Massachusetts climate activists scratched out a victory when they secured authority for 10 cities and towns to adopt natural gas bans in new buildings. Some building electrification advocates said this recently approved demonstration program is just the start.

In the next two-year legislative session, the activists will pursue authority for all Massachusetts communities to restrict gas use in new buildings, they said. They also planned to use a playbook developed over the past three years to secure new regulatory power for local governments in other areas of climate policy.

The political backdrop could become more constructive for activists when the next Massachusetts General Court, the state Legislature, convenes in 2023. State Attorney General Maura Healey is favored to become the next governor, giving Democrats a trifecta in the governor's mansion, Senate and House of Representatives. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker has been wary of mandates, even as his administration moves to electrify buildings and decarbonize heat.

Yet activists do not expect an easy path. In the interim, they must navigate questions of equity and inclusion in the 10-city demonstration program, part of a recently passed omnibus climate package.

"It's a good step, but there are 351 municipalities in Massachusetts," Cambridge City Council Member Quinton Zondervan, an early advocate for gas bans, said in an interview. "We still have a lot of work to do."

Next steps for gas ban backers

In the current political climate, activists achieved the best outcome possible during the 2021-2022 session, they said. State Democrats put forward a more expansive demonstration project and legislation that would let any community require all-electric new construction, but the 10-city demonstration proved most palatable, the activists said.

"We believe we got every ounce that we could get," said Jesse Gray, who chairs the Brookline, Mass., Zero Emissions Advisory Board and co-developed the first East Coast gas ban. "We don't think that we could have gotten an 11th municipality."

Nevertheless, activists intend to introduce state legislation in January to allow gas bans across Massachusetts, Gray told S&P Global Commodity Insights. Gray acknowledged that lawmakers may not have the appetite to expand the policy until they review data from the demonstration project.

But with the program providing a path to implementation, communities once wary of pursuing gas bans are now coming off the sidelines, Gray said. If enough local governments show interest, it could build the political pressure necessary to make further gains in the upcoming legislative session, Gray said.

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At the local level, Brookline now has its sights set on a new wave of policies to curtail fossil fuel use. Members of the town's 255-person legislative body planned to put forward a package of warrant articles for a vote in the fall.

These will include tax-based proposals to support existing building retrofits and electric vehicles and a measure to expand the scope of Brookline's community choice aggregator. Activists also intended to pursue a ban on gas appliances. Towns lack authority to regulate appliances, but Gray said this was also true of prohibiting gas hookups in new buildings when Brookline passed its bylaw in 2019.

"I think that what we've shown here is that when you start with local legislation, even when you don't have the authority to actually do the policy — which we clearly didn't have — you can build a movement that really has the potential to reconcile climate policy with climate reality," Gray said.

Activists prepare for roadblocks ahead

The consistent local engagement from Brookline and other communities has been critical to prompting state-level action on all-electric new construction, according to Amar Shah, a manager for sustainability group RMI's carbon-free buildings program. RMI helped scale up a Boston-area grassroots effort in 2020 by launching its Massachusetts Building Electrification Accelerator, which now counts representatives from more than 30 communities.

In 2021, state lawmakers representing coalition members directed the Baker administration to develop a voluntary energy code that would allow communities to prohibit gas use in new buildings. When the proposal disappointed lawmakers and activists, statehouse Democrats introduced a raft of bills to secure that authority, ultimately producing the 10-city demonstration program.

The law gave the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, or DOER, until July 1, 2023, to issue regulations governing the demonstration project. The DOER is reviewing the statute and anticipates developing a formal implementation process and application schedule, DOER told stakeholders in an Aug. 23 email shared with S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Zero Emissions' Gray was concerned that the DOER, which developed the opt-in energy code, will delay implementation and water down the program. However, the Baker administration will only control rulemaking through January, when Healey will likely become governor.

Healey's office struck down two bylaws in Brookline and one in Lexington, Mass., seeking to restrict gas use in new buildings, ruling that the local measures conflicted with state law. However, Healey successfully pushed state utility regulators to open an investigation into the future of gas use in Massachusetts and has vowed to pass a specialized energy code allowing communities to pass gas bans if elected governor. Healey's campaign did not respond to questions about whether the demonstration project would affect her plan.

Some building electrification advocates were uncertain Healey will prioritize the issue and plan to keep up the pressure. "Ten cities and towns is fine for this minute, but the moment she takes office we'll be clamoring at her door," Zondervan, the Cambridge council member, said.

Equity at stake as affluent communities line up

Some communities have already begun putting forward their credentials. The Lexington town manager's office wrote to the DOER on Aug. 17 to note that voters approved a bylaw restricting gas use in buildings and a home rule petition seeking authority from the state legislature to implement the policy, two criteria for participation in the demonstration program. Lexington has also met the law's minimum affordable housing requirement, the town said.

At least nine other Massachusetts towns and cities have already lodged home rule petitions with the state legislature, according to Anne Wright, a facilitator for the RMI accelerator and steering committee member for Clean Heat for Arlington. Many of these are in the Boston area: Acton, Arlington, Brookline, Cambridge, Concord, Lexington, Lincoln and Newton. The remaining two — Aquinnah and West Tisbury — are communities on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

RMI has sought to increase the accelerator's demographic diversity. Wright said members will "insist that the program is designed with a focus on equity, emissions reductions, and program success."

The social justice component of the program will be "super important" because many of the communities with pending home rule petitions are among the state's most affluent, Zondervan said. Policymakers must ensure the benefits reach low-income residents in cities like Boston and Cambridge and develop complementary policies like green jobs programs in disadvantaged communities, he said.

"The benefits are still poised to flow primarily to people who are already wealthy," Zondervan said. "And so, we definitely need to do a lot more work to make sure that lower-income communities are benefiting from this shift to electrification as well — and from the beginning."

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