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With Beacon Hill’s next steps on legislation to rein in greenhouse gas emissions still unclear, the House on Wednesday turned aside calls to use the state budget as a vehicle to steer $250 million into retrofitting carbon-emitting buildings and to allow cities and towns to mandate all-electric infrastructure in new construction projects.
The House rejected a fiscal year 2023 budget amendment from Acton Democrat Rep. Tami Gouveia that would have created a “Zero Carbon Renovation Fund,” seeded with $250 million in state dollars to support the installation of clean energy technologies in existing buildings.
Six other representatives co-sponsored Gouveia’s proposal, offered as a further amendment to a bundle of energy and environmental affairs-related changes to the budget bill. The House rejected the further amendment using a voice vote, in which individual lawmakers’ positions are not recorded, before unanimously approving the mega-amendment.
Gouveia also pointed to a pair of other amendments she filed that were effectively spiked by the Consolidated Amendment “F”. One dealt with net-zero building codes and the other would have given municipalities the option to prohibit fossil fuel infrastructure in new buildings.
“I applaud this chamber for passing the climate roadmap bill last session and the offshore wind legislation, but two climate bills in two years is just not enough given the crisis we are in and the mess we will undoubtedly leave future generations if we don’t act boldly, courageously and quickly,” Gouveia told her colleagues, referencing the 2021 law that set a net-zero target for 2050 and the offshore wind industry expansion bill the House approved in March.
House leaders have not signaled an approach to address emissions from the construction sector. The Senate responded to the House’s offshore wind bill by expanding its scope to include major reforms aimed at transportation and building carbon emissions, including a local option allowing 10 municipalities to limit fossil fuels in new construction.
As of Wednesday, 13 days after the Senate’s vote, neither branch had appointed a six-member conference committee to craft a compromise between the two bills (H 4515 / S 2819).
The House budget mega-amendment covering energy and the environment and housing categories tacked on nearly $7.9 million in spending while adding another year of authorization to the MOR-EV incentive program that provides rebates to Bay Staters who purchase electric vehicles.
Another section of the consolidated amendment increases the cap for a conservation land tax credit to $5 million, a step Minority Leader Brad Jones said the House had backed on several prior occasions without getting it across the finish line.
