ANY DEMOCRAT IN MASSACHUSETTS eyeing ways to slow down the state’s ambitious commitments to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels knows they’re asking for trouble with environmental advocates. 

That’s exactly what’s already playing out as a key member of the House prepares to advance a plan to ease 2030 climate targets and cut the budget for the state’s energy efficiency program.  

Rep. Mark Cusack, co-chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, told CommonWealth Beacon that he is planning to use Gov. Maura Healey’s energy affordability bill filed earlier this year as a vehicle to achieve those policy points and others. He is aiming for his redraft of Healey’s legislation to receive a floor vote before lawmakers break for the year on November 19.  

Cue the outrage. 

“We will fill the State House,” said Larry Chretien, executive director at Green Energy Consumers Alliance. “This is going to be one of the bigger deals for the environmental community in a long time. We’re going to give it everything.” 

The effort is bound to divide the Democratic supermajority on Beacon Hill and test officials’ willingness to defend the state’s climate policies just as winter hits and Healey mounts a reelection bid.  

Cusack is arguing that because of a seismic crackdown on clean energy from the Trump administration, the state is likely to miss its goal to halve its emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Keeping those short-term commitments on the books, then, is political and legal malpractice, he said, opening the state up to legal challenges. 

Plus, fury over sky-high energy bills last winter proved to Beacon Hill that officials need to do everything in their power to lower gas and electric costs, Cusack said. Those factors triggered Healey’s energy package, which aims to save ratepayers $10 billion over a decade, and pushed the state into “all-of-the-above” energy mode as the White House works to choke off new offshore wind and solar power.  

“We’re looking at the real possibility here, in the objective analysis, that we are not going to make our greenhouse reduction mandates,” Cusack said. “I have not found anyone who says that we are going to make our mandates.”  

But Chretien, who successfully sued the state a decade ago along with other groups for Massachusetts’s failure to do more to combat climate change, said Cusack’s concern over litigation is a “boogeyman.” 

“At this point, we want Massachusetts to give its best effort,” he said. “We’ve got five years to go to move the needle on emissions. It’s way too early to think about that. I’m just looking for effort. We understand what the Trump administration is doing to climate policy and that makes it harder. So talk to me seven years from now.” 

Part of the pushback, too, is rooted in pure shock. 

“I never would have thought that we would ever, ever say that we were going to, based subsequently on something that is happening federally, turn and say, ‘Oh, well, maybe we need to delay or rethink.’ People are looking to us as to what to do because we have the trifecta,” said Cabell Eames, an environmental policy consultant with Castling Strategies. “If our state decides that it’s going to delay or rethink its climate targets, that is going to send shockwaves and a ripple effect across the United States that we just do not need at this time. There’s a whole economy that’s attached to this. This just isn’t the Massachusetts that I know.” 

Cusack is also proposing to cut Mass Save’s budget by $500 million as a way to save customers money, since the program is funded by ratepayers and appears as a line item on bills.  

He couched his actions by vowing not to touch the state’s larger commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent by 2050 and not wanting to hamstring Mass Save’s substantive work, instead focusing on reining in its advertising and administrative budget. 

But advocates warned that reducing the program’s budget will only exacerbate the state’s affordability crisis in the long run, not alleviate it. Mass Save is a collaboration among the state’s utilities to electrify and weatherize homes and install technologies like heat pumps that can significantly reduce energy bills.  

The program provided $2.8 billion in total benefits in 2024 and installed nearly 90,000 heat pumps over the past three years. 

“Massachusetts is starting to head somewhere where we should not head, which is trying to say that energy affordability and climate goals are competing goals and that we need to have either/or,” said Mary Wambui, co-chair of the Energy Efficiency Advisory Council’s energy equity working group, and a fellow at MassINC. (MassINC publishes CommonWealth Beacon.)  

Even with Mass Save’s issues – explored in a state auditor report that found that denser communities contribute more into the program but reap fewer benefits – such a cut is “penny wise and pound foolish” that would harm some of the most energy-burdened households in the state, said John Walkey, director of climate justice and waterfront initiatives at environmental justice organization GreenRoots.  

Cusack said he has House Speaker Ron Mariano’s support for his plan, though Ana Vivas, a spokesperson for Mariano, said he hasn’t yet taken an official position.  

“The speaker looks forward to reviewing the bill and discussing with his colleagues in the House,” Vivas said in a statement. 

Cusack appeared to recognize that his counterpart in the Senate, Michael Barrett of Lexington, isn’t likely to go along with the House redraft. Barrett declined to comment on the House effort, as did Senate President Karen Spilka.  

And Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper told CommonWealth Beacon last month that pushing back the state’s climate goals is “not our focus right now.”   

But in a sign of how far the pendulum has swung since the state adopted near-term climate targets just four years ago under Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, the Healey administration didn’t offer a robust defense of the clean energy commitments when asked on Friday. Karissa Hand, a spokesperson for Healey, simply said that “the governor will review the final version that reaches her desk.” 

“This is a big moment of truth” for Healey, Chretien said. 

The looming battle over the climate commitments, which could derail Healey’s energy agenda and dominate the final weeks on Beacon Hill before the new year, also shows that even deep-blue Massachusetts will have to contend with a shifting national mood around energy policy.  

Kyle Murray, Massachusetts program director at the nonprofit group Acadia Center, said in a statement that while the state must adapt to new roadblocks posed by the federal government, policymakers should “redouble efforts” to meet the climate targets. 

“Simply put, weakening targets is essentially granting the state permission to fail, and failure is not acceptable – certainly not five years before a deadline,” he said. 

While Chretien argues there’s growing public support for clean energy in general, the repercussions of Trump’s victory last year are giving officials pause. 

He said there is a real economic benefit to keeping the state’s climate targets in place given its valuable scientific and climate tech sectors that can flourish based on an economywide transition off fossil fuels that serves as the backbone of the green commitments.  

But there’s some symbolism in there, too. 

“If Massachusetts pulls back – let’s be honest, we don’t want to inflate our position in the world – but we are one of the most affluent, progressive places in the world,” Chretien said. “It sends an awful message to move the goal posts. There’s an opportunity for us to stay the course, do what we can on clean energy, and that will not happen if we backslide.”