NRDC Report: How Trump’s Actions Are Hiking Utility Bills and Destroying Investments

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The full suite of President Trump’s actions is set to destroy a massive $700 billion in new power investments over the next decade, leading utility bills to spike by an average of $230 a year, while old, dirty coal plants spew more pollution, according to a new NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) report released today.

The report, An Affordability Crisis of Trump’s Making, is the fullest assessment yet of the expected impacts of the actions this administration has taken to curtail clean electricity – from levying new tariffs to paying off wind developers not to build new projects. While Trump promised to cut power bills in half within 18 months, customers are instead paying the highest electricity bills in history, up 16% so far in this term.

Cutting off $700 billion in projected new investments means the U.S. loses 40% of all the new power expected to be built before Trump took office. That, in turn, means a half million fewer clean energy jobs per year, increasing utility bills, more asthma and heart disease – and 600 million metric tons of additional carbon emissions a year, essentially doubling the power sector's climate footprint in 2035.

“From day one of this term, the Trump administration has waged war on clean energy, destroying new investments, while owners of old, polluting coal plants get handouts and free passes to pollute,” said Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at NRDC and a co-author of the report. “As a result, utility bills are on the rise, projects are cancelled, jobs are lost and more pollution is endangering the health of our families and the climate. Without a correction in course, it’s going to get much worse in the decade to come.”

The NRDC report, which was co-authored by senior policy analyst Yuqi Zhu, used an energy model from Evolved Energy Research to compare the likely impact on the electricity sector of the Trump administration’s policies to those in place when it took office. The policy changes analyzed include the planned repeal of power plant emission standards, tariffs, rescission of tax credits for wind and solar, and permitting delays or cancellations. Both cases consider the impact of those policies through 2035 and both account for the rapid growth in demand for electricity driven by data centers.

Key findings include:

1. By 2035, U.S. consumers will spend up to $30 billion more a year on electricity under Trump’s policies, with average utility bills up $230 that year alone. Customers in Texas, Oklahoma and the Great Plains get hit with the steepest increases.
2. $700 billion in lost investment in the U.S. power system over the next decade, including the loss of 390 to 540 gigawatts of new wind, solar, and energy storage projects.
3. More air pollution from older coal and gas plants running more to make up the gap resulting in up to 69,000 additional early deaths and 85,000 extra emergency room visits and hospital admissions over the next decade.  The total public health cost will be an estimated as $177 billion per year by 2035, reflecting the monetized harm from more premature deaths, greater rates of illnesses, higher health care spending and the impact from more people out sick from work and school.
4. Power sector carbon dioxide emissions could be twice as high by 2035, with the United States as a whole emitting an additional 3.6 to 5.5 billion metric tons over the next decade. For context, 5.5 billion metric tons is greater than the total net greenhouse gas emissions produced by the United States in 2025. 

To be sure, the economics of new solar, wind and storage mean they will still grow despite the attempts by this administration to throttle their growth. Even with the rollbacks, tariff impacts, and permitting delays, renewable electricity is forecast to grow to about half of all electricity generation by 2035 from roughly 25 percent today. But that’s below the nearly two-thirds of all generation from renewable energy that was expected if the previous policies had been maintained. With older coal and gas plants running more to fill that gap, that leads to the expected doubling in carbon emissions from the power sector by 2035.

“The main effect of Trump’s policies is to keep old, less efficient coal plants belching away while cleaner options are left on the sidelines,” Zhu said. “Higher bills for a dirtier grid is not what Americans voted for – or want.  One way or another, we’re all paying the price.”

The report finds that in certain parts of the country household electricity rates increase by as much as 25 percent due to Trump’s policies by 2035, with some of the highest rate increases occurring in Texas, Florida and New York, as well as states across the Great Plains and Upper Midwest.

NRDC is tracking every step of the Trump administration's attacks on public health and the environment. Go to White House Watch for the comprehensive list of these attacks. To subscribe to our weekly newsletter, email jbar@nrdc.org.