MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE DEMOCRATS ARE preparing to advance on Thursday a sweeping energy bill, Beacon Hill’s long-awaited legislative response to a clamoring for action from residents to tame soaring electric and gas prices.

Lawmakers are set to vote on legislation that would slash $1 billion from Mass Save, the state’s energy efficiency initiative that offers home weatherization and heat pump installations at low or no cost. The program has been caught up in the state’s affordability crisis because it’s funded by a charge on utility bills.

And in a further sign of just how far out of favor the program has fallen, the package put forth by House Democratic leadership would require the inspector general to conduct a review of Mass Save by July 1, 2027, according to a bill summary obtained by CommonWealth Beacon.

House Ways and Means chair Aaron Michlewitz said in an interview that President Trump’s moves to halt offshore wind permits and slash tax credits for electric vehicles and energy efficiency programs is forcing ratepayers in Massachusetts to shoulder too much of the financial burden for the clean energy transition.

“One thing that we heard extensively from members and from a lot of folks in the general public is concerns related to the efficiencies of how the program was being run, from a marketing standpoint, from an administrative standpoint,” Michlewitz said. “We’re not getting rid of it. We’re just taking a pause, taking a step back on the financial commitments that the ratepayers are giving to Mass Save and allowing us to get under the hood a little bit and see how it can be run in a more efficient manner, using the inspector general as a tool to allow us to do so.”

Gov. Maura Healey filed the bill, which she said will save ratepayers $13.7 billion over 10 years, in May in response to an outcry last winter over high electric and gas bills.

The fact that the House waited until now to vote on the bill could mean that the only relief ratepayers get this winter is Healey’s plan to spend $180 million to subsidize 15 percent of ratepayers’ electric bills in February and March. Under that plan, most of the utilities will also defer an additional 10 percent of electric bills and 10 percent of gas bills to be collected over the rest of the year.

The House’s revision of the bill, which is projected to save ratepayers nearly $9 billion over a decade, would also reduce payments to solar energy producers, expand the state’s authority to procure more energy, and return 70 percent of utility compliance payments to ratepayers for the next three years. Many of those provisions mirror Healey’s initial proposal, including another that removes barriers for nuclear energy by repealing a current requirement for voters to approve of any new nuclear power plant.

The measure would also raise the limit on the amount of solar that municipalities can deploy and require the utilities to provide discounted rates for low-income customers.

Healey appeared supportive of the new House version of the legislation. Karissa Hand, a spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement that Healey is “grateful” that the House is “moving this important bill forward.”

Even if the House passes the energy bill, it still might take months before it would take effect. The bill would head straight into the hands of Sen. Michael Barrett, a Democrat and climate hawk who chairs that chamber’s telecommunications, utilities, and energy committee, and then go through what could be an arduous conference committee to reconcile differences between the House and Senate, before reaching Healey’s desk.

The legislation has thrust Beacon Hill’s Democratic supermajority into a fierce debate. Rep. Mark Cusack, the Democrat who chairs the House energy panel, rewrote Healey’s package and advanced a version in November that would have weakened the state’s 2030 climate targets and cut the amount of clean power that utilities must purchase — a move first reported by CommonWealth Beacon.

That pitch triggered an uproar from environmental advocates that forced legislative leaders to backpedal from plans to fast-track the measure. The Sierra Club of Massachusetts even called for Cusack’s removal as chair of the powerful committee.

The latest language on track to receive a full House vote Thursday moves back in the direction that Healey originally filed. The bill, which comes about a month after House lawmakers met behind closed doors to discuss energy issues, makes good on Michlewitz’s pledge not to touch the state’s commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

But the Mass Save cuts in the version set to advance this week in some ways go further than what Cusack put forward.

The legislation under consideration this week would cut $1 billion from the program’s current $4.5 billion budget, which runs through the end of 2027, while Cusack’s proposal would have cut the current budget by $300 million and cap it at $4 billion moving forward.

“Dealing with this affordability crisis that we’re in, while also trying to maintain our climate goals for 2030 and beyond, is certainly a difficult needle to thread, and this is something that … we felt did the best job we could in doing that,” Michlewitz said.

Healey’s original bill proposed reforms to how Mass Save is financed, including through bonds. But she indicated no appetite to pursue such deep cuts when directly asked about whether she would support reducing the program’s budget.

“We already made adjustments to Mass Save,” Healey said at an October press conference, referencing regulators’ cut to a proposed $5 billion program budget last year. “The program is working as it’s supposed to right now.”

Michlewitz didn’t dispute that negotiations will be inevitable, both with Healey and the Senate.

“I’m sure there are certain things in this bill that the administration is certainly going to like,” he said. “There are a lot of priorities that they had from the original bill that have made their way back into the process. And then there may be some things that they’re not necessarily as interested in or supportive of.”

Michlewitz said that he expected the Ways and Means committee to vote to send the bill to the House floor as soon as Tuesday, with amendments due by the end of Wednesday.

Since buildings are the second-most polluting sector in Massachusetts, Mass Save, a collaboration with the state’s utility companies, is a key part of the state’s strategy to meet the 2030 targets. Installations of heat pumps, an energy efficient technology to heat and cool buildings that Mass Save helps defray the costs of for property owners, were one of the rare bright spots in the state’s latest annual climate report card in a year marked by hostility toward clean energy from the Republican-controlled federal government.

Mass Save provided $2.8 billion in total benefits in 2024. Katherine Antos, the state’s undersecretary for decarbonization and resilience, said that the program saves ratepayers money in the long run in a state currently home to the nation’s third-highest electricity prices: On the hottest day last year in June, when peak demand was reached, energy usage would have been 10 percent higher if not for Mass Save — saving $2.6 million in a single hour.

But because the program appears as a charge on utility bills — which fluctuates throughout the year based on a ratepayer’s energy consumption in a given month — and is directly within lawmakers’ purview, Mass Save has been a target for savings. The program has also been criticized for not distributing benefits fairly to renters.

Elsewhere in New England, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee — locked in a tough reelection bid — is responding to affordability concerns in his state by proposing to delay renewable energy goals to save ratepayers $1 billion over five years.

Healey, who is also seeking reelection this year, has increasingly been trying to find the sweet spot on energy issues as cost of living concerns continue to mount, power demand rises, and the state’s green commitments appear harder to reach.

Michlewitz made clear that the tough choices around those tradeoffs are only just getting going.

“The 2030 [climate commitments] conversation is one that’s to be determined,” he said. “We’ve made it very clear that that conversation is going to be had at some point, but we felt that the membership was not ready for that conversation today. It’s one that many agree is to be had in the future.”