By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – Saying nearly 100,000 New Hampshire ratepayers could see natural gas bills increase by more than 16 percent under Liberty Utilities proposed $35.8 million rate increase request, Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander, D-NH was successful Thursday in having the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission grant her request to intervene.
It is “really kinda ballsy” and “pleasantly audacious” for a member of Congress to intervene; “I’ve never seen it before,” said New Hampshire Consumer Advocate Don Kreis.
A copy of her request to intervene is here https://goodlander.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hon.-Maggie-Goodlander-Petition-to-Intervene-in-DG-26-037-Liberty-Utilities-Request-for-a-Change-in-Rates.pdf
“I have the responsibility to represent the interests of my constituents including Liberty ratepayers and to advocate on their behalf on matters affecting their economic wellbeing,” Goodlander wrote. “My participation in the procedure is to ensure that the…concerns of the New Hampshire constituents I represent are heard and considered as the Commission evaluates Liberty’s request for a rate increase,” her petition reads.
The District 2, first-term congresswoman appeared in person before the PUC at a pre-hearing on the matter Thursday morning and was granted her petition to intervene in the pending rate case, her office confirmed, as the utility requests changes to its permanent rates that would increase operating revenues.
Officials for Liberty Utilities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
If the rate hike is approved by the PUC, Goodlander said the increase would raise a typical residential heating customer’s monthly bill by nearly $26 dollars a month.
Non-heating customers would also see bills rise by more than $12, a 20.52 percent increase, according to Liberty’s customer notice.
Those costs would fall on the nearly 100,000 New Hampshire customers Liberty serves across 35 cities and towns.
With her petition now granted, Goodlander will be allowed to advocate for the interests of constituents and communities across New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District as the Commission considers Liberty’s requested rate increase, capital investments, and recovery of those costs from ratepayers.
Liberty has also asked the Commission to approve a temporary rate increase of nearly $11 million, according to the PUC’s August 17 Order of Notice — an increase ratepayers could see on their bills as soon as November 1, months before the Commission rules on the full request.
“Granite Staters are already getting crushed by the high cost of energy, and they deserve to know that every dollar they are being asked to pay is necessary and that Liberty is making the investments it needs to reliably serve our communities,” said Goodlander.
“For months, I’ve been demanding answers from Liberty on behalf of families, small businesses, and communities that have been left in the dark about whether they can count on the natural gas service they need. Now Liberty is asking its customers to pay more. I’m seeking to intervene in this case because Granite Staters deserve affordability, transparency, and accountability, and I will leave no stone unturned in fighting for them.”
Goodlander is facing a re-election bid and won the Democratic primary this week over Paige Beauchemin. She will face Lily Tang Williams, the Republican winner of the primary in a rematch of the 2024 race this November in the general election.
Goodlander has pressed the company for answers since convening local officials, developers, businesses, and other stakeholders in the Lakes Region on April 7 to examine Liberty’s refusal to connect new customers in Franklin and surrounding communities. It is a policy she claims that has stalled housing and economic development.
Her June 11 oversight letter demanded specifics on the scope of Liberty’s refusal to provide service and Liberty’s plan to fix it.
Liberty’s response, she said, left significant questions unanswered — questions that now sit squarely inside the PUC’s review of how Liberty’s capital investments, and their cost, will be recovered from ratepayers.
She said the rate case turns on the very infrastructure spending at the heart of Liberty’s “moratorium” and decision to deny its customers service.
In a press release earlier this summer Goodlander’s office said Liberty’s own testimony lays out its plan to replace the aging 22-mile “High Line” pipeline serving the Lakes Region — the same project she has spent months investigating.
“Goodlander’s petition makes her distinct interest in this rate case clear: the same ratepayers Goodlander represents in Congress may be asked to disproportionately shoulder the cost of that investment,” it states.
The Nashua resident has also pressed the Public Utilities Commission to reconsider an Eversource rate hike, introduced bipartisan, bicameral legislation to accelerate hydropower production and lower energy costs, joined a bipartisan letter urging President Trump to address skyrocketing energy prices, launched the Lowering Costs Caucus, and cosponsored bipartisan legislation to lower utility costs for Granite Staters.
Before she was elected to Congress, Goodlander served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, where she said she took on the corporate monopolies driving up the cost of healthcare, housing, food, and more for hardworking people across New Hampshire and America.
With New Hampshire offices in Tilton, Concord, Lebanon and Keene, Liberty Utilities provides service to 1.2 million customer locations in North America, according to its website. The PUC docket in the case is numbered DG 26-037.