How to cut energy bills? Massachusetts Senate, House disagree

Reducing Massachusetts residents’ electric and gas bills has been a top priority on Beacon Hill this session. But as pressure mounts to lower energy costs, the House and Senate are eyeing different targets for cuts.

In March, the House passed an energy affordability bill that would cut about $1 billion from Mass Save, the statewide energy efficiency program that subsidizes home upgrades such as heat pumps and insulation. The program is funded by surcharges on utility bills, which all ratepayers pay, regardless of whether they opt into the upgrades.

Sen. Michael Barrett, D-Lexington — who chairs the Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy Committee — is looking for savings elsewhere as he crafts the Senate’s energy affordability bill. He said he hopes the Senate’s legislation can save ratepayers more than the House’s bill while preserving the state’s energy efficiency strategy.

“You don’t throw the strategy out when you need to help people with their bills. You get smart,” Barrett said. “You keep your mid- and long-term strategy intact, and you find a way to still provide people with shorter-term savings.”

To do this, Barrett proposes phasing out the Gas System Enhancement Plan, or GSEP.

GSEP was created as part of the 2014 Gas Leaks Act. The program encourages utilities to replace leak-prone natural gas pipelines by allowing them to recover replacement costs more quickly.

Gas customers pay for GSEP as part of their monthly bill. The charge is a line item in the Maintenance and Infrastructure Investment section of the delivery charges.

Barrett’s proposal

According to Barrett, GSEP seemed justifiable in 2014 because gas leaks were upsetting residents. But now, he said, the program has gone too far.

“Now, GSEP’s program spending outranks regular utility maintenance,” Barrett said. “Essentially, we created a special case, but made it too tempting for the gas utilities.”

At this point in the GSEP program, utilities are focusing on lower-priority pipeline projects, Barrett said. Sunsetting GSEP would not mean that utility companies can’t complete these projects, but rather that they would do so under the state’s original cost-recovery scheme. The utilities would make less profit, but customers would save money.

To help inform the Senate’s legislation, Dorie Seavey, senior research scientist with The Future of Heat Initiative, presented GSEP data to Barrett and several of his colleagues. Seavey also shared the data with The Light.

In 2026, GSEP’s planned cost is $817 million, according to Seavey, up from $292 million in 2015.

Seavey’s data shows that since 2014, GSEP pipe replacements have cost $6.2 billion. She added that if spending continues at the pace utilities proposed to the state in 2022, the total cost would reach $42 billion by the time the final pipeline is replaced sometime in the next decade.

As GSEP spending increases, the program’s cost-effectiveness has decreased, Seavey found. In 2015, utilities spent $1.3 million to replace one mile of gas main. The estimate for 2026 has ballooned to $3.7 million per mile.

Meanwhile, customers are using less gas, even as their bills continue to rise, Seavey said.

Seavey said she supports Barrett’s proposal to discontinue the program altogether.

“The GSEP statute effectively created an open-ended capital program in the Commonwealth with limited economic discipline,” she said. “Billions of dollars of infrastructure spending are quietly shaping what people in Massachusetts pay to heat their homes.”

Barrett said it’s up to the entire Senate to decide whether to include any cuts to Mass Save in its final bill. He declined to predict a timeline for the legislation.

Local lawmakers weigh in

All five New Bedford representatives voted in favor of cutting the Mass Save budget. Still, Rep. Mark Sylvia, D-Fairhaven, and Rep. Christopher Hendricks, D-New Bedford, said they are not opposed to reforming GSEP.

“We still have to replace gas infrastructure, but let’s make sure that it’s not on the backs of ratepayers,” Sylvia said. “To the extent that we can do that with some reform of GSEP, I am supportive of that.”

He added that the solution to rising energy costs likely lies “somewhere in the middle” of the two proposals and that the Mass Save cut is important regardless of what happens to GSEP.

House members said the Mass Save cut targets its administrative and marketing budgets and won’t affect energy programs. Mass Save would still be the second-largest such program in the country, they said.

Hendricks said he has been critical of GSEP “since day one” of the energy affordability talks.

“I think perhaps the House could have done something with GSEP,” he said. “I’m glad the Senate’s looking at it. Whether phasing it out completely, or drastically adjusting it — that’s obviously where rubber will meet the road.”

Rep. Christopher Markey, D-Dartmouth, told The Light he’s opposed to eliminating GSEP. Rep. Steven Ouellette, D-Westport, said the Senate would have to propose an “alternative plan” to address gas leaks. Ouellette noted that in the past three years, he’s identified five gas leaks in his neighborhood without actively searching.

In a written statement, Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral told The Light that it is premature to comment on the Senate’s bill.

In a statement to The Light, Sen. Mark Montigny, D-New Bedford, indicated he hopes to see cuts to both programs.

“Mass Save began as a straightforward energy efficiency program focused on reducing our energy consumption and protecting our environment, but it has morphed into a multi-billion-dollar inefficient and unaffordable program,” Montigny said. “GSEP is now just another subsidy for the utility industry, with costs ballooning at an exponential rate. It’s not acceptable and needs to be reformed back to its original intent or scrapped entirely.”

Eversource defends GSEP

William Hinkle, a spokesperson for Eversource, acknowledged that the cost of replacing gas pipelines has increased over the span of the program. But he said there’s a good reason. The cost of materials and equipment has risen, and paving requirements are “more stringent” today than when the program began, he said.

Eversource provides gas and electricity to New Bedford customers. The city is one of Eversource’s NSTAR territories. According to Olessa Stepanova, Eversource’s external communications manager, GSEP costs equate to 5% of an NSTAR gas bill for typical residential heating customers.

Stepanova and Hinkle contested Seavey’s claim that gas usage is declining across the state. They said that this past winter, Eversource Gas Company of Massachusetts and NSTAR recorded their highest volume of gas delivered to customers during any winter in the last decade.

Hinkle said cuts to Mass Save would save more people money because gas and electric customers pay the Mass Save surcharge, whereas only gas customers pay for GSEP. However, Hinkle said Eversource is not advocating for cuts to Mass Save.

The current 2025-27 Mass Save plan budget is about $4.5 billion, following the Department of Public Utilities’ $500 million reduction in February 2025. The 2022-24 Mass Save budget was around $4 billion, still enough for a “nation-leading program,” Hinkle said.

Hinkle said any policy that would cut GSEP is “shortsighted” because the program is an essential safety measure.

He added that gas leaks are an environmental hazard and GSEP is one of the “most impactful” programs addressing carbon emissions. Since 2014, Eversource has removed around 44,930 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year through GSEP, equivalent to removing more than 10,400 cars from the road, he said.

“The energy transition that’s underway in Massachusetts is not happening overnight,” he said. “We cannot compromise the safety and reliability of that (gas) system as long as our customers rely on it.”

Barrett argued that maintaining the program isn’t necessary to ensure safety.

“Safety has always been responsibility No. 1 for the gas utilities by virtue of state law. It’s not as if, if you lighten up on the loophole, you prevent the gas utilities from fulfilling their safety mandate,” Barrett said. “(We can) insist the utilities keep us safe without handing them the keys to everybody’s wallet.”

Advocates favor GSEP cuts

Environmental advocates have long spoken out against Mass Save cuts.

Vick Mohanka, director of Sierra Club Massachusetts, said Mass Save is “one of the biggest programs in the state to help with climate change and pollution.”

He argued that in the short term, the cut wouldn’t meaningfully reduce customers’ bills.

In the long term, the increased demand on the energy grid would lead to rising supply and distribution costs, Mohanka said. According to the Department of Public Utilities, Mass Save has saved ratepayers $16 billion in electric and gas supply and infrastructure costs in less than nine years.

Katharine Lange, Conservation Law Foundation’s government relations manager, echoed Mohanka, saying a $1 billion cut to the program would be “disastrous.”

Mass Save has previously been criticized for disproportionately benefiting high-income homeowners.

According to a 2025 report from State Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s office, residents in Gateway Cities such as New Bedford pay 24% more per person to Mass Save than residents in non-Gateway Cities, but get little to no return on that investment.

Nearly 60% of New Bedford residents are renters who can receive benefits, such as guides to assess their energy use and rebates for energy-saving products. Homeowners are entitled to more benefits, such as windows, heating and air-conditioning systems.

Mass Save operates on a three-year planning cycle. Lange and Mohanka said the 2025-27 plan is the first to expand equitable access, including more benefits for renters. To cut the budget just as the program is beginning to address those disparities would be a “slap in the face,” Lange said.

Both advocates said eliminating GSEP is the better option for delivering savings. The Sierra Club supported the program at its outset out of concern for the environmental impact of gas leaks. Now, the environmental group is focused on decommissioning the gas system in favor of clean energy sources.

“We’ve seen extremely large public health impacts from gas appliances, including water heaters, furnaces, stoves and ovens,” Mohanka said. “I would love to see more thought put into the air that people are breathing inside of their homes, rather than purely just a cost analysis.”

Americans struggle to pay utility bills

Massachusetts is not the only state facing rising utility prices. Since 2021, electric rates have increased by nearly 40% nationwide. Nearly 80 million Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills, and 13.5 million customers had their utilities shut off in 2024, according to PowerLines.

More than 68% of Americans reported their electric or gas bill had increased since last year, according to a PowerLine poll released this week. Over 77% of respondents said they are concerned that their bills will continue to rise. In the Northeast, those numbers rise to 77% and 83%, respectively.

The poll also found that, nationwide, only one in six ratepayers think their utility company puts consumer interests above the company’s interests.

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This story was originally published by The New Bedford Light and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.