To address emissions from residential buildings, nine states – California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island – and the District of Columbia signed a Multistate Memorandum of Understanding (MOU): Accelerating the Transition to ZeroEmission Residential Buildings in 2024. Washington subsequently joined the MOU in 2025. Organized by Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), the MOU aims to improve air quality and public health by accelerating the transition to zero-emission residential buildings, with a focus on technologies like heat pumps for residential space and water heating. It establishes a collective target across signatory states for heat pumps to make up 65% of residential heating, air conditioning, and water heating equipment sales by 2030, and 90% by 2040.
MOU states also committed to develop the present Multistate Action Plan: Accelerating the Transition to Zero-Emission Residential Buildings (“Action Plan”). The Action Plan reviews the market for zero-emission equipment, the need for an equitable transition to zero-emission residential buildings, and key barriers to the transition. It then details more than 50 recommendations for state action to accelerate the transition to zero-emission single-family homes and multifamily buildings, with a focus on space and water heating.
States that implement these recommendations will help their residents access state-of-the-art zero-emission technologies and enjoy the benefits of clean heat, affordable energy bills, and improved air quality, health, and comfort. States have many options to make progress: not every state is expected to pursue every recommendation, and a state’s participation in the MOU should not be interpreted as an endorsement of any or all the recommendations in this Action Plan. States will make their own assessments of how various building sector policies interact and can best drive progress.
Recommendations for state action are organized into four categories – equity and workforce, carbon reduction obligations, codes and standards, and utility planning and regulation – using a framework introduced in a 2024 policy brief, Decarbonizing Buildings: How States Can Set the Table for Success. Because the context for building decarbonization is unique to each state, with each state at a different point in the process, recommendations are not organized in priority order. Instead, the Action Plan offers a menu of options for states to consider according to their specific situations.
