HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 3396        FILED ON: 1/18/2019

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2919

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Maria Duaime Robinson and Rebecca L. Rausch

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act to establish building energy performance standards.

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PETITION OF:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 3396        FILED ON: 1/18/2019

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2919

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Ninety-First General Court
(2019-2020)

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An Act to establish building energy performance standards.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

Chapter 25A of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 16 the following section:-

Section 17. (a) As used in this section the following words shall have the following meanings unless the context clearly requires otherwise:-

Department, the department of energy resources.

Energy, any of the following used for purposes of providing heating, cooling, lighting, or water heating, or for powering or fueling other end uses in the building and related facilities: electricity, on-site renewable electricity generation, natural gas, steam, hot or chilled water, heating oil, or other product.

Energy Star Performance Rating, an energy score created for a building using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager, an online tool for reporting and managing building energy data.

Owner, the owner of record or designated agent.

Tenant, any tenant, tenant-stockholder of a cooperative apartment corporation, or condominium unit owner.

(b) This section shall apply to all buildings with at least 15,000 square feet of gross floor area. Subsection (c) of this section shall take effect on January 1, 2020. All other subsections of this section shall take effect on January 1, 2022.

(c) (1) No later than June 15 of each year, owners of each building subject to this chapter shall accurately report to the department the previous calendar year’s energy use of each building and other building characteristics necessary to evaluate absolute and relative energy use intensity. Energy use information shall not include its associated cost. Building owners shall report this information using a system that the department shall designate.

(2) Building owners may authorize an energy utility or other third party to report building-specific energy use information on their behalf to the department. Such authorization shall not remove the obligation of building owners to comply with reporting requirements.

(3) Where a portion of a building is occupied by a tenant and separately metered by a utility company, the owner of such building may request from such tenant information relating to such tenant’s separately metered energy use and other information required for annual reporting under this section, and such tenant shall report such information to such owner. An owner may request information for the previous calendar year no earlier than January 1 and no later than April 15. If a tenant vacates a space before the end of the calendar year, an owner may immediately request such information. Upon receiving such request after the conclusion of the calendar year or after vacating a space, a tenant shall report information to the owner no later than 30 days after receiving the request.

(4) Failure of any tenant to report the information required in this section shall not relieve an owner of the obligation to comply with reporting requirements.

(5) At the time any occupied building subject to the requirements of this section is transferred, the seller shall provide to the buyer all information necessary for the buyer to report energy use information for the entire year in a timely manner.

(6) The department shall make energy use information for all buildings subject to this section available to the public on a state website no later than October 1 of every year. The disclosure shall include, at a minimum, building identification, energy intensity, greenhouse gas emissions per square foot, and an Energy Star performance rating or similar energy performance score where available.

(7) Between January 1 and April 1 of each year, the department shall notify building owners of their obligation to input energy use information into the reporting system.

(8) Building owners failing to comply with the requirements of this subsection shall be liable for a civil administrative penalty not to exceed $100 for each day of the violation.

(9) A residential tenant shall not be held responsible for paying a penalty, or any portion thereof, for the failure of the building owner to report energy use information in a timely fashion.

(10) Municipalities may adopt building energy disclosure requirements or continue to enforce building energy disclosure requirements that have already been adopted; provided, that (i) municipalities must collect all of the information that is required under the disclosure system established by the department; and (ii) municipalities must provide such information on a building-by-building basis to the department, on a reasonable timeframe established by the department. Municipalities with local building energy disclosure requirements may require additional energy use information beyond the information required by the department. In municipalities with local building energy disclosure requirements, the department may exempt building owners from the requirement to report energy use information to the department, provided that said building owners are providing all required energy use information to the municipality in a timely fashion.

(d) (1) No later than December 31, 2021, and every 5 years thereafter, the department shall establish property types and building energy performance standards for each property type. The department shall establish reporting and data verification requirements for each 5-year compliance cycle.

(2) In developing energy performance standards, the department shall seek to help the commonwealth achieve the requirements of chapter 21N of the General Laws, as well as other global warming, pollution reduction, energy efficiency, and renewable energy policies.

(3) The department shall establish campus-wide energy performance standards for post-secondary educational institutions and hospitals with multiple buildings in a single location that are owned by a single entity; provided, that the development of any standard by the department shall be based upon an analysis of the existing building efficiency of each campus and the compliance pathways shall achieve savings comparable to those outlined in section 4 of this section.

(4) The department shall set building energy performance standards that are no lower than the median energy performance of buildings of each property type, using Energy Star performance ratings or a similar energy performance scoring system selected by the department.

(e) (1) Owners of all buildings that do not meet the building energy performance standards established by the department shall have 5 years from the date of establishment of the standards to meet the standards.

(2) The department shall establish multiple compliance pathways for buildings to meet the building energy performance requirements, including: (i) an energy performance pathway, which shall require a building to demonstrate a greater than 20 percent decrease in normalized site energy use intensity averaged over the last 2 years of the 5-year compliance cycle, as compared to the normalized site energy use intensity averaged over the 2 years preceding the first year of the 5-year compliance cycle; (ii) an emissions performance pathway, which shall require a building to demonstrate a greater than 20 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions over the last 2 years of the 5-year compliance cycle, as compared to the normalized site emissions averaged over the 2 years preceding the first year of the 5-year compliance cycle, provided that switching from oil to natural gas shall not count toward a building’s compliance with this pathway; and (iii) a prescriptive pathway for buildings to achieve compliance by implementing cost-effective energy efficiency measures with savings comparable to the performance pathways.

(f) The department shall establish exemption criteria for qualifying buildings to delay compliance with the building energy performance requirements for up to 3 years if the owner demonstrates, to the satisfaction of the department, financial distress, change of ownership, vacancy, major renovation, pending demolition, or other acceptable circumstances determined by the department by regulation.

(g) The department shall coordinate with utility companies and the department of public utilities to establish incentive and financial assistance programs for qualifying building owners to meet building energy performance requirements.

(h) Owners of buildings failing to comply with the building energy performance requirements at the end of the 5-year compliance period shall pay an alternative compliance penalty established by the department, equal to no less than $10,000 for each violation or twice the estimated cost that would have been incurred by making the improvements necessary to meet the standards, whichever is greater.