The charge of hypocrisy lands easily in energy politics; the harder truth is that governors live inside a system where “pipeline or not” is a proxy fight over affordability, reliability, and who pays. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey’s support for a targeted expansion of an existing gas line after years of opposing past projects exemplifies that dynamic — not a simple reversal so much as a shift in the problem she is solving and the way the law allocates costs and risk.
At a Glance
- Healey asked the U.S. Energy Department to expedite federal review of Enbridge’s Algonquin RARE expansion, citing ratepayer savings and reliability.
- Critics point to her 2022 boast that she “stopped two gas pipelines,” casting the new support as a contradiction.
- Her office frames the move as consistent: a modest capacity increase on existing infrastructure, developer-paid, with projected savings for roughly 600,000 customers.
- In Massachusetts, pipeline fights often hinge less on fuel ideology than on contract structure, regulatory approvals, and exposure of ratepayers to long-term costs.
What Actually Changed: From Stopping New Builds to Tweaking Existing Capacity
The concrete action is straightforward: Healey urged the Trump administration to move quickly on federal review for the Reliable Affordable Resilient Enhancement (RARE) project — a capacity increase on the Algonquin Gas Transmission system serving Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Her office argues RARE would provide supply for about 600,000 customers and lower gas bills by roughly $40 million annually, with capital costs borne by the developer rather than directly socialized onto ratepayers’ base bills. The administration’s letter also underscores a practical aim: reduce reliance on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), which spikes New England prices in winter and amplifies volatility.
Critics see a whiplash: as attorney general and candidate, Healey opposed new gas infrastructure and said, “Remember, I stopped two gas pipelines from coming into this state,” referring to large proposals that never got built. Now she favors more gas capacity. The throughline, in her telling, is narrower — a small expansion of an existing trunk to displace higher-cost winter LNG, not a green light for broad new pipeline sprawl, with ratepayer exposure structured differently than in prior deals.
How Massachusetts Pipeline Decisions Actually Get Made
Energy rhetoric tends to center on fossil-fuel virtue or vice; the governing machinery is more prosaic. In Massachusetts, local distribution companies (LDCs) seeking firm transportation on interstate pipelines submit long-term contracts (precedent agreements) to the Department of Public Utilities, which must find them in the interest of gas customers before they proceed. On the federal side, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issues certificates of public convenience and necessity to pipeline operators, and cost recovery for interstate assets ultimately falls under FERC’s jurisdiction. This two-level screen — state contract prudency, federal facility authorization — means a governor can oppose one project’s cost allocation while supporting another’s targeted capacity if the contract economics and reliability case differ materially.
That architecture mattered in past Massachusetts fights where proposals contemplated shifting substantial risk to ratepayers through electricity-bill surcharges or long-dated firm-transport obligations — a sticking point for opponents who argued households were being conscripted to backstop private pipeline economics. It also matters now: the Healey administration’s case for RARE emphasizes developer financing, DPU-reviewed utility contracts, and the replacement of peak-winter LNG with cheaper pipeline gas to reduce total bills.
The Critique: A Reversal, or a Rethink Under Different Constraints?
The hypocrisy charge is emotionally intuitive because the quotes are vivid. Healey did claim credit for blocking two pipelines; asking Washington to speed a gas expansion reads, to detractors, like a 180. But the policy question is narrower: are the projects comparable on risk transfer, timing, and system effect? The earlier proposals were large new-build concepts with contested ratepayer obligations. RARE is a roughly $300 million, incremental capacity increase on an existing corridor, tied to a specific reliability bottleneck and framed around displacing costly imported LNG in a region where winter demand is acute and alternative firm capacity is tight.
The savings estimate — about $40 million per year for a defined customer set — comes via state-regulator-reviewed contracts, not a campaign whiteboard. It can be wrong ex post if market conditions move, but it is not invented out of whole cloth. For a skeptical reader, the decisive question is whether the developer truly bears build costs and whether the utility contracts clear DPU scrutiny against realistic winter price scenarios. On those narrow points, the administration’s claims rest on formal processes that exist precisely to test such assertions.
Mechanism: Why a Small Capacity Increase Can Move Big Dollars
New England’s fuel problem is seasonal. Gas heats homes and also fuels marginal power plants on the coldest days; when pipeline space runs out, the region leans on imported LNG and oil-fired peakers, paying global or scarcity prices. A modest boost in firm deliverability targeted at winter peaks can unlock disproportionate value by avoiding the highest-cost molecules and the most punitive hours of price formation. That is the essence of the $40 million claim: not that gas gets cheap everywhere, but that the portfolio sheds the priciest tranche of winter supply and the volatility tax that comes with it.
The other mechanism is contractual. Firm transport at the right receipt and delivery points reduces a utility’s need to chase spot LNG cargoes when global markets tighten. In risk terms, you are substituting a capacity payment and pipeline toll — whose prudency the DPU reviews — for exposure to extreme winter commodity spreads. If the contract tenor, load forecasts, and carbon-transition timelines are aligned, that trade can be rational even for a state with aggressive climate targets.
Where the Real Disagreement Lives
There are two honest lines of contention. First, path dependence: does any new gas capacity, no matter how small, extend fossil reliance and complicate decarbonization targets? Critics argue that even surgical expansions embed sunk costs and political inertia that slow electrification and non-pipeline alternatives. Second, counterfactual affordability: would equivalent rate relief be better bought through demand response, weatherization, targeted heat-pump deployment with winterized rate design, or non-pipeline gas solutions like contracted peak-shaving LNG — all without committing to interstate capacity additions?
Supporters of RARE respond that winter reliability is not a thought experiment; it is an annual crisis with measurable price spikes. They contend that an incremental fix on existing steel, with developer-borne capital, beats writing blank checks for volatile LNG winters — and that electrification still advances on its own merits as grid investments and housing stock upgrades catch up. The state’s position, buttressed by DPU-reviewed utility contracts and a quantified bill impact, chooses near-term reliability and rate stability while the power system decarbonizes on a longer arc.
What To Watch Next: Contracts, Timing, and Guardrails
The practical markers are clear. First, the DPU’s prudency record: how firm are the modeled savings under stressed winter scenarios and varied LNG price paths, and what off-ramps exist if demand decarbonizes faster than forecast? Second, FERC certification timing and conditions, which may impose mitigation or environmental requirements that affect in-service dates and economics. Third, utility rate design: ensuring that any pipeline-enabled savings flow through timely to the customers the state says will benefit, and that developer cost responsibility remains as represented in the governor’s letter. Finally, alignment with climate law: sunset clauses, contract tenors, and integration with demand-side programs can prevent a “small” fix from hardening into structural overreliance on gas.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, statehousenews.com, boston.com, yahoo.com, ground.news, bostonherald.com
