Monday, March 9, 2026

How energy affordability in Massachusetts reached crisis mode

              

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LAWSUIT: Democratic Party insiders are suing to block a proposed ballot question that would end partisan primaries in Massachusetts. If that measure passed, it could create general elections pitting two Democrats against each other in the deep blue state, an uncomfortable prospect for incumbents, Chris Lisinski explains.

GATEWAY CITIES: Salem and Quincy have together received more than $10 million in housing tax credits based on their status as Gateway Cities, even though they no longer meet the state’s criteria for that designation, Hallie Claflin reports.

OPINION: One solution to the energy affordability debates: the creation of a state climate bank, writes Rishi Reddi, senior policy advisor at Ceres, a Boston-based national environmental organization.

The cost of utility bills for Massachusetts residents has triggered widespread outrage — and it’s causing a scramble on Beacon Hill.

A new survey from the Massachusetts Chambers Policy Network, a coalition of 10 regional chambers of commerce, found that energy affordability is now the top household concern in the state, beating out health care, housing, groceries, and transportation.

As prices spike yet again this winter, state officials are trying to thread the needle between lowering costs, generating more supply to meet rising demand, and meeting ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

This week on the Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jordan Wolman speaks with Kyle Murray, director of state program implementation in Massachusetts for the environmental nonprofit Acadia Center, and Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, about those tradeoffs and why the costs of electricity and gas are so expensive in the Bay State in the first place.

Gov. Maura Healey has said she wants to pursue an “all of the above” strategy to produce more energy and introduced temporary relief for the months of February and March.

“All of the above is critical,” Dolan said. “But we have to mean it.”

Lawmakers, meanwhile, are weighing a legislative package that aims to grow energy supply but also includes a contentious $1 billion cut to the state’s energy efficiency program known as Mass Save.

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Those tensions are likely to continue to ripple as Massachusetts churns through delays in the clean energy transition, caused in part by President Trump’s attempts to stymie new offshore wind projects, and costly improvements needed to fix the state’s aging electric and gas infrastructure.

MBTA COMMUNITIESDid the controversial MBTA Communities housing law impermissibly force towns to shell out money to devise carefully crafted multifamily zoning plans, or were any significant expenditures a voluntary choice that municipalities made to navigate thorny local politics? The Supreme Judicial Court is now wrestling with that question in a lawsuit brought by the town of Marshfield, Jennifer Smith reports.

OPINIONThe reach of federal immigration actions is no longer abstract or distant. What we have witnessed in communities from Minneapolis to Maine should dispel any illusion that this cannot happen here, writes Lee Pelton, president of the Boston Foundation, which is launching a three-pronged strategy for people who want to support their immigrant neighbors.

OPINION: State Rep. Antonio Cabral, a New Bedford Democrat who co-chairs the Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus, calls on state leaders to stand by the current pool of Gateway Cities. Any future consideration of adjustments should be based on good data, a coherent framework, and involve collaboration with Gateway City leaders, he writes.

CABINET: Gov. Maura Healey has lost more than half her cabinet, with some agency leaders exiting during her reelection year. (The Boston Globe – paywall)

ECONOMICS: One of those cabinet members, Eric Paley, sits down to talk about his role as economic development secretary. (WBUR)

HEALTH: A clinic in Western Massachusetts is expanding its maternal health capabilities. (Mass Live – paywall)

EROSION: The stairs leading to a popular beach on Cape Cod are again fighting erosion after severe winter storms battered the coast. (Cape Cod Times – paywall)

RECYCLING: A pilot container redemption program in the Berkshires could see its funding run dry despite early success. (The Berkshire Eagle – paywall)

 
 
 
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Today in Politics, Bulletin 339. 3/30/26

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