Massachusetts environmentalists look for gas pipeline reform to confront high utility rates

Lance Reynolds, Boston Herald on Mar 19, 2025

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Massachusetts environmentalists are connecting the winter’s soaring utility rates to the “rising cost of the gas pipeline system” rather than energy efficiency programs.

A handful of Bay State environmental groups are urging the Healey administration to deliver a “quick, comprehensive reform” to the cost spike that they say has “caused real pain and been seized upon by climate deniers and opponents of clean energy.”

Sierra Club Massachusetts, Mothers Out Front Massachusetts and Gas Transition Allies, among others, have written a letter to Gov. Maura Healey and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper, outlining recommendations they believe could bring relief.

Gas pipelines are a dominant theme in the recommendations from replacing leak-prone pipes with “non-emitting thermal energy infrastructure” to doing away with line extension allowances.

“We understand and appreciate the measures your administration has recently taken to provide relief to ratepayers, mainly on electric bills,” the groups wrote in a joint letter to Healey and Tepper on Tuesday. “But shifting costs and reducing financial incentives for energy efficiency will not significantly affect the real driver of the costs, the rising cost of the gas pipeline system.”

Healey, a champion of renewable energy, especially wind, has responded to the sky-high costs by rolling out a plan she’s said will eventually cut billions from taxpayer bills and ordering the state DPU to demand utility companies reduce bills by at least 5% for the remainder of the heating season, in March and April.

Meanwhile, the Healey administration remains staunchly opposed to natural gas even as a new poll indicates Bay Staters prefer the energy source over renewables.

Environmentalists behind this week’s letter argue the “relentless drive of gas companies to replace their existing pipeline system with new pipes” has been a “significant cause of high gas bills.”

They claimed that such an effort is “averaging $2 million per mile (of pipe)” and “over a billion dollars a year.”

“These expenditures are driving up the cost of delivered gas and will continue to rise over the next decade,” the group wrote, “not only raising gas bills but also saddling the Commonwealth with a multi-billion dollar stranded asset that our children and grandchildren will be stuck paying for, one way or another.”

In 2023, Massachusetts gas customers were reportedly charged $160 million to “hook up additional buildings to the gas system,” prompting the group to recommend the elimination of line extension allowances.

The Department of Public Utilities has set a $4.5 billion budget for Mass Save, which officials describe as a “nation-leading energy efficiency program,” through 2027, a $500 million increase from the current three-year spending plan.

The Healey administration approved a 25% budget increase for Mass Save last October, accounting for 60% of Eversource’s delivery cost hike, a company spokesman has said. The DPU also signed off on rate jumps of 30% last fall.

“We need real long-term reductions in gas spending as well as rapid replacement of gas pipelines,” environmentalists wrote in their letter. “With these issues being actively politicized by climate deniers, we need to work together more than ever.”

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