The legislation released Tuesday by the House of Representatives aims to reform the process of siting and permitting renewable energy projects. (Alvaro Barrientos/Associated Press)
Beacon Hill lawmakers will advance two key priorities this week as the end of the two-year legislative session quickly approaches: clean energy reform and changes to the hospital sector inspired by the crisis at Steward Health Care.
House lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill focused on energy, siting and licensing, while senators on Monday unveiled their rewrite of a sweeping health care bill that leading Democrats say includes key policies to help the struggling sector.
If both bills pass their respective chambers, they will likely be negotiated behind closed doors, as the House and Senate each passed separate versions of what the other chamber proposed this week.
Representatives and senators appear to be at odds over key provisions in the energy and health care bills, a move that could complicate behind-the-scenes discussions among lawmakers as they seek compromises on competing proposals.
This week, representatives will take the first action on legislation that House Speaker Ron Mariano described as an effort to meet the state’s long-term emissions reduction goals by creating new oversight and simpler procedures for energy permitting and siting.
“The House will vote this week on legislation aimed at expanding our supply of clean energy by setting new targets for renewable energy generation and storage and streamlining the state and local permitting process, building on the work the Legislature has done in recent years to modernize the commonwealth’s energy grid and combat the climate crisis,” the Quincy Democrat said in a statement.
The bill, which the House will debate Wednesday, sets a 15-month timeframe for siting and permitting large clean energy projects and a one-year timeframe for siting and permitting small infrastructure projects. The move is consistent with provisions in the Senate version of the bill.
House Democrats are also calling for a new 9.45 million megawatt-hour clean energy procurement, a major boost that could see state officials pursue nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric options, said Rep. Jeff Roy, a Franklin Democrat and author of the bill in the House.
The proposal also gives the state permission to purchase up to 5,000 megawatt hours of energy storage.
“As we move to renewables, these are intermittent sources. And when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, we need to be able to take that stored energy and put it back into the grid,” Roy told the Herald.
The legislation leaves out many measures the Senate proposed in its version of the bill, including language limiting the use of natural gas and phasing out an infrastructure replacement program.
Senators argued that their proposals on natural gas were a “smart, managed withdrawal” from over-reliance on the energy source. But Roy said ending the infrastructure replacement program could lead to unsafe conditions as residents continue to use the resource, especially on hot days.
“We have an obligation to make sure that (natural gas) is delivered safely to our homes. So this repair and replacement program, known as GSEP, is vital to keeping our communities and consumers safe. I’m not suggesting that the Senate is any less concerned about safety, but I think the decommissioning that they’re asking for is a little too early in this process,” he said.
House lawmakers also failed to consider Senate-backed measures that would ban competing energy providers from taking on new residential customers and expand the state’s deposit-refund law.
Roy said he disagrees with driving competing electricity suppliers out of the market, as they “can drive innovation and benefit from advanced metering infrastructure.”
“We’re not prepared to close the market and take away the consumer’s choice of how to buy energy,” he said. “… I want to get rid of the bad players in this space, as does the Senate, but I don’t think closing the market is a sensible direction to go.”
A day earlier, leading Senate Democrats introduced health care legislation aimed at market oversight, transparency and cost control, months after the House of Representatives took action on its own bill.
Parts of the bill are a response to the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care, a situation that has left communities in Massachusetts facing the potential loss of critical medical services.
Sen. Cindy Creem, an Arlington Democrat and lead author of the bill, said the health care system is “struggling.”
“The recent events involving Steward Health System have exacerbated a pre-existing crisis in all aspects of our health care delivery system, from primary care to emergency departments. While there are many factors that destabilize the health care delivery system, the entry of for-profit entities and care models into the system has played a key role,” she said in a statement.
The bill, which the Senate plans to consider Thursday, would establish reporting and oversight requirements for private equity firms that acquire stakes in health care organizations operating in Massachusetts.
State officials would be given 60 days’ notice before providers or their owners changed their operations or governance structures or agreed to “significant” new for-profit investments or acquisitions by for-profit entities.
Regulators would also be notified before authorities sell their assets under a leaseback agreement, similar to the one Steward Health Care struck with Medical Properties Trust that ultimately left the hospital organization in the red.
The senators disagreed with their colleagues in the House of Representatives on reforming the leases.
In May, lawmakers voted unanimously to prohibit the Department of Health and Human Services from issuing permits to acute care hospitals that lease the land on which their main campus is located — or the area where most of the inpatient beds are located — from a health care real estate investment trust.
Steven Senne/ Associated Press file
A health care bill that emerged from the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care could be heard on Beacon Hill this week as the legislative session winds down. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
