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Massachusetts lawmakers may double the number of cities and towns allowed to ban fossil fuels in new construction. A bill under consideration would add up to 10 communities to an ongoing pilot program that proponents say is already reducing emissions, making homes healthier, and lowering energy bills — all without stifling the development of new housing.
Cities including Salem and Somerville are lining up to participate in an expanded program, and some local leaders in Worcester are eager to take part, too. Boston, the state’s largest city, has previously expressed interest in joining.
“We’re a coastal community that’s going to bear the brunt of climate change,” said state Rep. Manny Cruz, a Democrat representing Salem. ​“We want to make sure we’re doing our part to mitigate the damage.”
As Massachusetts strives to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, it has prioritized policies that encourage the transition away from fossil fuels, particularly natural gas. In 2022, as part of a wide-ranging climate law, the state created a pilot authorizing 10 municipalities to prohibit fossil-fuel hookups in new construction and major renovations. In 2023, it introduced an optional building code aimed at reducing energy consumption and preparing for an all-electric future, and later that same year, regulators issued guidelines for natural-gas utilities to evolve toward clean energy.
Massachusetts joins other states and cities pursuing such policies. New York this summer became the first state to commit to an all-electric building standard, though Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is now under pressure to delay the implementation of these rules. Dozens of local governments nationwide have measures on the books barring gas use in new buildings and renovations, and some have policies to ratchet down fossil-fuel appliances in existing structures over time, too.
Advocates hope Massachusetts’ pilot paves the way for the legislature to allow all 351 of the state’s cities and towns to choose their own path on fossil-fuel restrictions.
The bill still faces committee votes in both the House and Senate. Single-issue bills like this one are rarely approved by the full legislature, but are instead wrapped into a larger package, said state Sen. Michael Barrett, a Democrat and chair of the legislature’s telecommunications, utilities, and energy committee, which heard testimony on the bill late last month.
Massachusetts’ all-electric pilot has roots stretching back to 2019, when the town of Brookline passed a bylaw prohibiting new fossil-fuel infrastructure. Supporters argued that the momentum behind the energy transition and forecasts of rising natural gas prices made the policy a responsible step.
There’s no point in installing new systems now that will only get more expensive to run and will end up needing to be replaced with electric equipment before too long, said Lisa Cunningham, cofounder of nonprofit ZeroCarbonMA and one of the forces behind the Brookline bylaw.
“It’s basically locking people into these huge energy burdens,” she said.
But Brookline’s policy was struck down in 2020 by the Democratic attorney general Maura Healey, who was later elected governor of the state in 2022. Healey argued that municipalities do not have the authority to supersede state building and gas codes, though she said she supported emissions reductions and felt she had no choice but to reject the bylaw.
So Brookline and several other towns petitioned the state legislature for special permission to implement their own rules. Lawmakers responded by including the 10-town demonstration program in a sweeping climate bill that then-Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, signed in 2022 despite expressing serious reservations about the impact the pilot might have on housing.
Indeed, detractors have long maintained that all-electric building mandates will drive residential construction costs up at a time when Massachusetts is facing an acute housing shortage.
However, none of the 10 municipalities in the current program have reported such a slowdown. Lexington, for example — which has adopted both the fossil-fuel ban and the more stringent building code — has permitted some 1,100 new housing units in the past two years, including 160 affordable homes.
Research also indicates that building and running an all-electric house does not come with a price premium. A 2022 report by clean-energy think tank RMI finds that the up-front cost and annual operating expenses for a fossil-fuel-free home in Boston are slightly lower than for a mixed-fuel building. Since then, Massachusetts has adopted discounted wintertime electricity rates for homes with heat pumps, making electrification even more affordable.
“The lowest-hanging fruit is to build all-electric,” Cunningham said. ​“Doing all these as retrofits is going to be a lot more difficult.”
In 2023, advocates and supportive lawmakers proposed a bill that would allow any municipality to implement its own gas ban, but the measure did not make it into the climate package passed later that session.
Proponents of expanding the pilot say it is important to offer the opportunity to a wider variety of communities across the state. Of the initial 10 participants, all but two are Boston suburbs, and only two have median household incomes below $125,000. Seven have populations below 50,000, with one, the Martha’s Vineyard town of Aquinnah, home to only about 600 people.
“It restricted it to these much wealthier, much smaller, less diverse communities. That’s just not equitable,” Cunningham said.
Broadening the program will also help the state collect more data about how these prohibitions impact emissions, public health, and housing costs and availability, said Barrett, who supports the bill.
“The more data we can get in about the cost of going all-electric, the better off we’ll be,” he said.
Somerville has been eager to join the pilot since the beginning. When the program launched, it was intended to include the 10 communities that had already asked the legislature for permission to implement fossil-fuel restrictions. The creation of the program, however, spurred more local governments to vote for such bans in hopes of joining the pilot if any spots should open up. Somerville was the first to do so, just weeks after the law was enacted, with its City Council passing the measure unanimously.
Having the authority to limit fossil-fuel growth would not only move Somerville toward its goal of being carbon-negative by 2050, but also lower heating costs for some residents and create housing with better air quality, said Christine Blais, the city’s director of sustainability and environment.
“We want to give Somerville residents the best chance to have a good quality of life,” she said.
In Salem, which has also passed a measure asking to join the pilot, City Councilor Jeff Cohen would like to see the bill passed, but he also thinks it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Allowing 20 of Massachusetts’ 351 municipalities to ban natural gas just won’t make a meaningful dent in the state’s emissions, he said.
“It’s time to do something,” Cohen said. ​“Ten at a time doesn’t seem good enough for me.”
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