Advocacy Update

Greetings Green Building Advocates!

Here is an update on our key advocacy issues for 2015, Property Assessed Clean Energy Financing (PACE), Net Zero Building Code, and Net Metering.

PACE

Our PACE stakeholder focus group—made up of around 12 organizations and trade groups, primarily with environmental, labor, and economic development interests—is gaining momentum and working towards strengthening support for this year’s legislation. We are working with Senator Joyce’s office to bring in other co-sponsors up until the bill is brought out of committee. We are also collaborating with the Climate Action Business Group (CABA) to have a public forum around PACE financing and its relationship to resiliency planning.

Net Zero
The current version of the Act promoting zero net-energy buildings in the Commonwealth by Senator Eldridge is gaining more co-sponsors, and is targeting a more stringent path to Net Zero Building Codes. The advocacy team is continuing to expand our network of support around this issue.

Net Metering
Our advocacy team is following the progress of the Department of Energy Resources (DOER) Task Force on Net Metering. Among the issues the task force is examining are the potential impacts of a minimum bill for Massachusetts ratepayers and its impact on reaching the statewide goal of 1,600MW of solar. The task force has outlined 5 primary tasks to accomplish which you can see in detail here:consulting team status update and task presentation; the task force also provides a Table of policy options and a draft of the task 1 report. 

Mark those calendars now, the next Green Breakfast will be held on Thursday March 19th and we will have presentations to describe each issue, and how you can help build momentum to pass this years legislation!