Since President Donald Trump took office, household electricity bills have increased by 13%, according to a new factsheet released by U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The factsheet highlights that consumers are expected to face a total of $85.8 billion in proposed or approved cost increases.
The document points to several actions by the Trump Administration as contributing factors. These include delays in permitting more than 500 clean energy projects, rolling back tax credits that help families save money, imposing taxes on critical metals used in the electric grid, and requiring ratepayers to cover costs for keeping fossil fuel plants operating beyond their planned retirement dates.
Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration supports these findings, showing changes in revenue, sales, customer counts, and retail prices by state and sector (https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia861m/xls/sales_revenue.xlsx).
Senator Heinrich stated: “Right now, Americans are facing an energy affordability crisis – electric bills are skyrocketing for families, and we’re not getting enough energy on our grid to meet the increasing demand from communities and data centers. Donald Trump’s actions are single-handedly making this crisis worse. If we’re serious about lowering utility costs for working families, Donald Trump and his agencies need to stop sitting on routine approvals that are stalling projects across America and preventing them from bringing additional supply onto the grid.”
The factsheet is available for public review.
