Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell this week issued a sharply critical assessment of a state program meant to fix gas pipes for leaks and safety issues, reiterating a call for gas companies to change “business as usual” and reduce costs to ratepayers.
Campbell is focusing her ire on the increasingly controversial, decade-old Gas System Enhancement Program. She said the program has become a large-scale costly building program for the gas industry and “a significant driver” of increasing costs for residents.
“Ratepayers should not have to foot the bill for widespread gas line replacements, especially as we aim to transition to clean energy,’’ Campbell told GBH News in a written statement on Wednesday. “Sweeping replacements only serve to entrench the gas distribution system and generate profits for gas companies.”
The attorney general laid out her arguments in a 49-page brief submitted this week to the Department of Public Utilities, which regulates the utilities, as they consider changes to the program In it, she said gas companies need to prioritize repairs, “reduce excessive and imprudent spending” on new pipes and be forced to show how they’re weighing clean alternatives to gas.
“We urge the DPU to direct gas companies to reduce the scope of the GSEP program by making more targeted and less costly repairs,” she said in her statement to GBH News.
The attorney general said the program’s spending has surged because gas companies are replacing nearly all leak prone pipes with new pipes — a cost they can pass on ratepayers. State data shows spending has climbed from $291 million in 2015 when the program started to $880 million in 2025, at an average of nearly 12% rise every year.
Clean energy advocates say the gas repair program is one the state can control and it’s ripe for reform.
Originally intended to help fast track replacement of leak-prone pipes and keep the gas system safe, critics say the program is essentially rebuilding the state’s network of gas pipes, allowing gas companies to reap enormous profits and pass the cost to consumers.
And the program pours billions into gas infrastructure that’s supposed to be rendered obsolete if the state meets its 2050 clean energy goal to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“We wanted to deal with a safety issue. We forgot to deal with an affordability issue, and we neglected climate change implications.”State Sen. Michael Barrett, who represents the 3rd Middlesex District
While the program has been tweaked since it was set up in 2014, and a task force is focused on changes, there’s a growing sense of urgency among those who support the state’s 2050 goal that the gas program has to be reined in. Many compare it to Boston’s “ Big Dig ,” the highway and tunnel project that ballooned far beyond its original price tag.
GSEP is on track to cost nearly $42 billion through the end of the century, or “roughly the equivalent of two Big Digs,” according to Dorie Seavey, a senior research scientist at Groundwork Data. Looking at the three largest gas companies, she found basic delivery charges on customers’ gas bills have jumped as much as 20% each year, driven in large part by the rising cost of the state program.
“An overbuilt gas system is the elephant-in-the room driving up customer bills and creating an affordability crisis for many ratepayers,” said Seavey in a recent blog post on LinkedIn.
Campbell wants regulators to deny gas companies the ability to recover costs from the ratepayer if they’re replacing pipes where they could be repaired or taken out of service altogether.
Advocates for clean energy largely support the attorney general’s view.
“If we today are still pouring hundreds of millions — billions, honestly — of dollars into the gas distribution system, we are just burying that money in the ground,” said Sarah Krame, a Sierra Club staff attorney with their Environmental Law program who says the Legislature needs to scale down the GSEP program.
Even without the program, gas companies are required by law to fix leak-prone pipes. The state program was created to incentivize companies to fix the pipes faster by recovering their costs quickly from the ratepayer. New plastic pipes — which have a lifespan of about 40 years — will continue costing ratepayers well into the future because companies spread out the costs for capital expenses, like new pipes, over their lifespan. And if the state meets its clean energy targets, most of those pipelines will sit unused as people move off natural gas.
“We’ve created, inadvertently, a perpetual ‘big dig,’ one that never ends, that’s new, enormously expensive [and] shows up in your gas bill,” said state Sen. Michael Barrett, a Democrat for the 3rd Middlesex District. “We wanted to deal with a safety issue. We forgot to deal with an affordability issue, and we neglected climate change implications.”
Barrett points out that not only are utility executives interested in keeping the pipe building going — with an average 9% rate of return that is allowed by law — but various labor unions support the program because it keeps construction activity at a maximum. While it varies by company, in 2025 it will cost $2 million to $4 million per mile to replace pipes, according to expert estimates.
Every year the gas companies submit a list of planned gas improvement projects to the Department of Public Utilities for review and approval. And while projects are meant to prioritize safety, the attorney general said companies have been larding in hundreds of unapproved projects, making it “highly unlikely” that they were all due to safety concerns.
“If we today are still pouring hundreds of millions — billions, honestly — of dollars into the gas distribution system, we are just burying that money in the ground.”Sarah Krame, a Sierra Club staff attorney
To reduce what she sees as excessive spending on new natural gas infrastructure and force gas companies to prioritize the greatest safety risks, Campbell wants regulators to take “immediate action” to reduce by 50% the amount of GSEP costs gas companies can pass on to ratepayers.
“That’s going to make people sharpen their pencil. They’re going to have to pick out the most impactful projects to stay within the budget,” said Larry Chretien with the Boston-based Green Energy Consumers Alliance, who calls GSEP “a cash cow” for gas companies.
The attorney general also said gas companies should be forced to better detail how they’re considering alternatives to natural gas pipes — describing their current efforts as “woefully insufficient.” While gas companies are already expected to vet projects for alternatives to gas, Campbell said in the brief that five of six gas companies failed to do so in the majority of their approved projects in 2024. Gas companies will have to detail how they’re complying with the state’s climate goals in a separate filing due April 1.
Four of the six gas companies in the state did not respond to request for comment. National Grid and Unitil said they were reviewing the attorney general’s brief and would respond in their own filings, required of all gas companies by the end of the month.
As it stands, ratepayers are footing the bill for conflicting programs: one that “props up” the gas infrastructure and one meant to get customers off gas.
The attorney general called that dual burden “unfair to ratepayers.”
At a recent protest in downtown Boston against high gas prices, many said the same thing. Among them, Plympton resident Michelle Ruxton told GBH News that she wanted more detailed information on bills.
“As a single parent with two kids, I’m struggling to get food on the table. I have one child in college. It’s a struggle,” Ruxton said. “So I want to know what I’m paying for.”
Even as many ponder fixing the system to move off natural gas, there’s added worry that the current political reality will create new hurdles. Barrett said he wonders whether President Donald J. Trump — an avowed gas industry supporter — will find a way to upend it all.
“Trump changes everything,” Barrett said. “What it means is that all our assumptions, our ability to cut back on gas are now out the window. We’re not going to be able to cut back on gas, not as we envisioned.”
