Massachusetts Utility Companies Are Blocking Environmental Progress
In liberal Massachusetts, you don’t have to convince many people that climate change is real — it’s for-profit utility companies that are creating a major barrier to climate action.
An Eversource worker guides a new energy release manhole cover into place on Massachusetts Avenue. (Craig F. Walker / Boston Globe via Getty Images)
In one of the most liberal states in the country, the largest roadblocks to climate legislation do not come from fossil fuel producers or cultural conservatives bent on opposing any progress toward a clean energy economy. Instead, the most successful opposition comes from two giant investor-owned utility companies, which use their earnings from regulated monopolies to shape the state’s climate legislation to their liking.
Gas and electric utility companies in Massachusetts collectively spent $439,000 on lobbying over the first half of this year, with the majority of this coming from the state’s two largest utilities, Eversource and National Grid.
According to lobbying disclosures from the most recent legislative session, National Grid lobbied against bills promoting rooftop solar, renewable energy financing, clean heating, community representation in the regulatory process, and eliminating gas leaks. The clean energy measures that the utility did support were related to offshore wind, biogas, electric vehicles, and energy storage — topics that help the company maintain its profit-driven business model in the state.
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