Just about everyone in Massachusetts agrees: Energy bills are too damn high.

Natural gas prices in the state rose 70% between 2020 and 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and its residential electricity rates are the third highest in the country, behind only California and Hawaii. Some residents are making hard choices between paying their utility bills and buying food or health care necessities.

It is almost inevitable that the issue of affordability rather than climate change will dominate energy-policy conversations in the state — and throughout the high-priced New England region — this year.

“It’s going to be the focus for both Democrats and Republicans, those kitchen-table, pocketbook issues,” said Dan Dolan, president of trade group the New England Power Generators Association. ​“Both on the gas and the electric side, utility bill concerns are going to be front-of-mind.”

Massachusetts isn’t alone in this feeling. Across the nation, utility bills are rising far faster than inflation, and energy affordability is becoming a major political issue, propelling Democrats in several states to victory in last November’s elections. But in Massachusetts, sky-high bills are colliding with critical questions about the region’s future energy supply. The Trump administration has waged an unrelenting attack on the offshore wind developments the region was counting on to deliver new electricity, and has worsened the prospects for solar, too, by slashing tax incentives and grant programs.

“It’s supply and demand, and you’re taking away a lot of the supply that was going to be coming online in Massachusetts,” said James Van Nostrand, policy director at nonprofit organization The Future of Heat Initiative and the former chair of the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. ​“How do you solve that?”

While everyone acknowledges the problem, there is far less consensus on what the root causes are or how to fix them. Some on both sides of the aisle blame the cost of building renewable energy and the transmission lines needed to carry it. Others point to volatile natural gas prices and the expense of replacing aging pipes. Third-party electricity suppliers that lure unsophisticated consumers into high-priced power contracts are also exacerbating matters, say many advocates. Utilities’ profit margins are under scrutiny as well.

For elected officials, the timing makes the conversation both more urgent and more complex: All six New England governors’ seats and more than 1,200 state legislator positions across the region will be up for election this fall.

A major part of the challenge is that there are more than two sides to the argument. Almost no one is advocating for a full return to fossil-fueled power plants or for a renewables-only grid. But the spaces in between are filled with permutations and possibilities that are difficult to sum up and sell. ​“Affordability” is being used to justify widely divergent energy proposals, including plans that opponents say could make the problem worse or which trade off climate goals in the name of bringing down costs.

“The long-term solutions are complicated and nuanced, and don’t lend themselves neatly to those political debates,” Dolan said.

Action underway in Massachusetts

Though Democrats control the Massachusetts legislature by vast margins, not everyone is on the same page about how to tackle the affordability crisis.

In March 2025, Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who is up for reelection, unveiled her energy-affordability agenda. It includes plans to create the state’s first discount rate for moderate-income households, expand tiered rates for low-income customers, and help residents access existing programs that could help them trim their bills. Two months later, she introduced a sprawling energy-affordability bill she said would save residents about $10 billion over the next 10 years through measures like reducing bill charges, making sure utilities don’t pass certain expenses on to customers, and removing barriers for nuclear development.

Last month, state utility regulators, at Healey’s request, opened an investigation into electricity and gas delivery costs, with an eye to determining if any charges can be removed, consolidated, or redesigned to save consumers money.

But in November, Democratic state Rep. Mark Cusack, House chair of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy, countered Healey’s proposal with his own package that included many of the same provisions — alongside several that set off alarm bells in the clean-energy community.

The bill, which was approved by Cusack’s committee on a 7-0 vote, called for making the state’s 2030 emissions target nonbinding, slashing funding for energy-efficiency programming, and limiting climate and clean-energy initiatives that impact customers’ utility bills.

The existence of these provisions signals how far concerns about affordability have shifted the conversation in the state, said Paula García, senior manager of energy justice research and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“This thing of revisiting the climate commitments that the state has in place was not something that was being discussed at the beginning of last year,” she said.

Cusack’s bill, which is widely expected to be the vehicle for energy legislation this session, is now in the House Ways and Means Committee. The measure will be revised there before potentially advancing to a floor vote that could send it to the Senate.

Controlling the narrative

The bill’s final form will depend in large part on who can come up with a clean, compelling narrative to back their position, said advocates and observers. Some worry that efforts to paint energy efficiency and renewable energy as the culprits behind rising bills have gotten a head start.

“We allowed fossil-fuel interests to drive the narrative that it’s all those clean and green things,” Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation at the nonprofit Acadia Center. ​“Unfortunately, that’s what’s taken hold.”

The idea has a sort of commonsense allure: After all, energy bills have risen at the same time as Massachusetts has been increasing its focus on renewable energy development and expanding its energy-efficiency programming, so it’s not difficult to imagine a connection between these trends. The flames have been fanned by federal officials like Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who claims wind and solar are driving up costs for the states reliant on them.

Local renewable-energy opponents continue to push this interpretation of the affordability crisis. Last week, nonprofit Always On Energy Research released a report arguing that a switch to renewable power would cost New England up to $700 billion more by 2050 than leaning on natural gas or nuclear power plants. The analysis was sponsored by right-wing organizations, including the Yankee Institute, Fiscal Alliance Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity Foundation.

Murray called the report’s numbers ​“magical thinking, completely at odds with reality.” Acadia Center is attempting to counter that argument with a new series of explainers outlining its analysis of what is driving volatile energy prices, with a strong emphasis on the cost of natural gas and the benefits of renewables. Other advocates also say they will be working on educating lawmakers about the complex subject and urging them to keep up the push for clean energy.

“So much of the issue is whose message is being received well,” Murray said. ​“We’re going to make a more concerted effort this year.”