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Energy giant Kinder Morgan Inc. has pulled the plug on its controversial natural gas pipeline proposed through parts of Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, after failing to sign up enough utility customers and facing stiff consumer and political opposition.

Kinder Morgan said on Wednesday that its Northeast Energy Direct project didn’t receive the commitments from big customers that it needed to proceed with the $3.3 billion plan, which would involve building a 188-mile pipeline from a point west of Albany, N.Y., to Dracut.

The company’s withdrawal represents a huge victory for its array of opponents, ranging from grass-roots organizations to established environmental groups to powerful politicians. They also included residents of the many towns that would be affected by pipeline construction and activists who worried it could make New England overly dependent on natural gas.

From The Boston Globe.

And Governor Baker, who supported his DPU in October 2015 via:

The state Department of Public Utilities issued a ruling on Friday determining that the agency has the legal authority to review and approve contracts for natural gas capacity filed by electric companies. If the agency approves these contracts, costs would be passed on to electricity customers.

That means that even if you use heating oil to warm your house in the winter, you could end up playing a small part in paying to bring more natural gas into the region.

now sounds like a woose:

Asked earlier in the day whether Kinder Morgan and other pipelines developers should be able to pass along the cost of construction to consumers, Gov. Charlie Baker said:

“I’m not paying too much attention to the Kinder Morgan project, primarily because most of that is driven by federal policy and not by state policy. What I’ve said all along is the best way for Massachusetts and New England to ensure that people here in the Commonwealth get the best price they possible can on their electricity and their thermal piece is to have a proactive approach to this and my hope and my anticipation is that that pro-active approach will look like a bill that comes out of the House at some point during this session and gets debated and enacted and includes what I’ve talked about before, which is a combo platter of the two I’m particularly interested in which is hydro and wind.”

(Emphasis added.)

I/we welcome his reasonableness and focus on deepwater wind. I’m not paying too much attention to hydro. It’s not of great interest.

More about Kinder-Morgan.

Comments from Mass Power Forward, the organization coordinating opposition to pipelines and supporting zero Carbon energy.