Green activists and their political allies are working overtime to try to blame rising electricity bills on President Trump — his One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), his tighter scrutiny of wind and solar, and even emergency reliability orders. The data tell a different story: prices climbed sharply before the OBBBA could plausibly matter, demand is rising fast, the “renewables are cheap” sales pitch is still history, and the system-wide costs land on ratepayers.
The price record — before OBBBA
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has recently rallied Democrats around electricity prices, calling them one of the Republicans’ “weakest points.” Democratic lawmakers are flooding town halls and social media with claims that Republican hostility toward renewables is driving up utility bills, and Democratic-aligned groups are spending millions on advertising to make the same point.
But the reality is that electricity rates have been rising for years:
- Residential electricity prices jumped ~25% during the Biden years: the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Electric Power Monthly shows the U.S. residential average rising from 13.15¢/kWh in 2020 to 16.48¢/kWh in 2024 — about +25% — with 2025 running higher still.
- They’re still rising: From June 2024 to June 2025, average electric rates increased nearly 7%, with more hikes pending, according to reporting on new analysis from the Center for American Progress.
If the OBBBA and President Trump’s policies are the culprit, why were prices already up so much before their provisions could even bite?
Policy timing matters
The OBBBA’s phase-outs don’t rip out existing subsidies tomorrow morning, next month, or even next year. As explained in our earlier analysis, the OBBBA ends the wind/solar Production Tax Credit (PTC) and Investment Tax Credit (ITC) only for new facilities placed in service after Dec. 31, 2027, and for projects that haven’t begun construction by July 4, 2026 — with a further “begin construction” carve-out that can stretch eligibility into 2030. And because the PTC pays for 10 years, projects placed in service before those deadlines can collect into the 2030s. In short, there is no near-term subsidy cliff.
Even analysts whose policy preferences do not align with those of President Trump concede there’s a lag before any Trump-era policy shift shows up in regulated retail rates. As MIT’s Christopher Knittel put it, “Trump’s effects on the rate changes won’t take place until after the midterms.”
Demand is the near-term driver
Electricity use is setting new records in 2025–26, driven in part by artificial intelligence (AI)/data centers, with the EIA and market analysts flagging broad-based growth in residential, commercial, and industrial sales. Demand growth pushes utilities to add capacity, wires, and balancing services — costs recovered in rates regardless of whether the new megawatt is “renewable” or not.
“Cheapest power” vs. the bill on your kitchen table
The belief that the OBBBA and President Trump’s policies will increase the price of electricity assumes that adding more wind and solar to the electric grid will result in lower electricity rates. Green activists argue that wind and solar are the “cheapest” source of electricity because the marginal fuel cost is zero; therefore, more renewables should cut bills. But recent history shows this has not been the case.
In 2007, wind and solar produced less than 1% of U.S. electricity generation and then grew to produce 18% of generation in 2024. Inflation-adjusted retail rates stayed in a narrow band until 2019 and have edged up since then.
Why doesn’t more wind and solar necessarily mean lower prices? Because electricity rates reflect the costs of the entire system — backup, balancing, and especially new transmission to remote wind/solar sites.
Offshore wind: the expensive outlier
Trump’s tougher line on offshore wind is portrayed by some as anti-cheap electricity. But the EIA’s 2025 LCOE report shows that offshore wind’s levelized cost is roughly three times onshore wind (about $88/MWh vs. $29/MWh) on a simple-average basis for plants entering service in 2030. That’s before adding the grid integration and reliability plumbing that ratepayers ultimately fund. Offshore wind continues to be expensive for electricity generation, and the election of Donald Trump does not make offshore wind cheap.
Other Western Countries are In a Worse Situation
While electricity rates in the United States rose during the Biden years, rates in Europe are still much, much worse. High electricity prices in Britain, for example, are affecting the competitiveness of businesses and making more Britons energy poor. According to the International Energy Agency, large energy-intensive companies in Britain paid about four times more for electricity last year than U.S. businesses, and more than double businesses in France and Germany. The high power costs have stripped companies of the cash to invest in more efficient machinery and prevented some from competing with foreign businesses.
About that Michigan coal plant
One of President Trump’s policies that has come under assault is the emergency orders keeping some coal plants running, such as the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan. Democrats have accused the Trump administration of increasing consumer costs by requiring the plan to stay online. But instead of costing consumers millions of dollars, as they had predicted, the plant has been profitable. The coal plant generated $33.7 million in revenue between late May and June 30, earning nearly $5 million in profit.
Analysis
The narrative that President Trump’s energy policies are driving up electricity bills simply doesn’t match the timeline or the data. Residential electricity prices surged 25% during the Biden years — well before OBBBA’s provisions could take effect — and continue climbing today. The real drivers are straightforward: soaring electricity demand from AI and data centers, the need for costly grid infrastructure to support intermittent renewables, and system-wide balancing costs that don’t disappear just because wind and solar have zero fuel costs.
The “renewables are cheap” talking point ignores what ratepayers actually experience. Despite wind and solar growing from less than 1% of generation in 2007 to over 18% today, electricity bills haven’t fallen — they’ve risen, especially in recent years. Meanwhile, offshore wind costs roughly three times more than onshore alternatives, and emergency orders keeping reliable coal plants online have actually generated profits rather than imposing the predicted consumer costs.
If green activists and Democrats want to make electricity prices a political issue, they’ll need to explain why bills were already skyrocketing on their watch — and why countries like Britain that have embraced aggressive renewable policies are now paying four times what American businesses pay for electricity. The problem isn’t Trump’s energy policies; it’s the failure to acknowledge that keeping the lights on affordably requires more than wishful thinking about “free” wind and sunshine.
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