This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire
With Winter Storm Fern wreaking havoc across the country, New England women are worried about energy affordability. Yet many do not connect rising energy costs to the state policy decisions that invited them.
According to new polling from Independent Women, 82% of New England women say they’re paying more for their electricity bills, compared with five years ago. This is the first comprehensive poll exclusively asking women—who primarily handle their household electricity bills—their attitudes on energy issues.
New England has enacted the nation’s most aggressive climate policies to phase out oil, gas, and coal and achieve a 100% renewable energy target by 2050. While it’s easy to blame utility companies and the federal government for exacerbating the electricity crisis, state policies—namely, New England’s decarbonization plans—bear more responsibility for inviting energy insecurity and associated higher costs.
Congress gave states near-exclusive power, under the Federal Power Act, to create electricity generation portfolios, determine electricity prices, and establish mandates for renewable energy generators. In the past 20 years, New England states adopted radical climate mandates to force a transition to 100% renewable energy, ban gas-powered cars, and adopt energy efficiency standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).
In the last five years, costs have skyrocketed across all six New England states. Between 2019 and 2024, electricity prices across the region soared 29%—the highest regional rates in the Lower-48. The average household paid $250.82 per month in utility bills as of last November—up 50.5% from 2024, when the average regional bill was only $166.48 per month. New England rates are 67% higher compared to the national average.
New England states were early adopters of aggressive green mandates like renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). States with RPS report higher electricity rates compared to non-RPS states. All six New England states belong to RGGI, a cap-and-trade program that has a negligible impact on carbon emissions reductions. It’s no wonder that 53% of poll respondents admitted they feel misled by state politicians about the cost and effectiveness of 100% renewable energy policies.
Independent Women’s poll also found that New England women support reliable energy sources. A plurality of New England women (42%) support an electric grid powered by both conventional and renewable energy sources.
An overwhelming majority support expanding geothermal energy (68%) and natural gas (61%), a clean-burning fuel, in the region. Support for natural gas is encouraging, despite decades’ long regional policies that discouraged or blocked new natural gas infrastructure projects.
Natural gas is a reliable, clean-burning fuel that supplies the majority of net-electricity generation in the U.S., and in New England. The recently revived Constitution Pipeline, first approved in 2014 and cancelled in 2020, is expected to deliver natural gas to New England states by 2027. A new report warned that a lack of new natural gas capacity will stress New England’s energy infrastructure and could invite “electricity reliability challenges” ahead of Winter Storm Fern.
Despite its strict green mandates, New England is still heavily reliant on natural gas, nuclear energy, and electricity imports from Canada (9%)—not renewables (12%).
Last fall, the CEO of ISO New England, the regional transmission organization overseeing the region’s electric grid and transmission, warned that wind and solar aren’t dependable sources during winter, remarking: “We cannot operate the system in the wintertime without a dependable energy source that can balance the system when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.”
By continuing down its decarbonization path, New England, save for New Hampshire, would see energy costs spike $815 billion through 2050 over the cost of operating the current grid. But there’s a solution to the region’s self-inflicted energy crisis. A new report by Always On Energy Research and a coalition of Northeastern think tanks, “Alternatives to New England’s Energy Affordability Crisis,” argues that building natural gas and nuclear power, rather than costly, unreliable offshore wind and solar projects, will save New Englanders upwards of $700 billion in energy costs.
New England women overwhelmingly respond positively to affordable, reliable, and scalable messaging. But the poll also finds they currently trust elected Democrats on affordability issues. Democrats know they have to deliver, which is why they’re disavowing the same climate pledges that they previously championed. Conservatives, however, are uniquely positioned to appeal to women on energy issues, if they get this moment right.
Due to deregulation and abundance policies, energy inflation is down nationally. For electricity prices to decrease in New England, states must repeal expensive policies that solely push wind and solar at the expense of reliable, affordable energy sources.
Gabriella Hoffman is director of the Independent Women’s Center for Energy and Conservation. Follow her on X at @Gabby_Hoffman
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