Thanks to support of key legislative sponsors and tenacious persistence by IDA-MA members, the twin proposed “dark-sky bills” — H.2858 and S.1937 — passed their first major hurdle today. The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy “reported out” the bills favorably, and now they move on to the House Ways & Means Committee for additional scrutiny before reaching the House and Senate floors for a vote later this year.

Time was running short for this outcome, as February 5th was the final day for the Joint Committee to act on these bills (and many others). During the previous legislative session, the dark-sky bills did not fare as well — they were set aside for “study,” essentially killing them.

In recent weeks, IDA-MA members had been pressuring the Joint Committee’s co-chairs, Rep. Thomas Golden Jr. and Sen. Mike Barrett, to act on the bills. Additional support came from Rep. Sean Garballey, our lead sponsor in the House , and from Sen. Cynthia Creem, our lead sponsor in the Senate, as well as from other legislators.

If adopted into law, Massachusetts would become the first state in the country to require state- and municipally funded outdoor-lighting installations to use illumination with a correlated color temperature (CCT) of no greater than 3000 Kelvins.

Follow this link to members of the House Way & Means Committee. If your state representative is on the roster, please contact him/her to support H.2858 / S.1937.