New England Gas Overreliance Drives Power Crunch, Regulator Says

As New England faces another energy supply crunch this winter, a key US regulator said the country’s reliance on natural gas and lack of diversification are to blame.

Northeastern US states are confronting the new reality of being overly dependent on a volatile, global commodity to heat homes and run power plants after facing years of low prices during the shale natural gas boom, Allison Clements, commissioner for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said Monday in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg News in New York.

The region has closed nearly all its coal plants and has been reluctant to ...