Contact Your Rep!
Sometimes the most effective way to create change is to talk to the people who have the power to enact that change. Tell them your opinion about specific policy or agenda items, and get others to tell them their views too.
Elected officials need to hear from their constituents in their own voice, in person at a hearing, by phone, in an email and/or through a petition. Because when they hear from their voters they often move their own policy positions closer to what their constituents advocate for.
Below are Action Items for which you should Contact Your Rep right now, with suggestions for what to say and where to say it:
ZeroCarbonMA has all the information you need to write a letter or make a phone call to Save Mass Save.
Mass Save funding is under threat. In February the Massachusetts House passed a $1 billion cut to Mass Save funding (a budget already cut to $4.5B from the original $5B budget). Because the House cut would be imposed mid-cycle and concentrated in 2027, the program could run out of funds altogether as early as April 2027. The House cut has been justified by claims about inefficiencies and needed reforms in the administration of the program.
Neither inefficiencies nor needed reforms will be solved by slashing Mass Save’s budget. While reducing Mass Save's budget adds a small amount of relief to households struggling with high utility bills, the cuts will ultimately cost everyone more than they save, since Mass Save’s investments in energy efficiency more than pay for themselves. (Some local details are here, courtesy of Zero Carbon Massachusetts).
Housing is a climate issue and an equity issue. There are few better examples of how these three crises affect each other than the Mass Save program, which appears as a surcharge on utility bills and funds energy conservation programs and low-carbon construction.
In addition, Mass Save provides critical funding helping multi-family and affordable housing pencil out. This is especially true in municipalities like ours (and our neighbors) that have adopted the Stretch and Specialized Energy Codes. In the end, decarbonization saves folks in affordable homes more than the $8-12 dollars saved on their monthly utility bill proposed with the House $1B cut.
Norfolk and Middlesex Counties are currently on track to receive an estimated $14M in Passive House incentives through Mass Save, supporting a total of 3,224 Passive House residential units built or in progress. These high-performance homes reduce energy bills, improve health and comfort, and increase resilience.
In addition, these counties are currently on track to receive an estimated $8.6M in funding to retrofit and decarbonize affordable housing units from the LEAN Multifamily Program (funded by Mass Save) and the DOER Affordable Housing Decarbonization Grant and Technical Assistance Programs (funded by Alternative Compliance Payments).
Mass Save funding fostered an ecosystem of housing, efficiency, and HVAC, etc, contractors who built their business plans on the existence that funding. Ending Mass Save funding early will likely see projects cancelled, leading to signifiant layoffs in those industries. Because you can't just snap your finders to bring back those businesses and skilled workers when funding is restored, many of those services will become significantly more expensive if, or when the funding is reinstated.
Write and/or call your State Representative and State Senator and urge them to support full funding of Mass Save. Every day they are lobbied by fossil fuel industry. They need to hear your support for Mass Save.
The good news is that, along with other Senate leaders, our State Senator, Cynthia Creem, chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change and Global Warming, has spoken in favor of protecting MassSave. If the Senate passes a different version than the House bill, the two versions would then have to go to conference committee.
Besides ZeroCarbonMA's page, you can also find your State Senator and State Representative, along with their emails and phone numbers on Brookline's Town website.
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