Governor Maura Healey is once more altering her place on the 2 pure fuel pipelines she stopped as Legal professional Common as power prices proceed to soar and strengthen its grip on the Bay State.
In a one-on-one interview with NBC Boston on Friday, Healey was requested about her stoppage of the 2 pipelines – to be constructed and operated by power infrastructure giants Kinder Morgan and Entry Northeast – when she was lawyer normal. The governor acknowledged that she stopped the pipelines as a result of they have been a “lousy deal.”
“They were a lousy deal for ratepayers and I’ve got to stand up for people in Massachusetts. I thought it was wrong for ratepayers, people, residents, taxpayers in Massachusetts to foot the bill for those pipelines, instead of the pipeline companies,” Healey informed the community.
This comes only a month after the governor deflected blame for stopping the fuel pipelines. When requested by the Herald if stopping the 2 pipelines contributed to hovering power prices within the Bay State, Healey stated “Well, first of all, I didn’t do that,” happening guilty President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian items for the rising utility prices.
The Herald requested for clarification on Healey’s conflicting statements, to which her workplace once more blamed the “lousy deal” provided to the state, arguing that she defended ratepayers from Kinder Morgan and Entry Northeast’s makes an attempt to “pass billions in new pipeline infrastructure costs on to electric ratepayers.”
“Maura Healey stood up for ratepayers over corporate profits. As Attorney General, Maura Healey argued that ratepayers should not foot the bill for corporate developers. After she successfully argued that, the companies chose to walk away. They could have moved forward with the project if they were willing to pay for it themselves, not with ratepayer dollars,” stated Gov. Healey’s Spokesperson Karissa Hand, who didn’t present an evidence as to why Healey has gone backwards and forwards on accepting accountability for stopping the pipeline tasks.
Hand additionally tells the Herald that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court docket held that the association would have violated state regulation.
She additionally cited an exterior evaluation, carried out by Synapse Electrical energy Economics Inc., that estimated the Entry Northeast mission to value $6.6 billion. She additionally cited Kinder Morgan’s personal value estimates for its mission of $3 to $5 billion.
However throughout a Federal Power Regulatory Fee (FERC) discussion board in September 2022, management at Kinder Morgan claimed if their pipeline mission had been allowed to advance, it will have saved ratepayers billions of {dollars}.
“Had that project gone in service, which it was targeted for November 2018, it would have saved the region $2.8 Billion between November of 2018 and today,” stated Kinder Morgan President Kimberly Watson throughout the 2022 FERC New England Winter Fuel Electrical Discussion board. “That is a significant amount of money. Natural gas is affordable, it is reliable and it is plentiful in the United States.”
In a mission overview, Entry Northeast stated New England ratepayers might have saved $1 billion yearly throughout regular winter climate if their mission had proceeded.
Healey’s present Secretary of the Government Workplace of Power and Environmental Affairs, Rebecca Tepper, represented the Legal professional Common’s workplace throughout that discussion board and defended the transfer to cease the pipelines, arguing that Massachusetts was relying too closely on pure fuel.
“We’re overly dependent on a single fuel. We’re overly dependent on natural gas, and the entire region is at risk anytime we have some kind of disruption on that system,” Tepper stated. “We’ve often tried to address the problem of reliance on one fuel by saying ‘let’s have more natural gas.’ First it was a pipeline, and looking back on it now, you know, thank goodness we didn’t do that because we would be even more dependent on natural gas than we are today.”
Spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance Paul Craney tells the Herald that stopping pure fuel infrastructure has been one among Healey’s “top priorities” over the previous decade.
“Its hard to keep track with her various positions of shutting down two pipelines, but the fact of the matter is that everyone knows her record as attorney general and three years into the governor’s office. This was one of her top priorities for the past decade: to stop the natural gas expansion into Massachusetts and New England and to stop any maintenance of this infrastructure,” Craney stated. “If Governor Healey’s actions met her rhetoric, we would be more hopeful. But, her latest response over the weekend is nothing more than gaslighting Massachusetts ratepayers.”
Healey had initially bragged about stopping the pipelines throughout her 2022 marketing campaign for governor. Throughout an occasion on WBUR in April of that yr, now extensively circulated on-line, the then-Legal professional Common reminded the viewers she stopped the pipelines.
“Remember, I stopped two gas pipelines from coming into this state,” Healey stated, earlier than happening to say she opposes constructing extra fuel infrastructure.
Consultants say the absence of regional pure fuel pipelines coming into Massachusetts, mixed with state insurance policies and mandates, have been driving rising power prices.
Final month, the Fiscal Alliance Basis launched a report that concluded state-mandated local weather and power applications are guilty for the sharp rise in electrical payments in Massachusetts.
The report — Massachusetts Electrical Prices: The Actual Supply of the Downside, authored by power coverage analyst Lisa Linowes and launched by the Fiscal Alliance Basis — discovered that coverage surcharges included in electrical charges have quadrupled since 2014, bringing the common month-to-month family electrical invoice from $113 in 2014 to a whopping $204 in early 2025. It says these coverage surcharges now account for almost one-third of each greenback on residential electrical payments, with photo voltaic incentives, renewable mandates, and energy-efficiency surcharges accounting for the steepest value will increase.
That’s almost double the speed of inflation. In the identical interval, prices tied to renewable mandates, carbon applications, and energy-efficiency surcharges grew from $15 to $59 per 30 days.
Healey’s change in stance on the pipeline situation additionally got here after debate flared surrounding a invoice (H. 4744), filed by state Rep. Mark Cusak (D-Braintree), that seeks to decrease prices, however would weaken the state’s 2030 local weather mandate, in keeping with critics. Local weather activists have voiced opposition in opposition to the invoice, saying it will signify a “significant step backward for both affordability and climate progress.”
The laws now sits with the Home Methods and Means Committee the place the chairman anticipates revisions.
Earlier this yr, Governor Healey expressed help for a provide contract to broaden capability of the prevailing Algonquin pipeline. Below this proposal, her workplace says Eversource fuel ratepayers would pay just for the elevated provide and Enbridge would finance the enlargement.
