High energy bills spark debate over the transition to clean energy

Consumer shock at high energy bills this frigid winter sent Gov. Maura Healey and Massachusetts policymakers scrambling to ease the burden.

State regulators cut by $500 million the proposed budget for MassSave, an energy efficiency program for consumers interested in help buying heat pumps and electric vehicle equipment. Utility companies agreed to lower residential bills by 10 percent in March and April, with eyes on still getting their money through bills later in the year, when heating bills are typically lower.

But the high energy bills also ratcheted up a debate over the state’s shift to a clean energy future. State law calls for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a bid to stem the impact from climate change while turning toward clean, or renewable, energy like solar, wind or hydro power.

A big unanswered question, according to Attorney General Andrea Campbell, whose portfolio includes standing in as the advocate for energy customers also known as ratepayers, is this: Who pays for the transition and how much do they pay? “It’s a transition, but we all have to be more thoughtful,” she said recently.

The question comes as the state loses what was previously a reliable partner. The Trump administration is sowing market confusion with its start-and-stop talk of tariffs, which are essentially taxes on the U.S. consumer, and it’s picking a fight with Canada, which state energy officials hope will send hydropower to Massachusetts from Quebec.

The administration is also threatening the wind industry as it seeks to boost coal mining and power plants. “As we push for the federal government to do their part, it’s going to be more challenging to do that with this administration,” Campbell said.

The federal government aside, Campbell is looking for more specifics about the numbers that a clean energy future involves.

“How much will it cost the ratepayer if we are to shift by a certain date, with a sense of urgency, on some of our climate goals? No one has done that analysis with any level of detail. It will be in the billions for sure, but how much?” she said onstage at a recent event with the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. “And what should be put on the ratepayer, and what should other stakeholders have to do as we all transition to clean energy, while also doing this sustainably and responsibly?”

That resonated with the person interviewing her on the stage, Jim Rooney, president and CEO of the Chamber and a longtime veteran of the public and private sector. There’s plenty of work going towards a cleaner climate in both sectors, he said, “but this cost issue and how it’s paid for has been an unanswered question for a while now.”

The short version of the Healey administration’s answer is: They’re working on it.

Within the Healey administration’s energy and environment affairs, the Office of Energy Transformation launched over a year ago with a former National Grid executive at its helm. That office is dedicated to executing the transition to clean energy. Administration officials there are looking at what other states are doing, such as New York, which adopted a law in 2024 creating a climate “superfund,” fed by retroactive fees on companies for greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2018. Vermont also passed a similar law last year.

Another idea is something found in the nation’s capital: The DC Power Line Underground (DC PLUG), a $500 million initiative that has local public entities and utilities collaborating to fund projects like electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

A working group under the Office of Energy Transformation is aiming to have recommendations by next winter. In the near term, the Healey administration has been working on energy affordability legislation that will seek to provide discounts to customers and cut programs if they’re not working.

One of the things that needs to be central to the conversation about a clean energy transition is the cost, according to Doug Howgate of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a business-backed organization. Sometimes, the proposed policy solutions assume that a company can pay for the costs because policymakers don’t want costs to be borne by service users. But that’s not usually how things work: The service provider often pushes the costs over to the users, or in the case of utilities, the ratepayers.

That’s true in health care and transportation, said Howgate, who recently served on a public transportation financing commission that settled on the millionaires tax as a way to pay for improvements and upgrades. “There’s no free money out there.”

Setting goals is important, according to Howgate. But echoing Campbell, he noted that the federal government, which was expected to partner with the state to defray the costs of a clean energy transition, does not look like it’s “going to be the partner we thought it was going to be a year or so ago.”

“A lot of the policy challenges we face, we need to make sure we remain adaptable to our approach to long term goals,” he said. “Because if something becomes untenable in the short term, the long-term goal won’t be reached.”

State Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Republican who represents towns south of Worcester, is a Healey administration critic who feels the worst is yet to come. “Ratepayers ain’t seen nothing yet,” he said, and pointed to his household receiving a $659 bill in February. “My family is feeling it; everyone I talk to is feeling it.”

“We are the third lowest state of emissions in the entire country,” he added. “Why are we mandating when our footprint on carbon emissions is so small?”

Fattman said he plans to seek repeals of state mandates through legislation. He pointed to a report issued last fall that put the cost of complying with state mandates — across several New England states to decarbonize by 2050 — at $815 billion.

“To go to net zero is going to create economic hardship,” he said.

The report, issued by Always On Energy Research, whose president served on the first Trump administration’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, was backed by conservative-leaning groups. They included the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which is associated with the Koch family-owned business conglomerate; the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy in New Hampshire; the Fiscal Alliance Foundation in Massachusetts; and the Ethan Allen Institute in Vermont, among others.

The Acadia Center, a nonprofit supportive of clean energy and backed by foundations like the Barr Foundation and the Merck Family Fund, named for the heir to the pharmaceutical fortune, hit back at the report, saying the groups relied on “questionable” calculations that “vastly” inflate the cost of the clean energy transition. The report also “ignores the impossibly high cost of business-as-usual,” the Acadia Center said. “New Englanders withdraw billions of dollars out of the regional economy each year to purchase fossil fuels sourced outside New England.”

For her part, Campbell is optimistic that the state can keep moving towards its 2050 goals. “But that analysis around how much will this cost and how much then we can tell the ratepayer, with some numbers attached, that they will have to bear, is important,” she said. “One, to just be transparent. The second is to make sure they are not bearing the brunt of all of that. And then lastly to make sure everyone is doing their part, including our utility companies, as well as the state and federal government.”

Asked why the analysis wasn’t done before the mandates were passed into law years ago, Campbell said she didn’t know. “I just know in order for us to have the most robust conversation around this transition and for everyone to do their part, this analysis is important to inform the conversation,” she said. “Not necessarily to slow us down but to inform the conversation and make sure the transition doesn’t happen on the backs of ratepayers.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.