What U.S. state produces virtually no energy of its own, ranks among the most expensive in the country for electricity, and is led by a governor whose biggest political achievement was suing America’s energy producers into the ground? [some emphasis, links added]
Welcome to Massachusetts – and Governor Maura Healey.
With a reelection campaign underway, Healey this week issued an executive order on energy and climate, framed as a response to mounting public frustration over skyrocketing energy costs.
But voters aren’t buying it:
“‘I’m mad,’ said Michael Polizzotti of Dracut, reacting to a home heating bill topping $600. ‘You can’t tell me that our energy costs have jumped this much.’”
Energy costs, namely electric and heating bills, are the number one concern Massachusetts residents have over household expenses, according to a new Suffolk University poll conducted on behalf of the Massachusetts Chambers Policy Network.
The remarkable finding suggests that even amid ongoing shortages of housing and persistent inflation, Bay Staters are more than fed up with the cost of keeping the lights on and their homes heated, and with good reason.
Two of Healey’s potential opponents, Republicans Brian Shortsleeve and Mike Kennealy, blasted the EO:
“Today’s press conference made it clear that Governor Healey is more focused on advancing a partisan climate agenda than on bringing down costs for working families,” Kennealy said in a statement. “Massachusetts needs a common sense energy strategy – one that prioritizes affordability, reliability, and innovation. That means being open to practical energy solutions that lower costs and strengthen our energy independence.” […]
“No one is more responsible than Maura Healey for Massachusetts’ outrageous energy costs,” Shortsleeve said in a statement, adding he would eliminate add-on fees on utility bills if he were elected. “As governor, I’ll eliminate those fees, and pursue a true all-of-the-above energy strategy that includes natural gas, hydro, nuclear, and renewables, and I’ll remake the state’s net zero mandate into a goal so we can lower emissions without punishing working families and employers with sky-high energy bills.”
Watchdogs are sounding the alarm too:
Total Dependence on Imported Energy – By Choice
Massachusetts produces no oil or natural gas. Yet as of 2025, over 75 percent of its in-state electric generation relies on natural gas – all of which must be imported into the state.
The state is entirely dependent on outside energy to function.
Healey’s response to this vulnerability? For years – first as attorney general, now as governor – she has pursued aggressive litigation aimed at America’s oil and natural gas producers, and in 2020, then-AG Healey said the quiet part out loud, calling on the state’s Department of Public Utilities to investigate “the future of the natural gas industry” in Massachusetts.
Healey alleged that the use of the fuel didn’t align with the state’s 2050 climate goals, despite its role in mitigating emissions and the state’s significant reliance on the fuel, and that Massachusetts needed to “transition away from fossil fuels.”
Her latest executive order doubles down on a strategy that would likely make minimal impact on costs while continuing a campaign against oil and natural gas.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts families are squeezed from every direction – higher electric bills, rising heating costs, and some of the steepest living expenses in the country.
According to the recent Blue States Report published by the Institute for Energy Research, Massachusetts has the fifth-highest energy costs in the country, surpassed by California, Hawaii, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
The Institute’s President, Tom Pyle, criticized Healey’s announcement:
“In an election year, setting targets is easier than explaining why bills are so high. Governor Healey’s executive order does not change the underlying conditions that made Massachusetts one of the most expensive states in the country for electricity – skyrocketing costs driven by electrification mandates, supply restrictions, and the killing of natural gas pipelines. This is more of the same.”
Doubling Down on Forced Electrification
Healey’s executive order expands the costly expansion of pricey electrification mandates, continuing the trajectory set by the Mass Save program last year – a program that has left residents fuming over higher monthly energy bills. Distribution charges alone have spiked, adding hundreds of dollars annually to household costs.
Rather than course-correct, the EO doubles down on the same approach without offering meaningful relief.
It also calls for “reining in utility spending” while simultaneously calling for 10GW of new energy resources to be online, under contract, or in development by 2035 – a massive capital expansion that will inevitably be passed on to ratepayers.
That’s a major disconnect.
A Quiet Admission of Infrastructure Constraints
Buried in the executive order is a telling acknowledgment: the state has a serious energy infrastructure problem.
The order calls for a “review” of natural gas storage and delivery capacity – a backdoor admission that New England’s pipeline infrastructure is woefully inadequate.
But instead of taking the obvious step of expanding pipeline access to cheaper Marcellus Shale natural gas from nearby Pennsylvania, the order continues to rely on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG).
That’s the worst of both worlds: both higher prices and higher total lifecycle emissions.
This isn’t a new problem. In fact, in 2019, the Energy Information Administration launched a dashboard to help track the constraints and outages from inadequate infrastructure and supply.
Inadequate pipeline capacity has made prices in the Northeast up to 160 percent higher than the national average during peak months. Adding new pipeline capacity would save consumers billions of dollars.
Yet Healey won’t go there.
Marcellus Shale Coalition President Jim Welty sums it up:
“The solution to this challenge is quite simple: empower the skilled trades men and women of our nation to safely construct and operate pipelines to transport low-cost Pennsylvania natural gas to our neighboring states, including New England.”
Instead, the EO orders Massachusetts DPU and other New England states to “develop greater clarity” on how the Everett LNG import terminal supports regional energy supply.
This facility has historically sourced foreign LNG, including from Russia and Trinidad, at higher cost and greater emissions than domestic alternatives.
This has long been a part of Healey’s strategy: in 2018, she admitted that she’d rather import natural gas from Russia than build new pipelines to deliver the abundant supply of Marcellus Shale gas to New Englanders.
As E&E News reported:
“Yet many policymakers in the deep-blue region are dead-set against any new gas pipelines, saying that the priority needs to be scaling up renewable energy and phasing out fossil fuels. Buying occasional shipments of LNG in the winter, they argue, is the better way to go.
“’LNG is a more efficient and economical way to meet energy needs during instances of high winter demand than building high-risk and costly pipelines that are not needed to maintain reliability,’ Chloe Gotsis, a spokeswoman for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D), said by email. ‘Continuing to rely on pipelines is too risky for ratepayers and our climate.’” (emphasis added)
As recently as 2024, the Everett facility was due to close after its main customer, the Mystic Power Plant in Boston, was retired “as part of a state target in Massachusetts to transition off fossil fuels.” It was kept open after ISO NE, the regional electric transmission organization, raised concerns over impacts to supply.
For years, officials treated this terminal as a temporary bridge while transitioning away from gas, but that transition isn’t happening at the pace assumed. So now the state is locked into an expensive, emissions-heavy stopgap — by design.
Suing Big Oil While Depending on It
The most glaring contradiction in Healey’s approach is the ongoing climate lawsuit against American energy companies. The state argues that promoting and selling oil and natural gas without advertising these products’ emissions constitutes consumer deception.
And yet: this same executive order explicitly protects the Everett LNG terminal as a “strategic energy asset” and directs state agencies to evaluate expanding natural gas storage and delivery capacity to ensure reliability and affordability.
Read that again.
Massachusetts is literally arguing in court that expanding oil and natural gas use is inherently deceptive – while simultaneously advancing policies that depend on exactly that expansion to keep the lights on.
The hypocrisy doesn’t stop there. Court filings in an open records case tied to the litigation recently revealed that no Massachusetts agency complied with a 2017 rule requiring cuts to emissions from state vehicle fleets – and regulators never enforced it.
So the state is taking American energy companies to court for allegedly misleading the public, while its agencies quietly ignored, failed to report on, and never enforced emissions mandates.
Bottom Line
Healey’s order, at its core, is an admission that the current strategy isn’t working. Massachusetts still needs natural gas.
Rather than pursue the cheapest and most efficient path to get it, the state is preserving a high-cost system, all while pursuing a lawsuit based on the theory that promoting the very use of oil and natural gas is inherently deceptive.
It is the height of hypocrisy, and Massachusetts residents are the ones paying the price.
Top: Governor Healey hosts ceremonial signing for 2024 climate bill. YouTube
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