Mass Power Forward H.4144 Priorities

June 25, 2025

To: Governor Healey & the General Court of MA

Re: H.4144 Energy Affordability Bill Hearing in T.U.E.

Massachusetts has a choice: we can throw our hands up and watch our temperatures climb, health problems worsen, and communities be flooded, or we can be leaders, create jobs, meet our clean energy goals, and lower energy costs.

Governor Healey’s energy affordability bill is a great step toward a cheaper and cleaner energy future. A future that ensures our energy transition serves people, not polluters. 

Important measures in H.4144 to lower bills and hasten our transition

• Removing unnecessary, polluting charges for woody biomass: Woody biomass emits more carbon than coal and harms lungs by spewing large amounts of fine particulate matter. Ratepayers should not be subsidizing this energy. The need to act is urgent, as one subsidy will go into effect in 2026. H.4144 would remove these subsidies. (Section 29, 49) (S.2287/H.3548 Fact Sheet, S.2288/H.3549 Fact Sheet) 

• Labor protections: Workers are the backbone of our energy system. H.4144 makes strides in ensuring clean energy jobs are good jobs by requiring labor standards for thermal energy networks and protections for clean energy projects receiving public funding. It also requires utilities to create “just transition plans.” (Section 11, 41, 59) (H.3477/S.2276)

• Enabling thermal networks: Utility-scale thermal networks can provide efficient and clean heating, but they face numerous regulatory hurdles to implementation. H.4144 cuts some of this red tape, for example, by allowing third parties to own and operate these systems. (Sections 13, 41, 54)

Changes needed to H.4144 to strengthen consumer protections

• Full ban on residential third-party energy suppliers: The Massachusetts attorney general has found that retail electricity customers paid $577 million more than traditional utility customers in the last eight years. While H.4144 increases consumer protections for residential third-party supplier customers, it stops short of following the Attorney General’s recommendation of banning these actors, who have proven immune to consumer safety regulations. (Sections 12, 14-19, 21) (H.3534/S.2255, Fact Sheet)

• Full transparency into non-essential utility charges: Gas and electric utilities should only charge customers for services necessary to provide safe, affordable, and reliable utility services. Loopholes in Massachusetts law permit utilities to charge ratepayers for influence activities, such as trade associations, image promotions, and perks. These charges are buried in mountains of paperwork, typically reviewed every five years or less during rate cases, and are inscrutable to the public. H.4144 strengthens prohibitions on this inappropriate ratepayer spending but fails to include important annual transparency reporting requirements. (Section 24) (H.3400/S.2239, Fact Sheet)

Missing ratepayer protections

• Any cost reforms to prevent the reckless expansion of our gas system: Capital investments cost ratepayers $1.5B in 2023. This reckless spending is unnecessarily driving up bills, harming human health, and wrecking environmental justice communities. (H.3547/S.2290 Fact sheet, H.3446/S.2248)

• Protection from the explosive growth of data centers for ratepayers, communities, and the environment: The Department of Energy expects data centers to triple their electricity consumption by 2028, accounting for one-eighth of the country's total electricity use. The expansion of AI and data centers has immense real and current costs that disproportionately affect Black and brown frontline communities. Data centers are the primary drivers of energy demand, increasing utility bills while also increasing pollution. Nothing in H.4144 prepares us for this future. We need provisions mandating renewable energy, requiring demand response programs, and requiring data centers to pay for the grid investments needed to handle their rapidly changing power consumption. We should prohibit unnecessary ratepayer subsidies for private industry and ban diesel and other fossil-fuel generators.

Concerns

• Making it easier to build new nuclear reactors: Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are all the rage, but their promises have not been borne out in the real world. They share all problems of traditional reactors—including waste management, cost overruns, and project delays. H.4144 removes barriers to constructing new nuclear power, such as SMRs. While money is wasted to prop up this unproven technology, we are losing precious time to implement the real energy solutions that are ready, affordable, and effective today. (Section 45) 

Mass Power Forward coalition represents over 200 environmental leaders, community development organizations, clean energy businesses, faith groups, neighborhood health and safety advocates, and Massachusetts families fighting for our future. Mass Power Forward believes our state and region can power forward with healthy, clean, affordable, reliable energy and a thriving economy.