Congressional lawmakers are demanding to know how the Trump administration plans to bring down energy prices as electricity bills hit record highs.
“A combination of the Administration’s regulatory decisions, the impacts of tariffs, and the Administration’s reversal of key energy investments is driving up energy bills for Americans around the country,” Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) wrote in a letter to heads of several federal agencies on July 29.
Since the start of the year, electricity prices have increased almost 5 percent — and in June alone, prices increased by almost a full percentage point. Summer electricity bills are expected to be an average of $784, the highest price in at least 12 years, according to the legislators’ letter.
The lawmakers detailed several ways President Donald Trump “continues to make an already dire situation even worse.” His administration has ordered states to “keep defunct, unwanted, and unneeded coal plants open … foisting tens of millions of dollars of new maintenance and retention costs onto consumers in 15 states.”
In May, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former fracking executive, ordered Michigan to keep a coal powered plant open, just eight days before its scheduled closure. Between the end of May and June 30, it cost $29 million to comply with the secretary’s order.
An analysis by Global Witness found that companies and people with ties to the fossil fuel industry donated more than $19 million to Trump’s presidential inaugural fund.
Experts say Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” is likely to drive up energy prices even higher.
“Based on Trump’s tax law and the ongoing rollbacks of environmental standards at the EPA and other agencies, by 2035, families nationwide can expect to pay up to $430 a year more on energy costs,” Natural Resources Defense Council’s editorial director, Jenny Shalant, wrote in a blog post entitled “Why Your Electricity Bill is So High.”
More than 70 million U.S. households struggle to afford their utilities and have to choose between paying their utility bill or buying necessities like food and medicine. Despite rising costs and a widespread need for assistance, the Trump administration fired all of the federal workers who administer the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and has proposed eliminating its federal funding. The program helps approximately 6 million low-income households pay their utility bills.
“Rather than keeping his campaign promise to ‘cut the price of energy and electricity in half,’ President Trump’s shortsighted approach to energy policy is driving prices higher and doing so quickly,” the lawmakers wrote. “At the same time, the Trump Administration is cutting programs that help families afford higher electricity costs and lower their energy usage, all while utility CEOs receive massive payouts.”
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