For years, decarbonization was the most fashionable energy policy in New England. With the exception of New Hampshire, New England states made carbon emission reductions their top priority, even if that meant higher prices, slower economic growth and an increased risk of periodic energy shortages.
Fashions are fickle, though. As the far left is scrambling to distance itself from the excesses of “woke 1,” governments, businesses and even chunks of the environmental movement are moving away from the excesses of “net zero” goals and radical decarbonization plans.
The shift is unmistakable. It’s also not quite what it seems.
For years, New England officials ran a very public pressure campaign to move the regional energy grid operator’s focus from reliability to carbon emissions.
In 2019, several U.S. senators and other elected officials from New England berated ISO New England, the energy grid operator, for “preserving the status-quo of a fossil fuel-centered resource mix” instead of prioritizing state emission reduction goals.
Following the activist left’s lead, in 2023 officials in Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts pressured ISO New England to create “a dedicated, executive-level position focusing on energy and environmental justice (EJ) to align ISO-NE’s organizational objectives and operations with a just and equitable clean energy transition.”
Today, there’s no top-level talk of “environmental justice.” It’s all nuclear.
On Wednesday, Massachusetts hosted a New England Nuclear Energy Summit at UMass-Lowell, with the enthusiastic backing of governors who once crusaded for wind and solar power.
Not that long ago, saying you were for an “all of the above” energy strategy would have coded you Republican. Environmental activists derided the phrase as cover for the oil and gas industry.
Not anymore. In her press release announcing Wednesday’s summit, Mass. Gov. Maura Healey boasted that “Massachusetts is taking an all-of-the-above approach to energy because families and businesses need more affordable, reliable power.”
To her credit, Healey includes natural gas when she says it. This week she asked the Trump administration to expedite federal review of the Algonquin gas pipeline.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont used the phrase in his press release for the event.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills said she was committed to a “diverse energy strategy that includes nuclear power.…”
In March, all New England governors signed a statement committing their states to “safeguarding our collective energy future through advancement of a diverse energy strategy that includes nuclear power, a pillar of New England’s electric system.”
Suddenly, on energy policy, every New England governor is talking like a New Hampshire legislator.
But there’s one massive difference. Though everyone suddenly agrees on nuclear, only New Hampshire fully embraces a real “all of the above” energy strategy with the potential to increase the region’s energy supply and lower prices in the short term.
As New England’s free-market organizations, including the Josiah Bartlett Center, pointed out in a pair of energy policy studies in 2024 and 2026, New Hampshire’s lack of a formal net zero goal and its embrace of natural gas have put downward pressure on regional energy prices as policies in all other New England states were driving prices higher.
Our studies showed that building more nuclear and natural gas capacity can meet the region’s growing energy needs at a much lower cost than building only wind and solar. But currently, only one of those options can provide significant increases of reliable, always-on energy in the short term. That’s natural gas.
By downplaying natural gas to focus on nuclear, other New England governors are virtue signaling on energy abundance. They get to claim that they’re for both abundance and net zero, since nuclear power checks both boxes. It sounds like they’re taking action. But simply including nuclear power in the list of permissible low-emission energy options offers nothing to help bring rates down in the short term.
Even best-case scenario nuclear power is many years, if not decades, away.
New England states could provide ratepayer relief more quickly by repealing or relaxing their extreme decarbonization mandates, streamlining permitting processes for energy projects, and green lighting new gas pipelines.
Nuclear power generation is a better way to meet New England’s future energy needs than wind and solar. It’s emergence as the fashionable energy policy is a welcome change.
But embracing nuclear while keeping the region’s costly renewable energy regulatory structure in place promises help that ratepayers won’t see anytime soon.
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