In Massachusetts, a state with the third highest electricity prices in the nation, the governor has asked an oversight agency to review utility bill charges and remove those that are not justified. In a 2-page letter to the Department of Public Utilities (DPU), Governor Maura Healey asks utility regulators to start a “comprehensive review of gas and electric rates and charges to lower consumer costs and bill volatility.” The letter requests the DPU to look at “each and every charge that customers are currently paying to determine whether the charge can be eliminated, reduced, or its impact mitigated.” She added that those that aren’t necessary need to be removed immediately. According to the Boston Herald, the governor’s call for a review of energy bills, which she claimed will be the first such effort in state history, comes after major price increases. Last winter, some state consumers saw their home heating bills rise by upwards of 50% and this past summer, some electric customers saw their rates jump by 12% or more.
The Boston Herald adds that Governor Healy is also asking the DPU to look at rising distribution charges levied by gas and electric companies, which often make up the bulk of customers’ bills. According to Healy, the consumer should not be footing the entire bill for rising energy infrastructure costs. However, while serving as Massachusetts Attorney General, Healey blocked a pair of pipelines through the state, which would have lowered natural gas costs for home owners and utilities. The governor claimed that she blocked the pipelines because the gas company was trying to force ratepayers to cover the billions in construction costs required to build them, despite pipelines being the cheapest way to bring in reliable natural gas from fields in nearby Pennsylvania. Healey’s decision was a lost opportunity for the state to increase its natural gas supplies. Instead of building pipelines, the state brings in more expensive LNG at the Everett terminal, particularly during the winter months when demand peaks.
Unfortunately, the Massachusetts governor seems unwilling to face issues such as infrastructure, state mandates, and hidden taxes, which are more directly linked to skyrocketing energy bills in her state. Massachusetts has a renewable portfolio standard that mandates that at least 35% of the state’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2030. While several types of renewables are allowed to meet the requirement, most construction is for wind and solar power — weather-driven, intermittent technologies that must be backed up by traditional generating technologies (coal, natural gas or nuclear) or expensive batteries to ensure reliability, adding another cost to the system on top of the cost of the renewable power. These mandates increase the cost of power because the market is no longer the determiner of the least-cost supply option to meet demand.
An outcome of mandating renewable energy is the retirement of coal and nuclear units, which cannot compete due to the unfair subsidy advantage that wind and solar power have had for decades. Massachusetts retired its last nuclear power plant, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, in 2019. In 2005, Massachusetts had 12 coal generating stations with a capacity of 1,776 megawatts, representing 11.3% of the state’s generating capacity. None of them are operating today. Brayton Point was the last coal power station operating in Massachusetts, which was decommissioned in 2017. Now, the Brayton Point location is being used as a base for offshore wind, whose costs are three times higher than onshore wind. The consumer pays for the costs incurred by the new renewable plants, including their capital costs, which have already been paid off for the retiring coal and nuclear plants.
Hidden fees also increase power prices. Massachusetts is also a member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which is a cooperative effort among 11 states to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector. The members agreed to use a “cap and trade system” to make the reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. A cap is placed on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from electric generators (i.e., coal, oil, and natural gas generators). Electric utilities that emit more carbon dioxide than their assigned cap must purchase allowances at an auction to offset their excess emissions. The cost of the allowances is essentially a tax that increases the electricity bills of the residents in the participating states. This is an added cost that Massachusetts residents and the other ten member states must pay that is not paid by states who are not members of the RGGI. The tax is added onto their utility bills.
States with the Highest and Lowest Residential Electricity Prices
The table below provides the ranking of the states with the ten highest and the ten lowest residential electricity prices. The U.S. states with the highest electricity prices are states with renewable portfolio standards that mandate a certain percentage of their electricity supply come from renewable sources, generally wind and solar power. Those states’ residential electricity prices are more than double the prices of lowest priced states, many of which do not have a renewable mandate. California’s residential electricity price in June 2025, for example, was almost double the national average price of 17.47 cents per kilowatt hour. Also, of the ten highest electricity priced states, seven are members of the RGGI. New York, the eighth highest in price, has a history of forbidding natural gas pipelines from being constructed in the state that could bring low-cost natural gas to New York and to New England, as it stopped the Constitution pipeline and Northeast Supply Enhancement projects.
During Biden’s presidency, residential electricity prices increased by 25%. At the same time, solar and wind increased their share of the market from a joint 10.7% to 15.6%. Biden’s climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, provided massive subsidies for wind and solar power that gave them an unfair advantage over traditional technologies, extending the subsidies that they have been receiving for decades. Thus, not only are ratepayers paying for solar and wind power, but so are taxpayers. While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act eventually removes these subsidies, the production tax credit by definition remains active for 10 years, requiring taxpayers to continue paying past Trump’s second term in office.
Analysis
Massachusetts provides a clear example of a state that misses the forest for the trees in its energy policy. Demanding that utilities cut costs for consumers won’t solve the structural issues that make electricity expensive. While Massachusetts has no control over some aspects of high prices, such as high LNG transport costs due to the Jones Act, its membership in RGGI and blockage of pipeline infrastructure put utilities in the impossible situation of trying to keep electricity prices from rising at the same time that reliable sources are taxed and restricted. Moving towards an energy outlook of lower prices and a reliable grid requires a reconsideration of the green policies that keep the state from achieving its economic potential.
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