THE CLIMATE STORY written in Massachusetts this year was, depending on your perspective, an instant classic or a nightmare.
It had intrigue. It had personalities. It had political posturing. And it sure had long-term repercussions for the Bay State’s vision of a green economy and its preparations for the impacts of climate change.
2025 started with a turbocharged shakeup of the climate and energy landscape. After taking office in January, President Trump quickly used his power to pull funding for clean energy and energy efficiency initiatives and to stop additional offshore wind permits.
Many Massachusetts residents also saw their winter gas bills skyrocket, prompting widespread anger and calls for relief. Elected officials began shifting the discourse – and their attention – toward energy affordability, which opened up an intense debate about the cause of the high costs. The Department of Public Utilities, in fact, recently opened an investigation into all charges on gas and electric bills.
Those frustrations drove Gov. Maura Healey’s agenda around energy issues the rest of the year as she fashioned herself as an “all of the above” supporter on energy. And these dynamics teed up a host of policy fights as the state looks to thread an increasingly delicate needle: how to meet rising power demand, bring down utility bills, and meet the ambitious climate commitments that require dramatically cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
CommonWealth Beacon chronicled these storylines and more throughout the year. Here is your 2025 climate and energy recap.
Healey’s energy affordability bill
Healey’s main vehicle for addressing the state’s high energy costs that drew outrage last winter is the energy affordability bill she filed in May. The legislation seeks to empower the Department of Public Utilities to remove charges from bills, bring more energy onto the grid, remove barriers to the development of nuclear power, and change how Mass Save is financed.
What came next rattled Beacon Hill, brought advocates swarming to the State House, and divided the Democratic supermajority.
CommonWealth Beacon exclusively reported on a plan hatched by Rep. Mark Cusack, the Democratic chair of the House energy committee, to use Healey’s legislation to weaken the state’s 2030 climate commitments in the name of energy affordability. Cusack also proposed cutting the Mass Save budget and reducing the amount of renewable energy that utilities are required to procure. Cusack, who received campaign donations from the utilities right around the time he filed his bill, then pushed the measure through his committee in the final days of session before House leadership ultimately punted the issue to next year.
Insurance
What’s happening in the insurance industry is increasingly a climate story since insurers are the ultimate arbiters of risk.
As home insurers raise rates and end policies in the face of growing climate risk and high rebuilding costs due to inflation and tariffs, new data show that more Massachusetts homeowners are enrolling in the insurer of last resort, or the FAIR Plan. Last year saw the first single-year increase in FAIR Plan policies since 2017 and the largest jump in two decades after high nonrenewal rates in 2023 likely drove more people to look elsewhere for home coverage.
There are also significant changes when it comes to flood insurance, which is typically not covered under a home insurance policy and is a market largely run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. New flood maps across the state threaten to place more residents in the flood zone, requiring them to buy additional insurance. And in Boston, flood-prone residents have had to pay an additional $785,000 in flood insurance charges since 2021 because the city missed its goal to join a FEMA program that offers discounts on premiums — triggering new urgency from city councilors.
Energy supply in Trump 2.0
Offshore wind across the Northeast stalled in 2025 under a Republican trifecta in Washington that was ushered in by last year’s election. Trump started the year by threatening to stop wind projects already under construction and swiftly took action to block new permits, and ended the year on a similar note, this time taking aim at Vineyard Wind, the lone offshore wind project currently delivering power to Massachusetts. The Healey administration also proposed to delay a statutory offshore wind procurement requirement intended to keep the state on track to meet its climate commitments.
Struggles in the offshore wind industry also showed up in other ways: Shortly after Trump took office, a wind cable manufacturing company pulled its project despite winning state support. And CommonWealth Beacon reported that no company has claimed $35 million in state offshore wind tax credits offered in 2023 and 2024, even before Trump had returned to the White House.
The Trump administration also targeted solar power, canceling $156 million in solar funding for Massachusetts. There is one bright spot, though. The delayed Hydro-Quebec line bringing hydropower from Quebec into New England is on track to start delivering power next year.
Resilience
Healey’s other big environmental legislative package unveiled this year is her nearly $3 billion bond bill, which will likely see action in the Legislature in 2026. The measure seeks to improve bridges, dams, culverts, and other critical pieces of infrastructure to better guard against floods, streamline restoration projects, and create a fund to finance similar initiatives in the future.
The bill would also force Massachusetts property owners for the first time to disclose their flood history when selling. The Bay State is one of just 14 that doesn’t require flood risk disclosures. The proposal is widely praised as one that will provide prospective homebuyers with the information they need to evaluate the flood risk of a property, but there’s concern that the influential real estate industry could serve as a roadblock to the provision.
The state is confronting the complications of flooding in other ways, too, and going directly at what once was a third rail. Environmental officials are formally calling on Massachusetts to establish a voluntary buyout program for residential properties at risk of being consumed by rising seas.
Massachusetts regulators didn’t enforce their own climate rule
CommonWealth Beacon reported exclusively on court documents filed earlier this year that show that state agencies didn’t follow a 2017 climate rule and that the state Department of Environmental Protection didn’t enforce it, either. The rule requires agencies to report on and reduce the emissions of their state-owned vehicles, but the DEP said in court filings connected to a lawsuit that the state brought against Exxon that they haven’t received any such agency reports and didn’t take any enforcement action to comply with the regulation.
The rule came about in response to a landmark lawsuit brought by the Conservation Law Foundation and other groups, in which a court in 2016 found that the state needed to issue more specific regulations to meet the 2050 climate commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent.
