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BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey announced Thursday that the state will spend $180 million as part of a bid to temporarily reduce residential electric and gas bills this winter.
Under the plan, electric bills would be reduced by 25% and natural gas bills by 10% for “every Massachusetts residential utility customer” in February and March 2026, with the state covering the cost of some of the reductions.
The proposal, unveiled by the governor’s office early Thursday ahead of Healey’s State of the Commonwealth address in the evening, comes as energy affordability has become a central policy and political issue on Beacon Hill and is shaping early debate around the 2026 gubernatorial race.
“I called on the utilities to lower bills this winter, and now relief is on the way,” Healey said in remarks released by her office.
Some of the relief is truly temporary, and it only applies to residential customers of Eversource, National Grid, Unitil, Liberty Gas and Berkshire Gas.
The administration said its use of $180 million from alternative compliance payments can only go toward electric ratepayer relief and covers an estimated 15% reduction in electric bills. The rest of the near-term reduction for electric customers comes from deferred payments that will be recovered by the utilities on bills in April through December, the administration said.
And the 10% reduction in February and March gas bills will be recovered from most customers (all except Liberty Gas customers) during the off-peak months of May through October, Healey’s office said.
The announcement follows heightened scrutiny over rising and volatile utility bills, as well as the causes of those increases.
Earlier this winter, the Department of Public Utilities opened an investigation into electric and gas delivery charges, examining whether certain fees should be capped, consolidated or eliminated. The probe was initiated after Healey noted in an October letter that some customers saw bills increase by as much as 50% compared with the prior winter.
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper said the administration views the bill reductions Healey announced Thursday as short-term relief while broader reforms are pursued.
“Families cannot support big winter energy bills right now, so we called for more relief,” Tepper said, adding that the administration continues to push for structural changes aimed at lowering costs over time.
Healey has filed a bill intended to increase the energy supply, allow utilities greater flexibility to secure lower-priced power, and reduce delivery costs. House members are meeting privately this week to draft a bill meant to lower costs. Environmental activists raised concerns last year about any retreat on decarbonization plans.
Operations launched this month on a new transmission line bringing hydropower into Massachusetts, which officials estimate will lower electricity costs by about $1.50 per household per month.
With Democrats nationally emphasizing affordability as a core message, energy costs have taken on added political significance in Massachusetts. Healey’s decision to highlight ratepayer savings ahead of her annual address places added emphasis on the topic as Beacon Hill wades deeper into legislative and election cycles.
Energy in State of the Commonwealth speech
The governor devoted a portion of her Thursday night State of the Commonwealth address to energy costs. She pledged to oppose any major rate hikes proposed by utilities and summarized a broader strategy combining short-term relief with longer-term structural reforms.
“Bills are too high. Bills are way too high. People can’t afford it. They’re getting killed. They’re getting crushed. I get that,” Healey said. “I’m going to oppose any big rate hike proposed by the utilities.”
Healey also said she has directed utilities to justify every fee on customers’ bills, vowing to strike charges that are not providing value.
Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, who joined members of the GOP caucus in filing affordability legislation last week, said after the speech that he thought Republicans and Democrats could work together on energy costs.
“She has proposed a very interesting idea about postponing the cost of electricity bills,” Tarr said. “We have proposed a long-term solution, and we would encourage her to pick up our bill that we filed a couple of days ago and read that. We also think that we can agree on increasing supplies of energy. That’s very important. That’s something that we’ve been talking about for quite a while.”
House Minority Leader Brad Jones also brought up energy in his reactions to the speech.
“She talked about energy but then didn’t highlight the fact that the money she wants to give has to be kind of recollected,” the North Reading Republican said. “The details are like: we’re going to give money back in February, March, and then you’re going to pay more in the summer.”
Typical political double speak from the worst governor Massachusetts ever elected. Going to lower your energy bills, sure 😉. Just for the high use months and then you will have to pay it back during spring and summer. No savings there. The energy policy of this administration and most Democrat politicians in this state are bleeding the citizens dry. High taxes, energy, housing, insurance, and freebies for illegals will burden us all. When will it stop. Never as long as we keep voting in these progressive politicians. They love spending other people’s money, but eventually that may run out too, and ruin us all.
A true “Bait and Switch” maneuver from a master of continued failed policies, failed hires and failed oversight.
This is nothing more than a ‘Buy Now and Pay Later” scheme, that may well incur legitimate interest charges.
Absolutely NO energy savings here….just pure BS politics as usual.
I feel your pain, American Citizen. I got a notice in my Inbox this morning announcing these rate “reductions”. Eversource made it sound as if they were the heroes in this policy change. In fact they are not. All they are doing is deferring their guaranteed profit margin. And here is one of the problems. You would not hire a contractor that charged you up front, no matter the quality of the work, for paying off his/her investors, would you? That is exactly what utilities like Eversource are allowed to do. As long as utilities are private, for profit entities, they are more beholden to their investors than their customers.
Fun fact: In 2023 Eversource’s Joseph Nolan, #8 highest paid utility CEO in America, siphoned off compensation of $18,885,577. Last I checked Maura Healy doesn’t send out the utility bills.
Fun fact: Joseph Nolan is more productive than Maura Healy.
Maura Healy’s administration left $800,000 Million dollars of taxpayers monies “on the table” when her Department of Transportation awarded a highway rest area contract to the low bidder and sent “heart emojis” on contractural emails.
The high bidder sued, otherwise, the taxpayers would not have known.
Does this sound like an individual and administration capable of running anything, much less any utility company? No.
Socialism, and it’s governmental takeover of private enterprise, has a dismal track record. Venezuela and Cuba are great examples, hence their poverty and the exodus of their citizens to everywhere and anywhere.
Maura Healy wants “to look good” prior to her MA campaign and any future national campaign.
Her forced “buy now and pay later” scheme is not a rate reduction by any measure, it is a calculated illusion to temporarily placate the voting public.voting
What about oil users??? We pay taxes and have rising cists just like the natural gas users????
She and her Department of Public Utilities Commissioner’s caused this criminal increase to our delivery charges to help Eversource to stay solvent after years of mismanagement. Eversource has the worst credit rating of any Utilities company in the country. They couldn’t borrow money for infrastructural improvements or general upkeep. So Maura Healey and the DPU Commissioner’s allowed Eversource to stick up the consumer without a gun. SHAMEFUL
Typical “management” by Maura Healy…she has the “gun to our heads” on multiple fronts.
Delay gas lines to MA, award service plaza contract for less than the $800 million dollar bid from a MA company, hired a criminal, as her personal representative in Western MA, who trafficked cocaine (21Kg/42 pounds) from his MA state paid office. Still pays for empty “Healy hotel room” recently vacated by the state for the “Home Away” apartment program that is lucrative for large apartment complex owners, such as Avalon.
Maura Healy brandishes an automatic weapon against the taxpayers of MA. She creates the reasons for high bills in MA.
We’re saving nothing in February and March not when you’ll be paying more than you use this summer to make up for it. This kind of thinking makes you realize how stupid Massachusetts politicians think people are. My belief we are stupid because she’ll be elected again because she’s a democrat in Massachusetts. I wonder if some of the over one billion dollars she spent caring for illegals went to help Massachusetts taxpayers with utility bills would have been better spent. Not to her and the rest of the incompetent members of our elected officials. Keep electing the same liberal politicians, shut up and pay your bills. Oh by the way I paid over $100 on my last bill for Mass Safe and helping others pay their bills while scrimping to pay mine. Wouldn’t be surprised to see an addition fee on my summer bills for winter deferred payments. Only in Taxachusetts.
Charlie Baker was the best and I’m a democrat!
Typical B.S. from Healy. Eversource is already doing this type of thing where you spread your energy bills out evenly over the whole year instead of having huge bills during the winter months. Stick your head in a snow drift Maura and disapper!
Governer, we are going to get rid of you along with your sap sucking ass. You Demorcrats care more the Imagrent that you do
the tax payers. Ron Alfonse ex Marnie, ex Cop Former president on the NB Poice Union past President of the Mass Poice Association
Maura Healy and the Dems preceding her have caused these high bills. Past laws mandating Green Power and shutting down all Fossil/Nuclear power before the “Green Power” is in place. Blocking Natural Gas Pipelines and Storage. Trying to shut down LNG port in Boston. Now pushing a Soccer Stadium to be built along side it so that they can eventually be sure it can be shut down. One of only a few NLG ports on the entire East Coast. And on and on. False/Crazy regulations mandating updates to High Rises and New building construction…… More & more regs…Less and less businesses and jobs. Losing population that have jobs to others who don’t and mostly don’t want jobs.
This corrupt governor is a joke, instead of actually doing something about the energy problem, her failed DPU and the Eversource cost hikes, she gives us Band-Aids to get Votes. Healey can’t be trusted and must be voted out. The residents of Massachusetts deserve better.