Gov. Maura Healey filed a supplemental budget that would close the state's financial books on fiscal year 2024 while also overhauling how Massachusetts approves clean energy infrastructure projects.
Gov. Maura Healey moved Wednesday to use a routine spending bill as a catch-all for a few different big priorities, including clean energy siting and permitting changes. The move prompted one top Democrat to accuse the governor of"taking sides" in a legislative dispute.
Healey included in the closeout budget"several essential and timely provisions" that would streamline the process of siting and permitting clean energy infrastructure, an area that regulators,and industry representatives have all said is in need of reform. She also included language around clean energy procurement.
"The governor is all but killing the negotiations," Barrett told the State House News Service."You can't create an altogether second track that gives one side almost everything it seeks and still claim to be interested in a true compromise."His counterpart in negotiations, Rep. Jeff Roy of Franklin, offered a more upbeat assessment.
According to Roy, the governor's bill also calls for procuring more energy storage and authorizes regional procurements, both of which he called House priorities."What's very distressing is that no attention is paid to getting EV chargers out there. No attention is paid to getting some kind of relief on people's monthly gas bills. She is abandoning all efforts to deal with plastic waste. It's really a deeply distressing set of concessions," the Lexington Democrat said.
Steve Long, director of policy and partnerships for The Nature Conservancy, praised Healey"for strategically selecting pieces from the climate bills on which there is consensus between the House and Senate." Fiscal year 2024 tax collections of $40.8 billion beat fiscal 2023's total by $1.636 billion or 4.2 percent and topped the fiscal 2024 benchmark that was revised downward by $1 billion in January by $967 million or 2.4 percent, the Department of Revenue announced last month. But all of that overage and then some came as a result of the state's new high-earner surtax, leaving a budget gap of $233 million.
Former Gov. Charlie Baker in 2021 signed a law stashing about $1.5 billion in surplus dollars into the fund, and the account is now poised to run out as the state taps into it to cover unexpected expenses including a spike in emergency shelter spending.
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