House Energy committee narrows H.125 to one-time study, asks ANR to report on data and mapping feasibility

The House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee on Thursday, March 13 discussed and substantially revised draft 4.1 of H.125, directing the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to deliver a one-time study by December instead of an annual report and asking the agency to return with recommendations on data availability, mapping and any resources needed to provide regional analysis.

Committee members spent the meeting walking through written testimony from ANR Secretary Julie Moore and line edits prepared by legislative counsel Ellen Jankowski. Members said the change to a single, initial report would allow ANR to align the bill’s requirements with work already underway under the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) and the state’s environmental justice efforts, and to avoid duplicative data requests.

Why it matters: Committee members flagged several practical data issues that affect H.125’s current language. Witnesses and staff said weatherization program data are not tracked by income quintile as the bill originally requested, certificate-of-public-good application data exist but require cleaning to be reliably useful, and the climate office may lack the immediate capacity to produce geo‑mapped visualizations without additional resources. Those limitations shaped the committee’s decision to narrow the bill to an initial study and to request a clear plan for future reporting.

Most members supported replacing prescriptive metric language with requirements that ANR identify what data are available and how it could be presented. The committee directed the draft to strike the phrase “and annually thereafter” and to replace specific mapping requests on page 2 with language calling for “regional distribution and graphic displays,” plus an explicit recommendation in the December report about “how and when all relevant data could be presented automatically.”

ANR officials present described practical hurdles and said they would test whether the requested indicators can be produced with existing datasets. Billy Koster, director of planning and policy at ANR, summarized the agency’s approach: "The goal is to provide us a few months to figure out exactly how we can do the things that you're asking us to do and come back and tell you that we can, or if we can, how to fix that problem." Committee members asked ANR to return with a description of gaps, the work required to fill them, and any estimated costs.

On data specifics, staff and ANR recommended replacing the bill’s use of “quintile” with broadly defined income buckets so the agency can match reporting to the income brackets it already uses. Members suggested three categories as a shorthand: households below 80% of area median income (AMI), 80%–120% of AMI, and above 120% of AMI, and asked the agency to confirm the best brackets in the December submission.

Committee discussion also addressed how to measure projects in the pipeline. ANR staff said project application data (certificate of public good filings) exist but can contain duplicate or inconsistent entries that require database cleaning before producing reliable counts; the committee asked ANR to test methods for deriving a useful indicator and to document limitations in the December report.

Mapping and visualization were a recurring concern. Members asked whether the state’s GIS resources (work with Agency of Digital Services/ADS was discussed) could produce maps from existing address‑level data and urged ANR to include an assessment of feasibility, timeline and cost for regional mapping in the initial report.

No formal vote was taken on H.125 during the session. Legislative counsel Ellen Jankowski said she would circulate an updated draft reflecting the committee’s changes; committee members asked for the revised language to be available within roughly 10 hours so the committee could print and consider it before the bill’s next procedural deadline.

Next steps: ANR will prepare the one‑time study due in December and return to the committee with recommendations for future reporting, data‑management needs, and any resource estimates for mapping or ongoing monitoring. The committee signaled it will revisit the issue next session, and members discussed how the proposed December submission would be used to inform any future statutory reporting requirements.