Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Energy Policy topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee deadlocks on energy bill after disputes over procurement windows and net metering; bill set aside
Summary
A Committee of Conference on House Bill 710 could not reconcile House and Senate amendments on procurement windows and net metering and opted to let the bill die for the session while lawmakers craft a new compromise.
A Committee of Conference on House Bill 710 did not reach agreement on the Senate’s amendments and the Chair announced the conference report would be allowed to die for the session so negotiators can rework the measure.
The key areas of disagreement included: an extension of the statutory procurement window (the Senate sought to extend contract terms to 2040; House members preferred a shorter horizon), inclusion of Senate Bill 228 language on net metering (the Senate insisted on retaining sections that raise bidirectional metering requirements and expand community solar nameplate capacity), and procurement and purchase-power agreement language including eligibility of resources and contract length.
Representative Michael Harrington, a committee member with a background in nuclear energy, said he doubted new large nuclear plants would be built in New England in the next decade, and warned against committing the state to 15-year-plus arrangements: "I just think committing to 15 years is too long," he said. Senate members defended their package as an enabling approach to resource options and incremental net‑metering changes they said would help municipalities and industry projects.
Senators argued the Senate-amended package was a "win-win" that combined procurement flexibility and net-metering changes; House members said the package folded in unrelated Senate changes (Senate Bill 228) that the House had rejected previously. With negotiators far apart on the Senate-amended language and uncertainty about procurement text in section 10, the chair told members "it might be the best solution to let this bill go, let this bill die for this year." The committee agreed to retain Senate Bill 112 in the Science, Technology and Energy committee for further work in the fall.
Ending: Members agreed to shelve HB 710 for the session and to continue work over the fall to craft a compromise version for a future session. No formal conference compromise was adopted in the transcript.
