With the onset of cold weather and higher electricity prices, Massachusetts officials will press the federal government to ease restrictions on shipments of liquefied natural gas into New England in order to control costs and improve the energy grid's reliability.

The demand in winter for natural gas to heat homes and generate electricity exceeds the supply of natural gas being delivered to the state via the existing pipeline infrastructure, a longstanding problem for which environmental Nimbyism can take credit.

Restricting natural-gas shipments has been tolerated even though that energy source remains the overwhelming heating option for Massachusetts residents. According to Mass.gov, just over 50 percent of the state's households rely on natural gas for heat -- more than all other fuel types combined.

This supply-demand imbalance forces power generators to depend on shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil to generate enough electricity for the grid.

But as with natural gas, getting the LNG to where it's most needed, New England, also has been stymied - in this instance by an arbitrary and antiquated legal high-seas roadblock.

Thanks to the Jones Act, a 1920 federal law that limits the transportation of any cargo between U.S. ports to ships built in this country and owned by U.S. citizens, Massachusetts receives most of its LNG shipments from the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, some 2,300 miles distant.


The practical effect of this law, enacted to protect the U.S. maritime and shipping industries from foreign competitors, as well as provide sufficient vessels in times of war, is two-fold. By creating a monopoly for U.S. carriers of domestic, seagoing shipping, it's led to higher prices and less incentive to increase the carrier fleet.

That's reflected in the modest U.S. share of overall maritime shipping, a market dominated by Greece, China, Singapore, Germany, Japan, and South Korea.

In an energy report released last week, the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) indicated that despite an abundance of cheap natural gas, the lack of Jones Act-compliant carriers makes the cost to import domestic LNG prohibitive. That forces this state to do business with faraway countries, while "U.S. gas is sent overseas on foreign-flagged ships."

Given this intolerable situation, Gov. Charlie Baker, backed by other New England governors, wants federal officials to ease the Jones Act restrictions so this region can receive LNG shipments from domestic carriers.

There's precedent for this action. According to the State House News Service, the Jones Act has been suspended or amended previously, in the wake of a natural disaster or other mass calamities.

The EEA also indicated such a waiver or exemption "could be done permanently or semi-permanently to ensure a reliable and affordable supply of LNG to Massachusetts consumers."

Given this region's natural-gas demand at this time of year, forgoing these restrictive Jones Act conditions should be approved immediately.

Federal officials need only reference last year's frigid stretch from Christmas Day until early January -- which forced power plants to burn twice the amount of oil used in all of 2016 to make up for the natural-gas shortfall - to appreciate our vulnerable situation.