Bay State vitality payments are too rattling excessive and Gov. Maura Healey says that she’s asking state regulators to do one thing about it — now.
The governor summoned the media to her workplaces on Tuesday, the place alongside Secretary of the Govt Workplace of Power and Environmental Affairs Rebecca Tepper she introduced she would name on the Division of Public Utilities to remove as many further expenses from customers’ payments as doable and to significantly take into account whether or not upcoming fee hikes ought to go ahead.
“Energy bills are already way too high for Massachusetts residents and businesses. So, I’m calling on the DPU to launch a first-of-its-kind review to identify ways to get charges off bills and lower costs,” Healey mentioned.
In a letter to the DPU, Healey calls on utility regulators to start a “comprehensive review of gas and electric rates and charges” with an eye fixed towards reducing vitality payments on the level of buy. The DPU ought to take a look at “each and every charge that customers are currently paying” and decide whether or not these expenses are literally wanted, Healey wrote. Those who aren’t wanted, she mentioned, should be eliminated instantly.
The governor’s name for a evaluate of vitality payments — she claimed will probably be the primary such effort in state historical past — comes after the sticker shock of final winter, when some customers noticed their residence heating payments spike by upwards of fifty%. This summer season, some electrical prospects noticed their charges bounce by 12% or extra.
As if it weren’t dangerous sufficient, the state’s main gasoline corporations have once more warned of elevated heating prices for this coming winter, with some prospects dealing with a 17% spike in gasoline costs.
Healey mentioned it’s as much as DPU to “act aggressively” to assist customers with their payments.
“The department must continue to rigorously review utility rate cases to avoid unnecessary spending and drive down costs,” she wrote.
The governor went on to ask the DPU to take a tough take a look at rising distribution expenses levied by gasoline and electrical corporations, which frequently make up the majority of consumers’ payments. The buyer, Healey mentioned, shouldn’t be footing your entire invoice for rising vitality infrastructure prices.
“The department must ensure that the companies responsibly conduct their work and are leveraging past investments to their fullest, before asking more from ratepayers,” the governor wrote.
The governor mentioned she can be calling on the DPU to maneuver forward with excellent photo voltaic allowing, which can increase electrical provide to the state’s grid. The plan, Healey mentioned, would offer sufficient energy to equal a wholly new gas-powered electrical plant. Extra energy to the grid, she mentioned, means decrease prices for all.
“Ratepayers cannot afford to lose out on the cheapest and fastest energy that can be built,” Healey mentioned.
“We need to get unnecessary costs off bills, and we need to get energy supply into the northeast region,” she mentioned.
Paul Craney, government director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, supplied blasted the governor’s plan, saying that rising provide doesn’t all the time imply decrease prices. Craney known as into query the reliability of solar energy, and known as for different vitality options.
“More energy supply alone does not necessarily reduce prices if we expand it using costly intermittent forms of energy. What consumers need is more reliable and affordable energy, like natural gas and nuclear power. Solar is expensive and unreliable, requiring large quantities of additional very expensive battery storage to make it useful. Expanding it like Healey plans will not deliver ratepayer relief,” he mentioned.
Republican gubernatorial hopeful Brian Shortsleeve mentioned that Healey’s plan quantities to an extra research of a well-known downside. Learning the problem, he mentioned, isn’t going to assist decrease payments, however he prompt electing him subsequent November will.
“Now that she faces a ratepayer revolt, she is offering another study instead of real relief. We don’t need another study; we need a new governor. On Day One in office, I’ll end the mandates and hidden taxes that made our bills skyrocket and make affordability the driving factor in our energy policy,” he mentioned.
Each Craney and Shortsleeve took intention at Healey’s historical past with gasoline pipelines, saying that she’s the one answerable for blocking a pair of pipelines by the Bay State which they declare would have lowered vitality prices.
“No one is more responsible for exploding utility costs than Maura Healey, who has boasted of blocking two gas pipelines and supported the fees and mandates that force our residents to pay for the most expensive sources of energy,” Shortsleeve mentioned.
The governor was requested about that in her press convention, and mentioned that she’d blocked the pipelines whereas serving as legal professional common as a result of the gasoline firm was making an attempt to pressure ratepayers to cowl the billions in building prices required to see them constructed.
