The change under consideration by the Legislature would impose new income verification requirements on only the moderate-income customers in the state’s 21 designated equity communities.
Category: Energy
As these municipalities are quickly finding out, moving off gas for new buildings doesn’t preclude the utilities from needing to spend tens of millions of dollars each year upgrading the existing gas system.
Gov. Maura Healey along with Massachusetts labor and energy leaders celebrated the completion of the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind project, which concluded construction in March. She touted its benefits while shrugging off the wind development company’s recent financial disputes that have made headlines and threatened the project.
The bill reveals just how deep a chasm has formed between the Legislature’s two Democratic-controlled branches over energy policy after the House passed its version in February
The two setbacks signal the continued challenges ahead for how to bring on new clean energy sources to move off fossil fuels and meet growing power needs while maintaining reliability.
DEP’s program review is one slice of the central debate animating the dynamic between regulators and the gas companies: whether and how fast the utilities should shift away from delivering gas to customers — their current business model.
Salem and New Bedford both received millions from the state to develop the sites of retired fossil fuel power plants into terminals that would serve as logistics and operations centers for the construction of offshore wind. But wind projects have long been struggling to get off the ground.
Enbridge’s announcement is bound to ignite a firestorm and set off a host of thorny questions, while Gov. Maura Healey’s position on natural gas will again be put to the test as the proposal lands amid her reelection campaign.