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Just about everyone in Massachusetts agrees: Energy bills are too damn high.
Natural gas prices in the state rose 70% between 2020 and 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and its residential electricity rates are the third highest in the country, behind only California and Hawaii. Some residents are making hard choices between paying their utility bills and buying food or health care necessities.
It is almost inevitable that the issue of affordability rather than climate change will dominate energy-policy conversations in the state — and throughout the high-priced New England region — this year.
“It’s going to be the focus for both Democrats and Republicans, those kitchen-table, pocketbook issues,” said Dan Dolan, president of trade group the New England Power Generators Association. “Both on the gas and the electric side, utility bill concerns are going to be front-of-mind.”
Massachusetts isn’t alone in this feeling. Across the nation, utility bills are rising far faster than inflation, and energy affordability is becoming a major political issue, propelling Democrats in several states to victory in last November’s elections. But in Massachusetts, sky-high bills are colliding with critical questions about the region’s future energy supply. The Trump administration has waged an unrelenting attack on the offshore wind developments the region was counting on to deliver new electricity, and has worsened the prospects for solar, too, by slashing tax incentives and grant programs.
“It’s supply and demand, and you’re taking away a lot of the supply that was going to be coming online in Massachusetts,” said James Van Nostrand, policy director at nonprofit organization The Future of Heat Initiative and the former chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. “How do you solve that?”
While everyone acknowledges the problem, there is far less consensus on what the root causes are or how to fix them. Some on both sides of the aisle blame the cost of building renewable energy and the transmission lines needed to carry it. Others point to volatile natural gas prices and the expense of replacing aging pipes. Third-party electricity suppliers that lure unsophisticated consumers into high-priced power contracts are also exacerbating matters, say many advocates. Utilities’ profit margins are under scrutiny as well.
For elected officials, the timing makes the conversation both more urgent and more complex: All six New England governors’ seats and more than 1,200 state legislator positions across the region will be up for election this fall.
A major part of the challenge is that there are more than two sides to the argument. Almost no one is advocating for a full return to fossil-fueled power plants or for a renewables-only grid. But the spaces in between are filled with permutations and possibilities that are difficult to sum up and sell. “Affordability” is being used to justify widely divergent energy proposals, including plans that opponents say could make the problem worse or which trade off climate goals in the name of bringing down costs.
“The long-term solutions are complicated and nuanced, and don’t lend themselves neatly to those political debates,” Dolan said.
Though Democrats control the Massachusetts legislature by vast margins, not everyone is on the same page about how to tackle the affordability crisis.
In March 2025, Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who is up for reelection, unveiled her energy-affordability agenda. It includes plans to create the state’s first discount rate for moderate-income households, expand tiered rates for low-income customers, and help residents access existing programs that could help them trim their bills. Two months later, she introduced a sprawling energy-affordability bill she said would save residents about $10 billion over the next 10 years through measures like reducing bill charges, making sure utilities don’t pass certain expenses on to customers, and removing barriers for nuclear development.
Last month, state utility regulators, at Healey’s request, opened an investigation into electricity and gas delivery costs, with an eye to determining if any charges can be removed, consolidated, or redesigned to save consumers money.
But in November, Democratic state Rep. Mark Cusack, House chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, countered Healey’s proposal with his own package that included many of the same provisions — alongside several that set off alarm bells in the clean-energy community.
The bill, which was approved by Cusack’s committee on a 7-0 vote, called for making the state’s 2030 emissions target nonbinding, slashing funding for energy-efficiency programming, and limiting climate and clean-energy initiatives that impact customers’ utility bills.
The existence of these provisions signals how far concerns about affordability have shifted the conversation in the state, said Paula García, senior manager of energy justice research and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“This thing of revisiting the climate commitments that the state has in place was not something that was being discussed at the beginning of last year,” she said.
Cusack’s bill, which is widely expected to be the vehicle for energy legislation this session, is now in the House Ways and Means Committee. The measure will be revised there before potentially advancing to a floor vote that could send it to the Senate.
The bill’s final form will depend in large part on who can come up with a clean, compelling narrative to back their position, said advocates and observers. Some worry that efforts to paint energy efficiency and renewable energy as the culprits behind rising bills have gotten a head start.
“We allowed fossil-fuel interests to drive the narrative that it’s all those clean and green things,” Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the nonprofit Acadia Center. “Unfortunately, that’s what’s taken hold.”
The idea has a sort of commonsense allure: After all, energy bills have risen at the same time as Massachusetts has been increasing its focus on renewable energy development and expanding its energy-efficiency programming, so it’s not difficult to imagine a connection between these trends. The flames have been fanned by federal officials like Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who claims wind and solar are driving up costs for the states reliant on them.
Local renewable-energy opponents continue to push this interpretation of the affordability crisis. Last week, nonprofit Always On Energy Research released a report arguing that a switch to renewable power would cost New England up to $700 billion more by 2050 than leaning on natural gas or nuclear power plants. The analysis was sponsored by right-wing organizations, including the Yankee Institute, Fiscal Alliance Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
Murray called the report’s numbers “magical thinking, completely at odds with reality.” Acadia Center is attempting to counter that argument with a new series of explainers outlining its analysis of what is driving volatile energy prices, with a strong emphasis on the cost of natural gas and the benefits of renewables. Other advocates also say they will be working on educating lawmakers about the complex subject and urging them to keep up the push for clean energy.
“So much of the issue is whose message is being received well,” Murray said. “We’re going to make a more concerted effort this year.”
This analysis and news roundup come from the Canary Media Weekly newsletter. Sign up to get it every Friday.
When it comes to state politics, 2026 is already in full swing. As legislators reconvene and new governors are sworn in, it’s becoming clear that leaders will focus on one energy issue in particular this year: affordability.
While last year’s elections didn’t bring any major changes to the White House or Congress, skyrocketing energy prices played an undeniable role in propelling Democrats to victory in state elections across the country.
Take a look at New Jersey, where Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill was sworn in this week after campaigning on a promise to lower power prices while building out clean energy. She took her first steps in that direction on Tuesday, signing executive orders to accelerate solar and storage development, consider freezing electricity rate hikes, and expand utility bill credits for customers.
Those credits will be funded in part by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an East Coast carbon market that saw good news with the inauguration of Virginia Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger this past weekend. Spanberger is already moving to rejoin RGGI, with an assist from the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature, after the previous Republican governor pulled Virginia out of the program back in 2023. On her first day in office, Spanberger also directed state agencies to find ways to curb energy and other household costs.
Affordability is sure to continue to dominate politics this year in Virginia, also known as the data center capital of the world, clean energy advocates recently told Canary Media’s Elizabeth Ouzts.
“Oftentimes, I go into a legislative session sort of just guessing what people are going to care about,” said Kendl Kobbervig of Clean Virginia. Not this year.“No. 1 is affordability, and second is data center reform.”
Massachusetts’ legislature shares that priority, reports Canary Media’s Sarah Shemkus. But even though the statehouse remains firmly in Democratic hands, lawmakers aren’t aligned on how to curb costs in the long term. Some are targeting volatile natural gas prices and the cost of replacing aging pipelines, others say clean energy and transmission construction are to blame, and still others are homing in on utility profit margins.
The reality is that the energy affordability crisis isn’t a problem with just electricity prices or natural gas prices; both are rising at rates higher than inflation across the country. And so it’s going to take strong, and perhaps creative, solutions to keep them in check.
Trump’s year of energy upheaval
It’s been a year since President Donald Trump took office for the second time, and there’s been no shortage of energy-industry shake-ups in the months since.
On his first day in office, Trump called out rising power demand and declared a national emergency on energy, which he has since used to justify keeping aging coal plants open long past their retirement dates.
His signature spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, gutted tons of clean energy tax incentives. And that’s not to mention the administration’s decarbonization funding clawbacks, its holdup of renewables permitting, and its relentless attacks on the nation’s offshore wind industry.
Trump’s year-two agenda is already starting to take shape. Expect to see his administration order more coal plants to stay open, cancel additional clean energy funding, and throw up hurdles we can’t even imagine yet.
Geothermal is having a moment
As clean energy sources like offshore wind and solar struggle to snag a foothold in the new, post–tax credit world, geothermal proved this week that it still has the juice.
A wave of announcements from pioneering geothermal startups began on Wednesday, with Zanskar announcing it had raised $115 million in a Series C funding round. It’ll use the infusion to expand its AI software, which it used to uncover an untapped, invisible geothermal system in Nevada last year. Also on Wednesday, Sage Geosystems announced a more than $97 million Series B round, which will fund its first commercial-scale power generation project, slated to come online this year.
Fervo Energy completed the trifecta as it quietly filed for an IPO, Axios Pro reported on Thursday. The company hasn’t shared details about the filing, but said in December that it had raised about $1.5 billion so far in its quest to build a massive enhanced geothermal system in Utah.
Back to work: Wind farms off the coasts of New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia have all restarted construction after legal wins last week against the Trump administration’s stop-work order, though two other projects remain paused. (Canary Media)
Solar keeps surging: An Energy Information Administration analysis finds utility-scale solar is the fastest-growing power generation source in the U.S., and will continue to expand through 2027 as the shares of coal and gas in the energy mix decline. (EIA)
Rural resilience: North Carolina towns devastated by 2024’s Hurricane Helene are installing solar panels and batteries at community hubs to prepare for future disasters, with help from a program that could become a national model. (Canary Media)
Clean-steel influencers: A new report shows automakers buy at least 60% of the primary steel made in the U.S., which gives them leverage to push steelmakers to clean up production. (Canary Media)
Batteries at breakfast: A Brooklyn bagel shop is cutting its power bills by using suitcase-size batteries to run its oven and fridges when electricity demand is high. (Canary Media)
Renewables’ European win: Wind and solar generated 30% of the EU’s electricity last year, while fossil fuels provided 29%, marking the first time renewables have beaten coal, oil, and gas. (The Guardian)
Clawback consequences: Some communities that lost federal climate grants last year have sued to reclaim them, while others have had to move on from projects that would’ve helped them curb pollution and adverse health effects. (Grist)
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