If you are in the market for a new or used electric car, plan to get it before September 30, 2025. The “Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Trump on July 4 gets rid of the federal tax credit for electric vehicles (EVs) as of the end of September.
Calling all Rhode Islanders! The House budget was released last Tuesday and included electric vehicle (EV) registration fees (p. 6) for battery electric, plug-in hybrid, and hybrid electric vehicles. While the bill has been passed by the House and heads to the Senate floor for a vote on Friday, we encourage you to contact your legislators and let them know why you oppose these fees or that you are concerned with how they will impact you. We will walk you through the outreach steps later in this blog.
Calling all Rhode Islanders! We are nearing the end of our legislative session, and we are still pushing for the Building Decarbonization Act (H5493/S91) to be voted out of committee and passed by the House and Senate. Read on to learn why this bill is critical for Rhode Island, and if you’re interested in supporting the bill, check out this blog post for more directions.
In Massachusetts, third-party electric suppliers, also called “competitive suppliers”, are allowed to sell electricity directly to residential customers of Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil (although the cost of delivering the power is always charged by the local utility). While the idea behind allowing these companies to operate was that they would increase competition and bring down electric prices, this is not how things have worked in practice.
For the past several weeks, we’ve been working hard on a campaign to protect key regulations, called Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII), which would have steadily increased the supply of electric vehicles (EVs) available to drivers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, such that 100% of new car sales would have to be electric by 2035. These regulations were key to both Massachusetts’ and Rhode Island’s climate plans. Now, they’re off the table.
For those of us working on the clean energy transition, professionally or as volunteers, the last few months have been awful in many ways. We’re seeing policies change for the worse, funding cuts, and layoffs. The planetary consequences are real, but there’s also an enormous human impact on all the people who have made working on the transition either their vocation or avocation.
On Wednesday, May 14, the energy committee in the Massachusetts legislature will hold a hearing on bills related to electric transportation – including four bills that would push back or remove altogether the deadline to phase out new gas-powered cars in Massachusetts and weaken the primary tool we have to facilitate this transition. Massachusetts residents, we need you to testify and/or send in written comments in opposition.
Clean car regulations are under attack federally and here in Massachusetts. We wrote about these attacks on April 25, held a webinar on May 1, and submitted joint letter signed by 70 organizations to Governor Maura Healey on May 2. All along the way, we’ve tried to dispel misinformation and disinformation about these key regulations. Last week, the Massachusetts State Auto Dealer Association made a claim in a Boston Globe article about the subject that incorrectly frames how these regulations work. As part of our Truth to Power campaign, we want to set the record straight.
About a week ago, we began hearing rumors that Governor Healey was being pressured by the auto industry to delay implementation of the Advanced Clean Cars (ACC2) rule. ACC2 would, starting with model year 2026, require automakers to gradually increase the percentage of new cars sold in the Bay State that are electric. The Department of Environmental Protection adopted the regulations after an open public process way back in 2023, so it’s disheartening to know that this issue is on the table at all. The transportation sector is the leading cause of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Massachusetts, and ACC2 is, by far, the most important policy for reducing those emissions.
This year, our top legislative priority in Rhode Island is the Building Decarbonization Act (H5493/S91), because the Ocean State is not currently on track to achieve the emissions reductions required by the Act on Climate. This is especially true in the building sector, which makes up over 35% of the state’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
.jpg?width=30&name=larry%20(1).jpg){kind=small}