We hope that you were able to join us last week at Clean Energy Lobby Day. It was great to see so many familiar faces in the building talking with their legislators about the importance of energy efficiency!

This week brings us to the halfway mark- or “crossover”- for the 2016 General Assembly session. All of the energy efficiency bills we are tracking have been heard in their respective committees. Below is a rundown on their statuses. For a summary of each of these bills, check out our legislative tracker.

• HB 352 (Del. Ware). At the request of the patron, this bill was carried over until next session.
• HB 1053 (Del. Kilgore). After several deliberations with stakeholders and a robust discussion during the committee hearing, this bill looks very different than the original. The bill directs the SCC to study the potential for establishing uniform EM+V protocols for reporting the impacts of utility energy efficiency programs. This bill narrowly made it out of committee with an 11-to-9 vote.
• HB 1174 (Del. Sullivan). This bill was a late addition to our legislative tracker. After working with the patron and some of our members on slight language modifications, we were able to give this bill our full support. Using a common phrase heard around the General Assembly building, after finding “peace in the valley”, this bill passed out of committee.
• SB 395 (Sen. Alexander). This bill came up in committee on Monday and is the companion bill to HB 1053 (they are the same bill in separate chambers). This bill passed out of committee as well.

All of the bills above that made it out of committee have also made it out of their respective chamber. Today marks “crossover”, which means that each chamber- house and senate- can only take up bills from the opposite chamber. In essence, we start fresh tracking our bills and testifying on them before their respective committees.

Stay tuned for more updates as the session continues through March 12.