Look at any news publication around the country right now, and you’ll see headlines declaring that energy prices are up everywhere. Not only that, but people are seeing record-setting utility bills.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to slash energy bills in half. Instead, nine months into his presidency, families are facing greater financial hardship than a year ago.
It’s one thing for Trump to gamble and fail at personal business ventures, but he’s playing with our dollars. Thanks to his policies, energy costs are rising at twice the rate of inflation. Let’s dive into some of the ways Trump is making life more expensive for us all.
Trump’s Obsession with Fossil Fuels Comes at Our Expense
We know from Trump’s first presidency that he’s a friend to the fossil fuel industry. Now, that friendship has turned into an obsession. On Trump’s first day in office, he declared a “national energy emergency” and signed an executive order promising to “unleash American energy”. What does he have to show for it? Broken promises and higher bills.
By forcing the nation to cater to the fossil fuel industry, he’s putting us in an increasingly hard financial position. Other Trump policies are adding more fuel to the fire. Here are some of his most egregious moves.
Fast-tracking liquefied natural gas projects.Exporting liquified natural gas (LNG) makes U.S. energy prices vulnerable to volatile changes in the global market. This will drive up energy prices here at home.
The natural gas industry, especially, has positioned itself as affordable. Yet these promises have proved empty. For example, Pennsylvania is the second-largest gas producer in the country, but that has failed to translate into lower energy bills for residents.
With Trump’s support of gas infrastructure, from LNG terminals to pipelines, he’s locking us into a volatile and expensive energy source.
The United States began phasing out coal because it’s incredibly polluting, bad for miners’ health, and expensive. Trump seems to think that, if you say a thing often enough, it will eventually come true. But for “clean, beautiful coal”, it simply will never exist.
By forcing aging coal power plants to stay open, Trump is actually costing taxpayers $3-6 billion per year. And by one analysis, replacing almost every coal plant with solar and wind energy generation would be both cost-effective and save people big in the long run.
From Alabama to California, Pennsylvania to Texas, communities around the country are facing proposed data centers that threaten grid instability and high electricity prices.
Instead of addressing these concerns and their tangible harms, the Trump administration has moved to fast-track the build-out of these energy-greedy data centers. Ratepayers in seven states already paid $4.4 billion more on their bills last year to bring data centers online, before this year’s boom.
