeo is moving on to even more consequential legislation, Gov. Charlie Baker’s omnibus energy legislation. Baker is pushing a “combo platter” plan that would import more hydropower from Canada to compliment new wind developments in the state to help hit goals for clean energy production.
“We have some other means of energy we have to talk about, okay? I think solar has gotten more than the fair share of the debate, you know, so far. But quite frankly people want us to talk about, and they want to hear more about, offshore wind. They want to hear about hydro. They want to hear about a combination of the two,” DeLeo told reporters outside a Democratic caucus before their session.
Senate Environment chair Ben Downing (D-Pittsfield) wants the Legislature’s eventual “omnibus” energy bill to encompass more than just adding hydro and wind to the mix.
“I don’t think hydro and wind are an omnibus bill. Hydro and wind are a hydro and wind bill. If we’re talking about a comprehensive energy bill then we oughta be talking about efficiency, we ought to be talking about storage and yes, we should be talking about hydro and wind,” Downing told WGBh News.
Before House members voted in lockstep with DeLeo on the compromise, the speaker met with members at a lengthy Democratic caucus where he and House Environment chairman Tom Golden (D-Lowell) fielded questions about the deal. Golden and Downing’s compromise would allow public and private interests to sell another three percent of solar energy back to the grid at a subsidized rate.
“We’re trying to make this as affordable as possible and continue to have a robust solar economy,” Golden said.
Energy companies and the business community fear more expensive solar on the market could raise power costs for everyone and stifle the economy.
Solar advocates and installers, who wanted a much more leeway to generate more solar power, greeted the compromise bill with everything from resigned acceptance to outrage.
Some advocates, like Joel Wool from Clean Water Action, say the bill will create problems down the road by not allowing access to solar services for renters and low-income people. So he’s planning to continue lobbying the Legislature to get prefered solar language in the omnibus bill.
“We are going to be there for the omnibus legislation and in January with additional solar policy,” Wool said.
DeLeo has different ideas about the omnibus bill, which he has vowed to pass before lawmakers head home for the year at the end of July.
“The omnibus bill is not meant to have a whole additional debate on solar. So that’s not going to be a vehicle for solar.”
Downing suggested to WGBH News that if advocates from across the environmentalist spectrum had banded together last fall as they did in the last few months when the negotiations escalated, they would have got a more palatable bill.
“Folks who care about climate got really involved and really engaged really late in this game, Downing said.
”Many of whom I care deeply about and I consider friends, but if they had organized as well in October and in September as they did in January and in February, you and I would be having a different conversation right now, I guess,“ Downing told a reporter.
DeLeo and Golden both called the compromise a ”great bill,“ a label Downing isn’t quite ready to embrace.
”I don’t know if I’d call it a great bill, but I think it does what it needs to do, which is to continue the progress that we’ve made. A great bill would give us a framework that would avoid this stop-and-start that we’re in right now,“ Downing said.
The Senate plans to take up and pass the compromise on solar Thursday. Baker has not yet weighed in on whether he’ll sign it.
