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May 31, 2016

Energy bill prospects murky

Courtesy Workers from California installer SolarCity put panels on a home in Connecticut. In Massachusetts, the discussion around renewables continues.

Energy policy is complex and House and Senate leaders haven't agreed on a lot in this arena so far this session. Those two facts are leaving Beacon Hill insiders edgy about whether the long-promised omnibus energy bill will even reach Gov. Baker's desk this year.

On the other side of the coin, the governor wants this legislation and has said so repeatedly. Ditto for Speaker Robert DeLeo. And usually Beacon Hill leaders get what they want. At this point the debate is clouded by complexity and a fair level of dissonance between the branches.

That status is likely to hold for a while since neither branch has even taken up an energy bill yet. To oversimplify it, the challenge ahead is how green and how fast? When officials talk about diversifying the energy mix, they are talking about increasing reliance on renewable energy sources like hydro, wind and solar. Senate President Stanley Rosenberg has expressed a strong interest in the "greening" of the state's energy mix. But when officials talk about holding down energy costs and ensuring reliability, that's often code for a gradual expansion of renewables with continued reliance on the dominant fuel, natural gas.

"Well, first of all, I'm pleased to have the energy bill being released and being debated," Baker said recently after a bill emerged from a House-controlled committee. "Obviously, there will be a House debate on this, and then it still needs to go to the Senate and the Senate's going to have to review it and make their decisions about it and then it'll have to be conferenced, and there are five or six Wednesdays, I think, before we get to the end of July. So my only concern at this point is, it's a complicated issue, energy issues are always complicated, the clock's ticking. But I think now more than ever it's really important that we create what I've called the combo platter, diversify our portfolio, and incorporate some alternatives to the more traditional sources of energy we've been using, to be sure that we can meet our region's energy needs going forward."

The bill (H 4336) that cleared the Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee this week is now pending before the House Ways and Means Committee, whose chairman is about to be appointed to the fiscal 2017 budget conference panel.

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