Source: Shirley Leung and Jon Chesto/Boston Globe
For Joe Kennedy III, politics isn’t the only family business.
The former Congressman from Newton would be the first to tell you he’s surprised as anyone that he’s following in his father’s footsteps as president of Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit Joe Kennedy II founded in 1979 known for getting low-cost heating oil to low-income families during the energy shocks of that era.
At one time, you might remember, ads promoting 1-877-JOE-4-OIL were ubiquitous, touting a program that gave away over half a billion of dollars of fuel to millions of households across half the country.
For Joe Kennedy III, politics isn’t the only family business.
The former Congressman from Newton would be the first to tell you he’s surprised as anyone that he’s following in his father’s footsteps as president of Citizens Energy Corp., a nonprofit Joe Kennedy II founded in 1979 known for getting low-cost heating oil to low-income families during the energy shocks of that era.
At one time, you might remember, ads promoting 1-877-JOE-4-OIL were ubiquitous, touting a program that gave away over half a billion of dollars of fuel to millions of households across half the country.
“I’m not a marketing genius. Luckily the letters still worked on the phone number,” quipped Joe Kennedy III, who has been at the helm of Citizens since 2023. “We are now the largest provider of low-income community solar in Massachusetts and New York.”
Now he’s planning to go big in California, where Citizens is proposing to invest up to $1 billion to help Pacific Gas & Electric upgrade its transmission system to increase energy reliability and affordability. Citizens will use a big portion of the profits from the partnership to shave some $450 million over 35 years off of the bills of low- and moderate-income customers.
JKIII came to Citizens at his father’s urging, after his failed bid to unseat Senator Ed Markey in 2020. It was an embarrassing loss for someone once deemed the future of the Democratic Party, and it made him the first Kennedy to lose an election in Massachusetts.
Like his father, JKIII knows a lot about energy. While in Congress, he sat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce committee. After meeting with the Citizens team, Kennedy realized his dad was onto something in helping the country make the transition to renewable energy.
“I turned to him and I said, ‘Look, you might not realize what you’ve got,’” Kennedy told his dad. “Let’s scale it.”
The younger Kennedy saw how Citizens can accelerate the build-out of solar, wind, and other clean energy infrastructure with its capital and its understanding of the community process. That’s where spending eight years in Congress comes in handy.
Utility projects are notoriously controversial, something Kennedy wants to change, because delays caused by protests and lawsuits are among the biggest cost drivers. The skills he learned in politics, he said, can help smooth the path.
“Barney Frank, my predecessor [in Congress], had the best definition of government I ever heard. He said, ‘Government is simply the name we give to the things we do together.’ It’s people sitting around a table trying to solve a problem,” Kennedy said.
“If you go through that process and you treat people with respect that they deserve, as if somebody’s building it in your backyard, you oftentimes can find a way to get there.”
Any conversation with a Kennedy invariably circles back to politics. He dipped back briefly when then-President Biden tapped him as economic liaison to Northern Ireland. On the question of whether JKIII would seek office again, he punts. But if you ask him if he misses being in Congress, he’s unequivocal. “No FOMO … It is a brutal, toxic place,” he said. “I’m in no hurry to get back to that mess.”
