WASHINGTON – For the second straight year, Massachusetts and California have reason to celebrate a report by an energy-efficiency nonprofit.
The Bay State stayed atop the list released Wednesday by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient that ranked all 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of energy efficiency policies. California received the second-highest rating.
The report also motivated state governments on the opposite end of the rankings.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant will be hosting an energy summit, Thursday, his press secretary, Mick Bullock, said in an email. Bryant “takes this ranking very seriously,” and improving the state’s energy efficiency will be one of the main topics of Thursday’s summit.
Mississippi had the lowest ranking in the report.
The report used six criteria to rank the states: utility and other public benefit programs, , transportation policies, building energy codes, heat and power policies, state government initiatives and appliance or equipment efficiency standards.
In addition, 24 states have adopted an Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, setting long-term energy savings targets and driving investments in utility-sector energy efficiency programs.
The top five states—Massachusetts, California, New York, Oregon and Vermont—were unchanged from last year. The rest of the top 10—Connecticut, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland and Minnesota—were all ranked between sixth and 10th last year, though there was some movement among them.
The next nine lowest-ranked states in the report are: North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, Kansas, Missouri, Louisiana and Nebraska.
Panelists at a press conference where the ACEEE report was released criticized the federal government for not effectively moving the country in an energy-efficient direction and praised states for taking measures into their own hands.
“In a time where Washington is having a lot of difficulty getting something done, between the Congress and the president and not exactly agreeing on things, states have really taken the lead,” said Steve Nadel, executive director of ACEEE.
“This is happening in a bipartisan and a nonpartisan way. There are many Republican states, many Democratic states that are doing a lot,” Nadel said.
But looking at the top-10 and bottom-10 states, that isn’t the case. Nine of the top 10 states all have Democrat or Independent governors and Democrats in control of one or both houses of the state legislatures. Minnesota, tied for ninth, has a Democrat governor but a legislature controlled by Republicans.
Conversely, eight of the 10 lowest-ranked states have Republicans in control of both the governorships and legislatures.
The 30 states ranked in the middle don’t show the same correlation between party in power and position in the report.
The Governor of one of those states, Mary Fallin of Oklahoma cast energy efficiency as part of an effort to improve fiscal efficiency.
“One of my top priorities has been to find ways to help government be more efficient, to be smarter and to try to save money for out taxpayers,” said Fallin, a Republican who took office last year.
Oklahoma improved its ranking in this year’s report to 39th from 47th, the second-best jump of any state.
Oklahoma was one of seven states recognized in the report for showing improvement from last year. The others are: Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and South Carolina. Of those seven states, five are controlled by Republicans, while the other two have legislatures controlled by one party and governors of the other.
ACEEE is a nonprofit that seeks to “advance energy-efficiency programs, technologies, investments, and behaviors” through a variety of measures, including conducting technical analyses and advising policymakers, according to the group’s website. The group receives funding from a variety of sources including foundations, government bodies and utility companies.
This is the sixth year ACEEE has released a state-by-state scorecard. Massachusetts and California are the only states that have topped the list.
“We like the competition,” said Anthony Eggert, executive director for the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy at University of California, Davis.
Eggert, who served as an appointee of California’s last two governors, Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, said that to make a play for the number one ranking, the state has “now aggressively moved into the building retrofit space.” The California Energy Commission and the Public Utilities Commission are also a launching a program to provide the means for people to retrofit their homes.
Medill News Service reporter LiLi Tan contributed to this report.