The state Department of Public Utilities has yet to respond to Maura Healey’s letter calling for the agency to take immediate action to alleviate surging energy prices that critics say are driven by the governor’s hostility toward natural gas.

A DPU spokesperson has said the agency, which approved rate hikes for the state’s primary gas companies, Eversource and Natural Grid, last fall, is also reviewing a letter received from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about their “deep concerns regarding the steep increases.”

The agency “will respond soon” to the letters, the DPU spokesperson wrote to the Herald on Tuesday. “We have listened to ratepayers, and we will be working directly with the gas companies over the coming days to pursue revisions to their delivery rates to provide relief as soon as possible for their customers.”

The statement is the same one provided to reporters on Monday.

DPU approved rate hikes of 20 to 30% for Eversource and 11 to 13% for National Grid last November.

Healey has called on the DPU to “proactively identify ways to reduce future price volatility for natural gas customers and make rate changes more transparent and predictable,” similar to what she claimed the agency did just two years ago to address a spike in electricity costs.

“People did not plan for these extraordinary utility rate increases, and they can only do so much to stretch a budget. The DPU must act immediately to provide rate relief to customers in this heating season,” Healey said in a letter she sent to DPU Chairman Jamie Van Nostrand on Sunday.

DPU leaders are “engaged in high-level discussions” with gas companies that distribute to the state, exploring how their delivery charges can be “revised so that their customers do not experience further price volatility,” the agency spokesperson said.

Delivery charges carry most of the weight behind the dramatic increases, upping bills for some Bay Staters by $500 or more. They cover “costs for essential services to ensure the gas for heating is provided safely while satisfying legislative mandates” and the Mass Save rebate program” which Healey has increased to align with her decarbonization agenda.

Paul Diego Craney, spokesman for watchdog Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, told the Herald on Tuesday that the high utility prices should come as no surprise under the Healey administration. He highlighted how the governor “stopped more natural gas from entering Massachusetts” as attorney general, a feat she “bragged about” on the campaign trail.

“The Healey administration is ideologically hostile to natural gas,” Craney said, “and her administration will continue to pursue policies that lead to more expensive natural gas costs in hopes that ratepayers will be comfortable with very expensive renewable energy costs.”

Eversource officials have attributed “higher natural gas usage, resulting from the colder temperatures” as the “primary driver” for the increases confronting customers.

The utility company typically adjusts the natural gas supply rate twice a year, in May and November, but had to readjust the rate at the start of February as market costs “significantly increased” during a bitterly cold January.

“To all my constituents in Billerica and to those everywhere in the Commonwealth – I hear you,” Republican State Rep. Marc Lombardo wrote in an X post Monday night. “(Healey) and Beacon Hill Dems have voted for a ridiculous green energy portfolio and have stopped pipelines from coming to MA to lower prices.”

While there’s a push for natural gas, the DPU has “further emphasized the necessity … to decarbonize by minimizing additional investment in natural gas infrastructure.”

“The benefits of energy efficiency and deployment of more clean energy resources are not directly quantified on bills,” the agency has said, “but reach all customers by reducing demand on the grid, which ultimately results in lower overall energy prices.”