In the decade since natural gas surpassed coal as the leading source of electricity in the U.S., some states have become more dependent on gas than others when it comes to the power generation within their borders. 

Rhode Island, Delaware, and Massachusetts are the three most natural gas-dependent states in the U.S., where the fossil fuel – a potent source of climate-warming pollution – makes up the highest percentage of their electricity generation portfolios, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2025, 87 percent of the power produced within Rhode Island’s borders came from natural gas, along with 85 percent in Delaware and 77 percent in Massachusetts.

The relatively heavy reliance on natural gas for in-state electricity generation might seem surprising for these majority-Democratic states whose political leadership include some of the biggest climate hawks in Congress. For example, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, both Democrats from Massachusetts are unwavering in their opposition to expanding pipelines for natural gas in their state.

Polling indicates that these states are some of the most climate-conscious in the U.S., with 70 percent of people in Massachusetts responding that they are worried about climate change, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. In Rhode Island and Delaware, those numbers are 68 percent and 67 percent, respectively. 

So if these states are so concerned about global warming, why do they generate such a large percentage of their power from natural gas? 

The reasons relate to restraints on available land for large solar and wind farms in the Northeast, how states share electricity across state lines, and – more recently – opposition from the Trump Administration to offshore wind projects.

Rhode Island and Massachusetts are among the top three for percentage of gas power despite having some of the strongest renewable electricity standards in the U.S. Rhode Island passed legislation in 2022 requiring it to get to 100 percent renewable energy by 2033. Massachusetts is targeting 40 percent renewable energy by 2030. Delaware’s renewable portfolio standard requires the state to get 40 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2035, including 10 percent from solar power. 

However, because electricity flows constantly across state lines, data on power generated within a state’s borders tell only part of the story. 

Under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, states cannot interfere with interstate commerce, a power that belongs to the federal government. That means that states cannot legally mandate that electricity suppliers only build renewable power inside their state’s lines, said Warren Leon, executive director of the Clean States Energy Alliance. 

“States like Massachusetts and Rhode Island could do certain things that are legal that provide incentives for in-state development, but they cannot force the utilities and the electricity suppliers to only build stuff in the state,” Leon said. “It’s a regional system, and Massachusetts and Rhode Island are doing what they should be doing to move the system towards renewables.” 

The U.S. as a whole got about 41 percent of its power from natural gas in 2025, more than from any other source, followed by renewables (24 percent) nuclear energy (18 percent), and coal (17 percent), according to the Energy Information Administration.

In 2016, natural gas surpassed coal as the dominant fuel to produce electricity, a position coal had held since the Industrial Revolution. That has largely been driven by advances in the 2000s in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, which unlocked vast amounts of relatively cheap gas from underground shale formations previously considered too unprofitable to develop. 

However, wind and solar power are now gaining quickly, driven by low costs per megawatt-hour compared to fossil fuels. In March, renewables – including solar, wind, hydropower, and bioenergy – generated more power in a month than any other fuel source, surpassing even natural gas for the first time. 

Despite the political momentum in the Northeast for moving away from fossil fuels, small states like Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts have barriers to expanding renewables. Land is scarcer in New England than in the wide-open West, which makes building wind farms more challenging. And the Northeast gets less sunshine than states like Texas or California, which lead the nation in the amount of renewable power generated each year. 

Because of this, offshore wind has emerged as the best option to rapidly expand renewables in New England and parts of the Mid-Atlantic. But recently, the Trump Administration has become a major roadblock to offshore wind, working to try to block Rhode Island’s first offshore wind project. 

In August 2025, the Trump Administration ordered developers of Revolution Wind, about 15 miles south of the Rhode Island coast, to stop construction when the project was already about 80 percent complete. The administration ended up losing in court, and the finished project began producing wind power in March, after delays and costs caused by opposition.

Earlier this year, the Trump Administration also said it would pay $928 million in taxpayer dollars to French company TotalEnergies to stop building wind projects in offshore waters the company had leased during the Biden Administration off the coasts of New York and North Carolina. 

In Delaware, offshore wind power has also faced local pushback, with Sussex County in southern Delaware in 2024 voting to deny a permit for an electrical substation needed for an offshore wind project planned by US Wind. The state legislature later passed a new law overriding that local decision, and Delaware’s Supreme Court upheld the law in May, allowing the project to proceed, after much litigation and cost. 

Offshore wind projects off the coast of Delaware and its neighboring states have struggled to get off the ground during the Trump Administration, said Dustyn Thompson, executive director of the Delaware Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Antagonistic seems like a nice way to put it,” Thompson said of the administration’s approach to wind power.  

In 2024, the Delaware legislature passed a wind procurement bill allowing the state to solicit bids for wind projects, either independently or alongside neighboring states. But that legislation requires that projects only move forward if state energy officials expect there is a meaningful chance that wind companies will bid for them, Thompson said. 

This requirement reflects the reality that developers know that the Trump Administration is a major obstacle to moving away from natural gas and toward cleaner alternatives like wind.  Delaware officials are unsure “if anyone is crazy enough to move forward right now,” with new wind development proposals, Thompson said.  

When it comes to the raw amount of power – and pollution – generated within a state’s borders, Texas takes the lead.  In 2025, the Lone Star State generated about 576 million megawatt-hours of power using natural gas.  That was about 47 percent more than the next-highest state, Florida, which generated almost 391 million megawatt-hours of power from natural gas last year. 

Texas residents also use far more energy per person than people living in Rhode Island, Delaware, or Massachusetts. In 2024, Texas residents on average consumed 464 million British thermal units (a unit that allows comparison across multiple types of energy), according to the EIA. That is 2.7 times as much as consumed by Rhode Island residents, on average, at 169 million British thermal units (mmBtu). Massachusetts residents consumed 181 mmBtu and Delaware residents consumed 249 mmBtu in 2024 per capita.  

All states except Alaska and Hawaii receive power from outside their borders via larger regional electric grids. Massachusetts and Rhode Island are both part of the New England Independent System Operator (ISO), which also includes Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont. Delaware is part of PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid operator, whose territory includes all the Mid-Atlantic states except New York, along with Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and parts of North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Tennessee. 

In 2025, New England ISO’s energy mix includes 55 percent gas, 25 percent nuclear, 13 percent renewables, and a little over 6 percent hydropower as of late January (before the startup of Revolution Wind). PJM Interconnection’s mix included 43 percent gas, 31 percent nuclear, 17 percent coal, 4 percent wind, and 3 percent solar in 2025. 

Compare that to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, whose territory covers most of the Lone Star State. In 2025, the Texas grid operator’s mix included 41 percent gas, 23 percent wind, 14 percent solar, 13 percent coal, and 8 percent nuclear. 

Those numbers show that Texas – a global epicenter of drilling and gas production – actually gets a smaller percentage of its power from natural gas than New England and the Mid Atlantic and parts of the Midwest.