STATE CAPITOL BRIEFS - TUESDAY, SEP.
22, 2015
STATE HOUSE NEWS
SERVICE
GOLDEN ECHOES DELEO
ON HOUSE ENERGY STRATEGY
The House is gearing up to move an omnibus energy bill, but the energy committee chairman was tight-lipped Tuesday when asked about the bill's details. "We're looking at an omnibus bill as a whole and inside that omnibus bill I think you're going to have solar, you're going to have wind, you could have, potentially, other aspects of energy," said Rep. Tom Golden Jr., House chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. Golden said the House omnibus bill, as of Tuesday afternoon, is slated to include some language addressing the net metering cap -- which determines how many megawatts of commercial and public-sector solar energy can be sold back to the grid at the the retail rate -- and could include some "new thoughts" on wind energy. "The committee has been working extremely hard on energy as a whole, I think it is probably one of the most important issues that this decade will see," Golden said. "We're going to be seeing some movement soon." House Speaker Robert DeLeo said on Saturday that he favors addressing energy legislation in an omnibus bill rather than a piecemeal approach to energy law changes. Already this year, the Senate attached to a climate change adaptation bill (S 1979) a move to lift the net metering cap, and Baker filed legislation (H 3724) that would lift the cap a different way. Gov. Charlie Baker also filed a bill that could facilitate the purchase of hydroelectricity from Canada. The Legislature last session was unable to agree on an expansive solar energy bill and in 2010 efforts to pass a comprehensive bill overhauling the process for land-based wind projects collapsed. - Colin A. Young/SHNS
The House is gearing up to move an omnibus energy bill, but the energy committee chairman was tight-lipped Tuesday when asked about the bill's details. "We're looking at an omnibus bill as a whole and inside that omnibus bill I think you're going to have solar, you're going to have wind, you could have, potentially, other aspects of energy," said Rep. Tom Golden Jr., House chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy. Golden said the House omnibus bill, as of Tuesday afternoon, is slated to include some language addressing the net metering cap -- which determines how many megawatts of commercial and public-sector solar energy can be sold back to the grid at the the retail rate -- and could include some "new thoughts" on wind energy. "The committee has been working extremely hard on energy as a whole, I think it is probably one of the most important issues that this decade will see," Golden said. "We're going to be seeing some movement soon." House Speaker Robert DeLeo said on Saturday that he favors addressing energy legislation in an omnibus bill rather than a piecemeal approach to energy law changes. Already this year, the Senate attached to a climate change adaptation bill (S 1979) a move to lift the net metering cap, and Baker filed legislation (H 3724) that would lift the cap a different way. Gov. Charlie Baker also filed a bill that could facilitate the purchase of hydroelectricity from Canada. The Legislature last session was unable to agree on an expansive solar energy bill and in 2010 efforts to pass a comprehensive bill overhauling the process for land-based wind projects collapsed. - Colin A. Young/SHNS
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