NEARLY 90 ENVIRONMENTAL organizations, nonprofits, and even some private companies have signed on to endorse a ballot measure poised to land before voters this November that would dedicate as much as $100 million a year from the sales tax generated on sporting goods purchases to expand land conservation efforts.

The coalition, unsurprisingly, includes some of the bigger names in the state focused on environmental issues: Conservation Law Foundation, Mass Audubon, The Trustees of Reservations, The Nature Conservancy, and even outdoors retailer REI.

You won’t find the Environmental League of Massachusetts on that list.

ELM, one of the state’s oldest advocacy organizations given its founding in 1898, is instead sitting this one out. The organization’s campaign arm formally endorsed Gov. Maura Healey for reelection earlier this month.

“We made the decision to not weigh in on the Nature for All ballot question due to capacity,” said Leigh Chandler, an ELM spokesperson. “We’re directing our staff hours toward closing out a strong legislative session and, on the ELM Action Fund side, supporting climate candidates.”

The ballot question has no formal opposition but met somewhat of a chilly reception from lawmakers at a related hearing earlier this year.

DRAFTING THE AG

It might seem, at first blush, like state officials are generally rowing in the same direction on tech policy. But Attorney General Andrea Campbell this week delicately side-eyed the way her office is getting dragged into an enforcement role on policies it had no place in crafting.

At a government affairs forum hosted by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Chamber president Jim Rooney pointed to data privacy legislation on Beacon Hill. “That’s under serious consideration in the Legislature,” he said. “Your office will have a large role in the implementation. So I’m assuming that your office is at the table as the Legislature considers this.”

Campbell interrupted with a smile.

“You assume,” she said. “I’m smiling, ’cause folks will just file bills and say, ‘Who’s gonna enforce it? The AG, of course!’ And we never asked, were never engaged. They’re like, ‘You’re gonna do this, you’re gonna do this.’” She and her staff will look at each other when bills like the data privacy one arise, Campbell said, “because literally, ‘oh, we didn’t know it was us.’”

On a practical level, the AG said, this does impact the way the office plans and prioritizes.

“We’re always mindful because we want to make sure when we enforce something, we have the lawyers, the staff, the team to give to it,” she said.

Campbell also described the manner in which her office has to certify potential ballot measures as “a pet peeve.”

At no point in the certification process, she noted, is her team asked to weigh in on the constitutionality of a ballot initiative petition. After the Supreme Judicial Court issued an advisory opinion that a ballot measure on legislative stipends was likely unconstitutional, Campbell’s office withdrew its certification.

The lack off constitutional analysis “is ridiculous” and “has to change” she said. “We have folks voting on something where the implementation of it could be unconstitutional, or parts of it. And how do you explain that to a voter who’s going and exercising their civil right to vote? How do you explain that after the fact?”

An interlude in the Mass Save debate

While we wait for the Senate response to the House-passed energy affordability bill that would slash $1 billion from the budget of the state’s energy efficiency program known as Mass Save, Healey’s administration appeared to come to the initiative’s defense on Wednesday.

Elizabeth Mahony, commissioner of the Department of Energy Resources, told lawmakers that Mass Save “benefits all customers” by delivering “impressive” energy savings through home weatherization and heat pump installations provided at low or no cost.

“The program administrators have been successful in maintaining an appropriate level of demand for the programs to serve as many customers as possible, while staying within the approved budgets,” she testified before the Senate Committee on Climate Change and Global Warming.

Even though the House effort was never name-checked directly during Mahony’s appearance at the hearing, its undercurrents were obvious throughout.

Sen. Cynthia Creem, a Democrat who chairs the panel, asked Mahony to speak to Mass Save’s marketing and administration costs. House Democratic leaders argue that the program’s $4.5 billion budget spread across three years has become overly bloated and emerged as their top target in the legislation for lowering consumer energy bills, which are among the highest in the nation.

Mahony said less than 5 percent of the program goes toward marketing and administrative costs, a favorable rate compared with other states.

Months after the House advanced its measure, Mass Save beneficiaries are now pressing their case to the Senate, arguing that “mid-cycle budget cuts would be deeply harmful to local businesses and to customers.” Nearly 150 contractors, energy managers, HVAC technicians, and electricians across Massachusetts warned lawmakers in a new letter obtained by CommonWealth Beacon that the House’s proposed cuts would “jeopardize” tens of thousands of clean energy jobs.