The cost of doing business in Massachusetts has always been high, and it’s even higher today, with companies facing the increased cost of everything from health care to taxes to unemployment insurance.

 

But over the past few years, a new entrant to the field has emerged: the cost of energy.

 

Massachusetts residents and businesses pay some of the highest energy costs in the country: We rank the second-highest in the continental United States for electricity and first for natural gas. So Governor Maura Healey is right to be discussing energy costs and casting a wide net on solutions to a complex problem with few easy answers.

 

High energy costs permeate our entire economy, increasing prices for everyday items and acting as a hidden tax on health care, housing, and more, hampering the state’s competitiveness.

 

The 4,000 members of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts pride themselves on their commitment to sustainable business practices and believe in making a difference in their communities while managing rising business costs. But that balancing act gets tougher every day.

 

For example, RAM member Tropical Foods is a small independent grocer with 100 employees that has been serving diverse families in Roxbury for more than a half century. Owner and president Ronn Garry sees the impact of rising costs every day on the vulnerable population he serves. Like many other small businesses, he is constantly weighing the needs of his company with maintaining affordability for his customers.

 

Consuming more than 100,000 kilowatt-hour of electricity in an average month, Tropical Foods faces an annual electricity bill topping $300,000. A closer look reveals what is driving its high electric bills — and what the governor could do to help businesses like Tropical Foods.

 

In addition to the cost of purchasing and delivering electricity, Tropical Foods’ bill contains a number of charges — five separately listed — related to advancing the Commonwealth’s electrification and climate goals. Two charges listed subsidize solar energy, another supports electric vehicle charging, and two more pay for renewable energy and energy efficiency. Collectively these add nearly $3,000 to the business’s bill every month.

 

Other charges not itemized include costs for its electricity supplier to comply with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to reduce carbon emissions and to subsidize the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, which requires a percentage of electric power to be derived from certain renewable sources. Together, these add an additional $4,000 per month. By next year, hidden and opaque charges on Tropical Foods’ bill could total more than $80,000 per year — more than 20 percent of its total bill.

 

These charges — totaling billions of dollars annually for ratepayers — are a big reason Massachusetts electricity costs have nearly doubled over the past decade, far exceeding inflation.

 

That’s why RAM supports Healey’s increasing focus on affordability and her “all-of-the-above” approach to energy as a hopeful sign for small businesses like Tropical Foods. These include her recent openness to increasing our supply of natural gas and nuclear power and recent request to the Department of Public Utilities for cost transparency and examining charges on customers’ bills.

 

A House energy bill recently advanced by committee chair Mark Cusack of Braintree starts an equally important conversation. With still only 15 percent of the electricity on New England’s grid renewable and our short-term emissions target almost certainly out of reach, the bill would shift our statutorily mandated 2030 target of reducing emissions 50 percent below 1990 levels to an advisory goal. It’s based on a fundamental question: Should small businesses and their customers continue to bear these cost burdens? Or would these resources be better used to lower prices directly?

 

Like state health care mandates — which by some estimates now constitute a quarter of small business premiums — energy mandates are a double whammy for retailers because they not only make it harder for small businesses to employ people in Massachusetts, but they also make it harder for customers to afford living here.

 

Small businesses are engines of the Massachusetts economy and the anchors of some of our communities’ most vulnerable populations. With so many costs that are out of control — from tariffs to the resurgence of inflation — policy makers must act urgently and decisively on the issues we can control and seek a fairer, more cost-effective path forward. For the sake of our economy and communities, let’s begin with reliable, affordable energy.