Healey administration opposes fuel pipelines in Massachusetts, voters really feel in any other case: ballot
The Healey administration stays a staunch opponent of pure fuel as a new ballot signifies Bay Staters want the power supply over renewables, and because the feds goal to revive a pipeline venture that would decrease utility prices by $1 billion.
Gov. Maura Healey, a champion of renewable power, particularly wind, has felt strain over the previous few months as utility prices soared as a result of a mix of a bitterly chilly winter and the state’s decarbonization agenda.
The governor has responded, rolling out a plan she’s mentioned will ultimately reduce billions from taxpayer payments and ordering the state DPU to demand utility corporations scale back prices by no less than 5% for the rest of the heating season.
The Division of Public Utilities accredited price hikes of upwards of 30% for the state’s major fuel corporations, Eversource and Pure Grid, final fall.
As Bay Staters grapple with the sky-high payments, a brand new ballot from nonpartisan watchdog Fiscal Alliance Basis reveals that seemingly voters view an enlargement of pure fuel pipelines extra favorably than a full dedication to renewables.
Roughly 47% of the 800 seemingly voters who participated within the ballot earlier this month supported the development of recent pipelines into the state, whereas 37% most well-liked an entire push to renewables.
Of the respondents, 48.2% have been Unbiased, 40.6% Democrat and 11.1% Republican.
Healey critics have blamed the state Legislature’s mandate that the Bay State transition to renewable power for the winter’s excessive utility prices, accusing the governor of “killing” two fuel pipeline tasks as lawyer basic inside the previous decade.
“Clearly, Gov. Healey as AG labored actually exhausting to cease the pipelines — she bragged about it on the marketing campaign path,” Fiscal Alliance Government Director Paul Diego Craney mentioned in a briefing on Friday. “It looks as if that’s sort of coming again to hang-out her.”
After asserting that her administration will ship a $50 utility invoice credit score in April to prospects of Eversource, Nationwide Grid, and Unitil, Healey mentioned that “individuals say lots of issues which can be simply not true” about her actions round pipeline growth.
“Again after I was lawyer basic my job was to guard ratepayers whether or not you’re a home-owner or a enterprise proprietor,” Healey mentioned at an occasion final Monday.
A examine that Healey’s workplace approved in 2015 discovered that Massachusetts didn’t want a brand new pure fuel pipeline as investing extra in power effectivity would guarantee the electrical grid’s reliability by way of 2030. Months later, power big Kinder Morgan Inc. backed out of a $3.3 billion pure fuel pipeline proposed by way of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
The plan Healey introduced final week additionally orders the DPU to increase automated discounted price enrollment for low-income households and implement tiered discounted charges, amongst different duties.
In line with the governor, her plan will save ratepayers $220 million instantly and $5.8 billion over 5 years.
Power and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper highlighted how Massachusetts offers a “vital quantity of pure fuel to your entire area” by way of a ship at a liquefied pure fuel facility in Everett.
“The problem that we have now in New England is that for just a few days of the yr, costs are excessive possibly seven days,” Tepper mentioned. “You don’t construct a big pipeline for seven days a yr.”
Tepper’s remark has acquired sharp criticism on social media.
“There isn’t any group of individuals extra out of contact with actuality than the people within the Healey-Driscoll Administration. Only a slap within the face to Massachusetts residents,” the Massachusetts GOP wrote in an X publish on Friday. “Together with your assist, the gaslighting will cease in 2026!”
State Rep. Marc Lombardo, a Billerica Republican, added Saturday: “That is why power costs are by way of the roof. (Gov.) Healey and her Power secretary are utterly indifferent from actuality! They suppose YOU are silly.”
In a press release to the Herald final month, a governor’s spokesperson highlighted how Healey as AG, “efficiently argued that the individuals of Massachusetts shouldn’t be footing the invoice for 2 new pure fuel pipelines.”
“As soon as the businesses discovered that they have been going to should pay for the pipelines with out passing the prices onto customers, they withdrew their proposal,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Supply costs spiking payments by way of the roof over the winter have been tied to elevated funding for state environmental initiatives together with Mass Save, a program that helps Massachusetts’ “statutorily-required greenhouse fuel emissions discount objectives.”
The Trump administration is trying to revive a 124-mile pipeline that may carry fuel from Pennsylvania throughout New York to Albany, the place pure fuel would enter New England by way of different pipelines.
Opposition from environmental activists prompted the state of New York to dam the venture in 2020. President Trump met with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday, discussing the pipeline’s future, in line with nationwide studies.
The Hartford Courant has reported that Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is backing the venture.
Trump posted on Reality Social forward of his assembly with Hochul that the pipeline may save New England households $2,500 to $5,000 a yr. An impartial evaluation discovered that the venture may reduce power prices by $1 billion.
Healey has voiced alarm over the Trump administration’s tariff spat with Canada and the way the president has ordered a memorandum halting the event of recent offshore wind, an power supply confirmed turbulent in Massachusetts.
“We now have the Saudi Arabia of wind proper off our shores,” Healey mentioned final week, “we have now a few of it churning already, we’ve bought different tasks in deployment. That’s going to be a recreation changer, that’s going to drive down individuals’s payments for companies and owners.”
“I don’t wish to be topic to the wills of Russia and worldwide markets,” the governor added.
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