HOUSE DEMOCRATS HAVE passed a major energy bill that aims to cut rising utility costs that have inflamed an affordability crisis in the state but would also pull back on the clean energy transition.

Lawmakers, who were plunged into months of debate that exposed divisions within the Democratic supermajority, ultimately advanced on Thursday a $1 billion cut to an energy efficiency program known as Mass Save, which is funded by ratepayers through a charge on utility bills. The measure cleared the House by a 128-27 vote in a marathon session that stretched past 10 p.m.

The cut to Mass Save is primarily aimed at its administrative, marketing, and advertising budget, and the bill orders an inspector general report on the program that would be due next year – provisions that generated the most contention among lawmakers on the House floor.

“We’re also in a major affordability crisis right now, and this bill is targeting bringing money back to our constituents that are hurting right now,” House budget chief Aaron Michlewitz told reporters before the vote. “And we feel that this is an appropriate place to be putting a pause, maybe taking a little bit step back, and letting the program grow long term, while also allowing some money to go back directly into the pockets of our constituents.”

The legislation comes after Gov. Maura Healey, who has fashioned herself as an “all of the above” supporter on energy, filed her package last May in response to consumer outrage over high utility bills.

Ratepayers are all but guaranteed to see minimal relief this winter, since the House only just passed the measure, with the exception of a plan that Healey unveiled earlier this year to cover or defer some gas and electric costs in February and March. New England’s grid operator just this week reported that January wholesale electricity prices spiked to their highest levels in more than a decade, while natural gas prices increased 43 percent and carbon emissions jumped 24 percent from a year prior.

Beyond cutting Mass Save, the bill expands the state’s authority to procure more energy supply, allows municipalities to deploy more solar power, removes barriers for nuclear energy, boosts geothermal energy, makes it easier to build transmission lines along state highways, and reduces payments to solar producers. It would also return 70 percent of compliance payments made by utilities to ratepayers — that money currently funds renewable energy initiatives — and is estimated to save ratepayers nearly $9 billion over a decade.

The legislation reflects the larger tradeoffs around energy policy as Beacon Hill grapples with rising power demand, soaring costs, and quickly approaching climate commitments. President Trump’s moves to halt new offshore wind permits and cuts to clean energy and electric vehicle funding have significantly jeopardized the Bay State’s ability to meet its statutory mandate to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared with 1990 levels. An earlier version of the bill introduced by Rep. Mark Cusack would have made that target “advisory” and slashed Mass Save’s current budget by $300 million but was pulled back after an outcry from environmental groups.

Those dynamics have combined to create a complicated debate around what’s driving high energy prices. The supply and distribution of fossil fuels like oil and gas can be volatile and expensive, but balancing the need to grow new energy infrastructure to operate, store, and transmit cleaner fuels while meeting greater demand has proven tricky. Even though the power sector contributes just 18 percent of the state’s climate pollution on its own, broader electrification goals in the more fossil fuel-reliant transportation and building sectors only reduce emissions if that electricity is generated by carbon-free sources.

The attempt to strike a balance between an affordable present and a green future is politically fraught. While House Democrats gathered behind closed doors Wednesday to go over the bill, a few dozen environmental advocates circled the meeting room, chanting to “Save Mass Save.”

Cusack criticized their approach.

“In terms of the climate activists criticizing this, they offer no solution to the affordability crisis,” he said before the vote. “It’s not on their agenda for the state. It is on ours. We react to our constituents, our businesses, our economic competitiveness.”

Meanwhile, the House’s top Republican dubbed the bill a “missed opportunity” to rein in consumer costs more effectively. The bill that passed the House backloads the Mass Save cuts to 2027, the last year of the program’s current three-year budget cycle.

“Somebody who’s getting a bill today, tomorrow, next month — what are they going to see for relief? What are they going to see for assistance?” House Minority Leader Brad Jones told CommonWealth Beacon. “It’s a lot more down the road.”

Healey filed her version of the bill in May 2025, which Jones said would have left lawmakers enough time to enact something before winter began.

However, House Democrats did not float their first draft of the legislation until November, and they quickly abandoned it after drawing blowback from environmental groups over a proposal to weaken the state’s 2030 decarbonization requirements.

Though Michlewitz took that effort to render the 2030 climate mandate unenforceable off the table, the changes to Mass Save in the bill that passed the House go further than Cusack’s proposal.

The legislation that passed Thursday would cut $1 billion from the program’s current $4.5 billion budget, while Cusack’s pitch would have cut the current budget by $300 million and capped it at $4 billion moving forward.

Mass Save makes up a relatively small part of a utility bill compared with supply and distribution costs, but it has become a focal point as one of the few components of energy prices that is directly under Beacon Hill’s control.

Yet the program is credited with reducing overall energy demand and saving money over the long term — and is one of the few tangible tools to advance the energy transition solely within the state’s control.

“I’m not worried about it,” Cusack said. “I don’t think it’s going to kill the program or cost people anything. It’s going to be a savings to the ratepayers in the short term and then making sure the program actually works in the long term.”

Mass Save, which is a collaboration among the utilities and is funded by ratepayer charges that fluctuate based on energy usage in a given month, pays for home weatherization and heat pump installations at low or no cost — the latter of which was a rare bright spot last year, according to the most recent annual climate report card.

“This cut would utterly devastate and probably break the program,” said Kyle Murray, Massachusetts state director at the environmental group Acadia Center. “The effect that this would have is [to] basically grind the program to a halt. It would devastate the work streams that are happening.”

Healey didn’t originally propose a cut to Mass Save’s budget, much less one of this magnitude. Yet she indicated enthusiasm for the House bill when asked at an unrelated event earlier Thursday.

“I’ve got to take a look at it,” Healey said about the Mass Save changes in particular. “I will say this: It’s really good that they’re voting. I’m really glad to see this energy affordability bill move forward. We’ve got to get this done.”

Lawmakers were forced to take several tough votes on amendments to advance the overall package.

Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven, a Democrat from Somerville, put forward an amendment that would remove the Mass Save cuts from the bill altogether. That provision failed by a 17-137 vote.

Two other amendments brought by Republicans that failed by large margins would have rendered Mass Save’s emissions reduction commitments as merely advisory and cut the amount of additional clean power that utilities need to purchase — two components included in Cusack’s November version of the bill that drew backlash.

Some environmental advocates, like the Environmental League of Massachusetts, were rallying around an amendment from Rep. Marjorie Decker, a Democrat from Cambridge, that would have instead cut Mass Save roughly 10 percent. Decker is facing a difficult reelection bid against a challenger from the left, Evan MacKay, who narrowly lost to Decker in 2024 and serves on the executive committee of the Sierra Club’s Massachusetts chapter. MacKay was spotted in the House gallery on Thursday.

But Decker said in a speech on the House floor that she would support the legislation and appreciated the “real collaboration and a genuine effort to respond to the concerns that have been raised by many of us in this chamber.” The House didn’t wind up voting on her amendment before passing the bill.

One provision that was added to the bill late into the night would require new data centers be powered mainly by renewable energy and shield ratepayers from any increased electric costs stemming from those facilities.

The House measure also cracks down on competitive electric suppliers but leaves out a proposal from Healey to ban utilities from recovering costs associated with lobbying or political contributions. It notably does not touch the Gas System Enhancement Program (GSEP) to replace leaky pipes. Under that program, spending from utilities has soared.

Cusack said that regulators are already working to curtail GSEP and called the latter proposal on what activities utilities can recover costs from a “nice PR hit” that won’t actually yield ratepayer savings.

Now, the bill lands in the Senate, where Michael Barrett, a climate hawk and Democrat who co-chairs that chamber’s energy panel, is waiting in the wings. The Senate’s timeline for passing its version of the energy legislation is unclear, after which an arduous conference committee negotiation could play out.

“At the end of the day, the Legislature’s aim should be to produce the best balance, which means giving people real financial relief while pushing back hard against climate change,” Barrett said. “In Massachusetts, people want both. They don’t want to sacrifice one for the other. They’re all about threading the needle.”

Beacon Hill’s process itself was yet again the subject of criticism. Michlewitz released the 107-page bill on Tuesday, when House Ways and Means members had 45 minutes to vote on whether or not to send it to the full House.

The chamber was then weighing the measure roughly 48 hours after it was posted publicly online. Lawmakers had to submit their amendments by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 126 of which poured in.

“This just can’t be how we legislate,” Uyterhoeven said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Chris Lisinski contributed to this report.