BOSTON, Mass. (WWLP) – The House of Representatives looks to pass their version of a much-anticipated climate change-related bill during a formal session on Wednesday.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives looks to vote on a nearly 100-page bill pushing for reformed clean energy policies on Wednesday, which is expected to pass and be sent to conference committee.
This bill overhauls the process Massachusetts uses to approve new power projects, and expands on the Senate-backed plan to simplify site procurement. The House version does not include the Senate’s update to the bottle bill deposit law…and seeks to obtain nearly 10 million megawatts of clean energy, among other changes.
The House lead on the bill, Representative Jeff Roy, says the two versions of the bill are more similar than different, “The siting and permitting provisions are remarkably close. We want to take care of making the delivery of energy far more efficient than it is today.”
The Speaker of the House Ron Mariano says this bill will help Massachusetts achieve clean energy and climate change goals over the next 5 years, “We’ve got a bill that we hope can move fairly quickly through the system. This is extremely important for what our goals are for 2023.”
Senator Michael Barrett, the lead legislator on the Senate bill, expressed concern with the House version, saying he thinks there are too few consumer protections.
The Senate and House have two weeks to reconcile their differences on this bill in a conference committee, before the end of the session, when passing a bill becomes far more complicated.
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.
