Open Letter: Rolling Back Climate Commitments Won’t Help Massachusetts Families

This week, lawmakers on Massachusetts’ House Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy (TUE) Committee sponsored “An Act Relative to Energy Affordability, Clean Power and Economic Competitiveness” (H.4744). If passed, the Bill would be devastating for all the things it purports to support.

Among other things, H.4744 proposes abandoning the Commonwealth’s legally binding emissions reductions goals; defunding building electrification efforts; and leaving the social “value” of carbon (more accurately referred to as the social “cost”) out of Mass Save cost effectiveness calculations. A string of measures in fact counterproductive to affordability and competitiveness.

The Bill’s sponsors blame the federal government for this proposed retreat from climate action, pointing to the hundreds of millions of federal dollars cut from the state’s energy transition budget. This loss of funds is a blow, yes, but the Commonwealth and our legislators know better than to fall for the same short-sightedness that afflicts our federal government.

Massachusetts does have an energy affordability problem, but H.4744 looks in many of the wrong places to fix it. Legislators must swiftly reject this Bill in favor of policy that reinforces the Commonwealth’s trajectory toward an affordable and climate resilient future.

Massachusetts has long been a leader in setting decisive emissions reductions goals and renewable energy targets—others are following this winning strategy. Governor, Commissioner, and Mayor election victories across the country this November had one thing in common: platforms that promised energy affordability through investments in renewable energy.

Why? Renewable energy is 40-50% cheaper than the lowest cost fossil fuel alternative. Reducing the Commonwealth’s renewable portfolio growth from 3% to 1% per year (H.4744 Section 16) would do nothing but undermine our clearest path to affordable energy.

Further, renewable energy investments—and those in decarbonization broadly—are already bolstering the Commonwealth’s economy. The clean-energy sector is the fastest growing in the state, adding jobs at five times the rate of the broader job market. The sector directly supports more than 115,000 workers, over 7,500 businesses, and contributes $15.9 billion to our annual Gross State Product, proof that the path we’re on is strengthening, not weakening, our economy.

Affordability and climate action are not at odds. In 2024, Mass Save delivered $2.8 billion in benefits—$2.12 on the program dollar—by making homes more efficient (i.e., reducing energy costs) and converting buildings off fossil fuel heating. The proposed $163.75 million per year cuts to Mass Save are a direct assault on energy affordability and long-term resilience.

The problem with Mass Save is not its lack of results, it’s the inequitable distribution of them. To date, wealthier, non-renter populations have disproportionately benefited from the bill savings benefits of the program. Lawmakers should maintain the Mass Save budget in full and double down on ensuring the majority of incentives flow to renters and low-income homeowners. Cutting Mass Save only traps the Commonwealth’s most under-served residents in the same outdated systems that are driving high energy costs in the first place.

In related Mass Save cuts, H.4744 eliminates one of the top five savings measures in Governor Healey’s original Energy Affordability Bill (H.4144): a mandate for electric utilities to offer Inclusive Utility Investment (IUI) programs.

CET is piloting IUI with MA municipal light plants, and as a statewide initiative, we are confident IUI would achieve three complementary objectives:

IUI is exactly the kind of forward-looking affordability solution Massachusetts should be championing.

The TUE estimates H.4744 will save $7.61 billion over ten years (notably lower than the $11.58-$14.35 billion savings estimated for Healey’s H.4144). However, the savings in H.4744 fail to account for the social cost of excess emissions emitted by gutting the Commonwealth’s climate agenda. H.4744 directs the state to simply stop quantifying that cost (Sections 5, 6, 8, 9).

The social cost of carbon (SCC) isn’t what drives up anyone’s utility bill. It’s a measure of the very costs we’re trying to prevent. The cost of flooded basements, asthma attacks, and higher insurance premiums. In 2024, the National Bureau of Economic Research, based in Cambridge, MA, estimated the social cost of carbon at a staggering $1,500 per ton. According to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the global economy already faces a 19% reduction in income due to emissions that have already been released. Stripping out the SCC doesn’t make energy more affordable; it just makes the damage harder to see.

For 50 years, CET has been helping Massachusetts residents, small businesses, farms, and schools access affordable, clean energy solutions. The Commonwealth has always been ahead of the curve on this work and now more than ever we need bold, state-level leadership committed to averting the climate crisis. Maintaining strong 2030 and 2050 emissions targets, funding decarbonization and embracing tools like IUI, and keeping the social cost of carbon in place are not culprits but critical drivers of energy affordability, clean power, and economic competitiveness.

Ashley Muspratt

President & CEO

Ashley Muspratt, President, joined CET in 2018. In her previous role as Director of Innovation, Ashley spearheaded novel building decarbonization services, wasted food solutions, and financing opportunities for customers and partners. She has broad experience with the organization’s nation-leading wasted food programming, building sector decarbonization, and deconstruction. Ashley assumed the role of president in 2022, and as CET’s leader is deeply engaged in strategic planning, implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and expanding the breadth and efficacy of programs through operations, communications, and fundraising.

Ashley has a long track-record as a leader and innovator. Prior to joining CET, she founded and lead a waste-to-energy startup in sub-Saharan Africa, which converted human fecal sludge into industrial fuel. The company’s investors included the Gates Foundation, USAID, and the French Development Agency and was widely recognized for reinventing the economics of urban sanitation in low-income countries.

Ashley has an MS in Environmental Engineering and PhD in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.