By William Murray
A not particularly prominent feature of American democracy is the ability of voters to respond with shock and blame whoever is in charge when things don’t go well. So it makes a twisted sense that, as 2026 approaches, the Trump administration should pay the political price for the poor energy policies it inherited from the Biden administration and Democratic governors.
Years of stagnant energy demand and relatively stable electricity prices have clouded Americans’ understanding of the energy industry. Now demand for new data centers, the end of cheap natural gas and President Biden’s policy of replacing baseload nuclear and coal power with wind and solar have disrupted electricity price signals enough to squeeze household budgets and stun homeowners – just in time for a colder-than-average winter.
The numbers are as stark as a slate-gray November sky. Household spending on electricity for heating is expected to rise 10% this winter to more than $1,200. Utilities requested a $29 billion rate increase in the first half of 2025, twice as much as last year. According to Utility Dive, residential electricity rates rose 6.6% year-over-year in June 2025, after already rising nearly 30% between 2021 and 2024.
The reasons for this surge in electricity are varied, but as a policy brief from the National Center for Energy Analytics shows, subsidies for wind and solar power are the primary cause. Subsidies like the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) distort electricity markets by artificially lowering prices, sometimes even into negative territory, driving otherwise competitive but unsubsidized power generation out of the market.
Interestingly, the study found that the argument that increasing demand from data center expansion is leading to an increase in average rates is not supported by the facts. The state of Virginia has built the most data centers in the past two years, but Virginia ratepayers have seen below-average rate increases and are still paying below-average electricity rates.
The Big Beautiful Bill passed by Congress in July partially solved some of these market signaling problems by accelerating the phase-out of wind and solar projects by the end of 2027, but that fact cannot warm the homes of families making difficult decisions every day in the winter of 2025-26.
One hundred dollars more per month in the winter means no sports or academic camps for teenagers in the summer. Fifty dollars a month can be the difference between seeking mental health counseling or battling clinical depression on your own. Energy prices don’t play games.
In places like Massachusetts and California, where green energy policies have gone too far, the pain is both real and self-inflicted, raising questions about why voters continue to elect Democrats who favor self-actualization over public service.
Residential electricity prices in California have risen 125% in the last 15 years as renewable energy subsidies squeezed out existing nuclear and natural gas sources, all with the support of adorable Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In Massachusetts, politicians like Governor Maura Healey are showing us that adults can still be childish. She and other (almost exclusively Democratic) politicians in New England don’t want new pipelines to transport natural gas from the super-cheap Marcellus shale formation in Pennsylvania, lest they offend climate consciousness.
Instead, they imported LNG from 3,000 miles away in Norway, which cost an average of more than $12 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) between January and March 2024. Meanwhile, average realized sales prices for Marcellus shale gas less than 150 miles away during the same period were between $2.10 and $2.20 per Mcf, just one-sixth of the price. Not very smart.
As a result, perhaps taking a cue from Harvard and Stanford universities within their borders raising tuition fees, both states now have the highest electricity rates in the country, over 30 cents per kilowatt hour. Good job, Einsteins.
Leaving the energy policy equivalent of a burning paper bag full of feces on the porch for the Trump administration to let out could be good policy for Democratic governors. However, if the United States wants to win the future, we must move away from the Energy Hunger Games and put in place permanent policies that a subsequent occupant of the White House will not overturn.
And some states are doing better with their energy policies, and not just carbon-rich states like Texas or Kentucky that have some geological largesse. States like Indiana, which imports energy from other states, have slowed the coal phase-out through legislative action, passing laws that require utilities to demonstrate grid reliability before replacing coal with renewables.
Even Democratic-led states like Illinois have resisted closing baseload nuclear plants despite political pressure from net-zero and anti-nuclear groups.
And some states are doing even more. Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a sweeping law aimed at reducing energy costs and making energy affordable for his ratepayers in the states and countries he serves.
And at the federal level, Congressman Troy Balderson is trying to make affordable, reliable and clean energy security the federal standard. If you want to enshrine sustainable energy into law, states must follow leaders like Governor Landry. And if we as a country have any brains left in our screen-addled heads, we must place Balderson’s ARC ES Act on the President’s desk for his signature.
Energy production should be a kitchen table issue, but with a longer lead time than the current election cycle. We should be able to pay less to get more. The Trump administration is doing more in this regard than any other administration in history. Opening up Alaska, easing leasing restrictions on federal lands, and cutting subsidies for electric vehicles and renewable energy are nice. In the meantime, the states and the federal government must take action.
In the end, we’re all food for worms, but until then, people — especially Americans facing the winter season — have things to do, dreams to pursue, and places to go where the future can thrive.
Here’s to a more favorable year 2026.
William Murray is a former chief speechwriter at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), former editor of RealClearEnergy from 2015 to 2017, and has covered energy and environmental policy in Washington DC as a journalist and analyst for the past two decades.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
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