State Clean Energy Mandates Under Cost Pressure

• In Event: Understanding Participation and Outcomes in Energy Programs - Evidence from Households, Cities, and States

Abstract

Clean energy mandates face renewed political pressure. The Arizona Corporation Commission voted in March 2026 to repeal the state’s Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff. Ohio’s renewable portfolio standard sunsets at the end of the 2026 compliance year under House Bill 6, enacted in 2019. In Massachusetts, the House passed H 5151 in February 2026, proposing roughly $1 billion in cuts to the Mass Save efficiency program and a two-year delay in the next offshore wind procurement. About 28 states and the District of Columbia still operate active mandates as of late 2025. The variation in state response is sharp. Some commissions and legislatures are sustaining commitments. Others are scaling back. What explains this variation?

This paper asks what regulatory, market, and political factors predict the intensity of political pressure against state clean energy mandates, and under what conditions that pressure translates into actual weakening or repeal. The question matters because federal climate policy now leans heavily on state action.

The research uses a nested design following Gerring’s framework. The broad component is a state-year panel of roughly 30 RPS and CES states from 2015 through 2025. The dependent variable is mandate stress, measured as the volume of state utility commission dockets containing substantive arguments that clean energy mandates raise ratepayer costs. Candidate dockets are identified through Halcyon, an AI-enabled regulatory research platform covering all 50 state public utility commissions and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Dockets are filtered by publisher and keyword, then classified through Halcyon’s natural language query. Independent variables include retail electricity prices and trajectories from EIA, political composition of governor and legislature, grid and market structure such as RTO membership and fuel mix, and mandate design features such as target stringency and enforcement. Supplementary indicators include mandate cost discussion in Integrated Resource Plans and bills to weaken or repeal mandates tracked through NCSL.

The deep component comprises three to four state cases selected after the panel analysis. Massachusetts serves as the pathway case for process tracing. The November presentation will report the stress measure, first-pass panel results from five to eight states including Massachusetts, Arizona, Ohio, and two to three sustaining cases such as California, New York, or Maine, and the Massachusetts deep case. The full 30-state panel and additional deep cases follow in the 2027 paper.

Author

• Juniper Katz, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
  Presenting Author