Research published by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation — a Boston-based nonprofit — projects that building out natural gas capacity in Massachusetts under a plan called Project Beacon would reduce heating-season costs for ratepayers by roughly $367 million on average each winter. The findings were released at a point when voters in the state were preparing to choose their next governor.
Enbridge, a pipeline operator headquartered in Canada, put forward plans in May for an undertaking called Project Beacon that would modernise the Algonquin pipeline network — a system currently routing natural gas northward from New Jersey through to Massachusetts — pending regulatory approval.
A seven-winter review spanning the 2019–20 through 2025–26 heating seasons, carried out by Always on Energy Research on behalf of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, put the average bill relief that Project Beacon could have delivered to Massachusetts electricity customers at roughly $367 million per winter across that stretch. Projected seasonal savings break down to roughly $95 for a household account, around $792 for a business account, and close to $4,600 for an account classified as industrial.
Ranked fifth-highest among all U.S. states for residential electricity costs, Massachusetts charges consumers around 25 cents per kilowatt-hour, a rate underpinned by natural gas, which accounts for more than 65 percent of the state's power generation in a given year.
Paul Diego Craney, executive director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation, issued a public statement urging both candidates in the gubernatorial race to state their positions on Project Beacon before voters head to the polls, arguing that residents and businesses across Massachusetts have a direct financial stake in the project's outcome through their energy costs, and that Governor Healey and Mike Minogue should each indicate whether they intend to support the initiative moving forward.
Craney also argued that the next administration — regardless of who leads it — will face the same bottlenecks in energy supply and the same unresolved pressures on housing costs.
Healey, who holds the governorship and is seeking a second term, has publicly backed an energy strategy that draws from multiple sources — a framework that would, in principle, leave room for natural gas pipeline development. At the time the research findings were published, Healey had not yet put forward any endorsement of Project Beacon specifically.
Mike Minogue — the Republican candidate running against her for governor, with a background spanning business and military service — lays out a position on his campaign website backing natural gas pipeline development.
A companion report titled "Blue States, High Rates" — developed jointly by Always on Energy Research and the Institute for Energy Research — examines how renewable energy requirements and state-level regulatory structures affect electricity costs in particular parts of the country. Massachusetts maintains its own emissions cap on power generators — a layer of regulation that sits on top of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the multistate carbon-pricing and cap-and-trade programme that the state also belongs to — a dual arrangement no other New England state has adopted.
Opposition from industry and labour groups led Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro to withdraw the state from RGGI. Shapiro subsequently put forward a different path — PACER, the Pennsylvania Climate Emissions Reduction Act — a cap-and-trade framework operating at the state level.
