STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, OCT. 14, 2025.....Gov. Maura Healey ordered utilities regulators Tuesday to start combing through gas and electric bill charges line by line to reduce or remove any that don’t provide a benefit to ratepayers as they gird for the winter heating season.
“Everybody knows what we’re dealing with. It’s not just a Massachusetts issue, it’s a problem throughout the Northeast, and we’ve just got to act with just incredible urgency to do everything we can to lower costs. And that means this as well, looking at bills, looking at charges, and getting rid of charges that aren’t justified, that aren’t providing that customer benefit,” the governor said.
The order to the Department of Public Utilities, delivered in a letter Tuesday, calls for the department to “review each and every charge that customers are currently paying to determine whether the charge can be eliminated, reduced or its impact mitigated.” Healey also instructed the DPU to “rigorously review” the rate increases proposed by utilities “to avoid unnecessary spending and drive down costs.”
Energy bills soared for many Bay Staters last winter, exacerbating chronic cost-of-living pressures for residents and businesses that already pay some of the highest energy prices in the country and calling attention to the state clean energy and climate mandates some say are driving elevated costs. Healey already shaved $50 off April electricity bills and in March announced a series of executive actions designed to spur savings of nearly $6 billion over the next five years.
Healey said the actions she announced Tuesday add to her energy affordability agenda, which includes major legislation that fellow Democrats have been largely cool towards. The governor did not attach a timeline to her order and did not directly answer when asked if she expects that DPU would be able to take action in time to influence this winter’s heating bills.
“I made my request today to the DPU. I think this is something they’ve got to get after right away,” she responded during a press conference in her office. She added, “The bottom line is that gas and electric bills are too high, too volatile, for people in the Northeast, and so we’re doing everything we can within our power to cut them down.”
Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper said it is infrastructure and supply costs that are driving the increases in gas and electric bills.
“So what this does is to look at all the charges -- including looking at the utilities and how they’re spending money on infrastructure -- and making sure that we’re using it as efficiently as we can, the stuff we currently have, and that we’re building stuff in a way that’s the most cost effective,” she said.
In her letter to the DPU, the governor also urged the department to hasten its proceedings that are necessary for more solar resources to connect to the grid so that Bay Staters can take advantage before the federal residential clean energy tax credit is eliminated at the end of the year.
“Massachusetts ratepayers cannot afford to lose out on the cheapest and fastest energy that can get built,” Healey said.
Healey’s order to the DPU arrives to a department in flux. The governor in August announced her second shake-up of the DPU membership in about two and a half years, and that transition is in progress.
Cecile Fraser, an energy and utilities industry attorney first appointed to the DPU in 2017, was replaced last month by Jeremy McDiarmid, who had been running the national business association Advanced Energy United. Next week, Liz Anderson, the chief of the Energy and Ratepayer Advocacy Division in Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office, will take Chairman James Van Nostrand’s spot as a commissioner and McDiarmid will become chair of the DPU. Staci Rubin, a longtime environmental justice advocate who worked as vice president of environmental justice at the Conservation Law Foundation before being appointed to the DPU in March 2023, is staying in place.
“National Grid is deeply committed to providing safe, reliable, and affordable energy, and we make strategic infrastructure investments to ensure every dollar delivers value for our customers. We welcome the Healey-Driscoll Administration’s call for the Department of Public Utilities to review all mandated charges on our customer’s bills and will continue to collaborate on practical solutions and use every tool within our control to manage costs, ease short-term pressures and contain costs over time,” a National Grid spokesperson told Boston 25 News.
“We are laser-focused on affordability for our customers as we work every day to ensure we safely and reliably deliver the essential electric, heat and energy services our customers need. We share the Governor’s priority of addressing the energy affordability challenge faced across New England and look forward to working with our regulators and the administration so that customers have full transparency into everything that goes into their utility service and can better understand the components of their bill that drive costs, the role that usage plays, and the valuable programs like energy efficiency that can empower customers to take control of their energy use and save on their bills,” an Eversource spokesperson said.
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