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The 193rd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

AN ACT RELATIVE TO THE MASSACHUSETTS MUNICIPAL WHOLESALE ELECTRIC COMPANY.

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

SECTION 1. Section 1 of chapter 775 of the acts of 1975 is hereby amended by striking out the definition of “Electric power facilities” or “electric power facility”, inserted by section 2 of chapter 129 of the acts of 1988, and inserting in place thereof the following 2 definitions:-

“Energy”, electricity, electric power, electric capacity, electric energy, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum air gas, propane air, synthetic natural gas, oil, steam, coal, water, wind, solar, battery, or any by-products, derivatives, services, ancillary products or ancillary services derived therefrom, including, but not limited to, reactive power or voltage control, loss compensation, scheduling and dispatch, load following, system protection services and energy imbalance services, emissions allowances or the transmission, transportation, storage, purchase, sale, exchange or interchange of energy capacity, either electric or other, distribution, disposal, decommissioning thereof, or the transmission, transportation, storage, disposal, decommissioning or distribution of any by-products thereof.

“Energy facility”, an electric power facility, or a system or facility, or an interest in or right to the use of services derived from the facility or system or a part of thereof, including an energy conservation system, system for the production of renewable energy or alternative energy facility for the manufacture, generation, transmission, distribution, transformation, transportation, storage, purchase, sale, exchange or interchange or conservation of energy or any by-products or ancillary products thereof or services derived therefrom by any means, including, but not limited to, vehicles, personal or real property and a facility for processing refuse or other materials into fuel with or without other by-products, or facilities and property for the acquisition, extraction, conversion, transportation, storage, reprocessing or disposal of fuel and other materials of any kind for any of these purposes, as necessary to carry out the purposes of this act.

SECTION 2.
Section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out clauses (h) and (i) and inserting in place thereof the following 2 clauses:-
(h) to sell, lease, mortgage, exchange, transfer or otherwise dispose of, or to grant options for any such purposes with respect to any real or personal property or interest therein, upon the term and conditions as the corporation shall determine, with or without consideration and notwithstanding whether the real or personal property shall be needed by or useful to the corporation;
(i) to pledge or assign any money, fees, charges or other revenue of the agency, or any real or personal property and any proceeds derived by the corporation from the sale of energy or property or any insurance or condemnation awards;.

SECTION 3.
Said section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby further amended by striking out clauses (k) and (l) and inserting in place thereof the following 2 clauses:-
(k) to borrow money and issue its bonds as provided in this act and to provide a pooled loan program on behalf of and for the benefit of its members, to make loans to its members and to enter into leases on behalf of its members, both as lessee or lessor;
(l) to purchase energy, including, but not limited to, all or a portion of the capacity and output of energy facilities and steam, whether or not produced by an energy facility;.

SECTION 4. Clause (m) of said section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in lines 1, 7 and 9, the words “electric power and”.

SECTION 5.
Said clause (m) of said section 5 is hereby amended by striking out, in line 2, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

SECTION 6.
Clause (p) of said section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in lines 3 and 8, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof, in each instance, the following word:- energy.

SECTION 7.
Clause (q) of said section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in line 4, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

SECTION 8. Clause (s) of said section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in line 3, the word “fanctions” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- functions.

SECTION 9.
Said section 5 of said chapter 775 is hereby further amended by striking out clause (t) and inserting in place thereof the following 3 clauses:-
(t) to enter into contracts determined by the corporation to be necessary or for the prudent management of its assets, funds, debts or fuels, including, without limitation, interest rate swaps, option contracts, future contracts, forward purchase contracts, hedging contracts, leases or other risk management instruments;
(u) to exercise and perform all or a part of its powers and functions through wholly-owned or partly-owned corporations or other entities; and
(v) to do all things necessary, convenient or desirable to carry out the purposes of this act or the powers expressly granted or necessarily implied in this act.

SECTION 10.
Clause (a) of section 6 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in lines 6 and 7, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

SECTION 11.
Said section 6 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out subsections (b) and (c) and inserting in place thereof the following 2 subsections:-
(b) Neither the obligations of the corporation nor the obligations of any member or non-member cities and towns under any energy contracts hereunder shall be included in computing the borrowing capacities of the cities and towns. The obligations of cities and towns with municipal electric departments established under chapter 164 of the General Laws or by a special act shall be treated as expenses of operating their electric plants and shall constitute special obligations of the cities and towns, payable solely from the revenues and other moneys derived by the cities and towns from their electric departments or systems. The liability of those cities and towns from other funds shall be limited to obligations undertaken by them to pay for the energy used by them.
(c) A city or town shall be obligated to fix, revise and collect fees and charges for energy and other services, facilities and commodities furnished or supplied through its electric department or systems at least sufficient to provide revenues adequate to meet its obligations under any contracts with the corporation and to pay any and all other amounts payable from or constituting a charge and lien upon the revenues, including amounts sufficient to pay the principal of and interest on all bonds issued by the city or town for energy-related purposes.

SECTION 12. Section 9 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out subsection (a) and inserting in place thereof the following subsection:-
(a) The corporation may, subject to the approval of the department under this act, borrow money by the issue of its bonds for any of its corporate purposes. Bonds may be issued hereunder as mortgage bonds, as general obligations of the corporation or as special obligations payable solely from particular funds. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, these bonds may be issued for project costs, prepayment of fuel, transmission or transportation of fuel, or for the corporation’s share of project costs of energy facilities or long-term purchases of rights to use energy facilities which may include interest before and during the carrying out of any project and for a reasonable period after that time, prepayments under contracts for the purchase of energy or services related thereto, stranded investment costs, early termination costs of any energy project, decommissioning costs, reserves for debt service or other capital or current expenses that may be required by a trust agreement or resolution securing bonds, and all other expenses incidental to the determination of the feasibility of any project or to the carrying out of the project or to the placing of the project in operation.

SECTION 13. Subsection (a) of section 10 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out the first 2 sentences and inserting in place thereof the following 3 sentences:- In the discretion of the corporation, but subject to the terms of the department’s approval, any bonds issued under this act may be secured by a resolution of the board or by a trust agreement between the corporation and a corporate trustee, which may be any trust company or bank having the powers of a trust company within or without the commonwealth. This trust agreement shall be in a form and executed in a manner that may be determined by the corporation. The trust agreement or resolution may pledge or assign, in whole or in part, the revenues and other moneys held or to be received by the corporation, including the revenues from any facilities existing when the pledge or assignment is made, and any contract or other rights to receive the same, whether then existing or later coming into existence and whether then held or later acquired by the corporation, and the proceeds thereof.

SECTION 14. Subsection (b) of said section 10 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out the first sentence and inserting in place thereof the following sentence:- The corporation is authorized to fix, revise and collect fees and charges for energy and other services, facilities and commodities furnished or supplied by it.

SECTION 15. Said subsection (b) of said section 10 of said chapter 775 is hereby further amended by striking out, in line 12, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

SECTION 16.
Subsection (c) of section 19 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in line 12, the words “electric power and”.

SECTION 17.
Said subsection (c) of said section 19 of said chapter 775 is hereby further amended by striking out, in lines 13 and 14, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

SECTION 18.
Subsection (f) of said section 19 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in line 2, the words “electric power”, and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

SECTION 19.
Subsection (g) of said section 19 of said chapter 775 is hereby amended by striking out, in line 6, the words “electric power” and inserting in place thereof the following word:- energy.

Approved January 16, 2009