To: Interested Parties
From: Evergreen Action Deputy Communications Director Seth Nelson
Date: August 19, 2025
Re: Trump’s Energy Price Hike: “We’re Going to Get Blamed” (Because It’s Our Fault)
Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently offered an unintentional moment of honesty about the Trump administration’s energy agenda. Defending a wave of policies that are driving up energy prices, he warned, “We’re going to get blamed.” And he’s right—because basic math doesn’t lie. When you choke off new, low-cost sources of power while demand is skyrocketing, prices go up.
That’s why this week, House Democrats are holding a Cost of Living Week of Action to spotlight how Donald Trump and his Republican allies are breaking their promises and driving up costs for working families. Trump vowed to “cut energy and electricity prices in half” and “make America affordable again.” Voters took him at his word.
But he made another promise too—this one to Big Oil. In exchange for $1 billion in campaign cash, Trump pledged to gut environmental protections and hand out massive new tax breaks to gas up fossil fuel profits. Six months into his presidency, he’s only delivered on that deal. His economic law handed out $18 billion in new tax giveaways, while slashing support for their clean energy competition in the process.
From repealing tax credits to blocking new projects to slapping tariffs on a whim, Trump’s agenda has already driven utilities to request $29 billion in rate hikes this year—more than double this time last year. Meanwhile, his administration is fast-tracking energy-hungry data centers even as it strangles the homegrown clean power needed to meet surging demand.
And it’s not just Democrats raising alarms. Republican governors and senators are warning that Trump’s war on clean energy is threatening their states’ power supply and economic future. Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo said Trump’s permitting crackdown has frozen solar development across his state. A group of GOP Senators, including Chuck Grassley and Lisa Murkowski, have blasted Trump’s move to rewrite the clean energy tax credit phaseout they negotiated, warning it’s already stalling projects in their states.
Now, with Congress out and the blistering heat rising, Trump is doubling down on his clean energy attacks—and sending electric bills soaring. Here’s a breakdown of new actions Trump has taken that are raising household energy costs—and the overall cost of living—for working-class Americans:
Trump’s Energy Price Hike: An Updated Timeline
August 15: Trump’s Treasury rewrites tax credit rules to further block wind and solar projects
Action: Days after signing his disastrous economic bill repealing clean energy tax credits, Trump issued an executive order instructing the Treasury Department to interpret the law as narrowly as possible. That directive led to new guidance restricting a long-established standard used to determine whether developers are considered to have “commenced construction” for tax purposes. The new rules throw up yet another roadblock that will make it difficult for wind and solar projects to qualify for tax credits before they expire next year.
Impact: The new rules throw hundreds of wind and solar projects into limbo by eliminating the decades-old 5% safe harbor provision, which let developers qualify for credits after spending a portion of project costs. Now, projects must prove continuous physical construction—an expensive and legally uncertain hurdle that will threaten funding sources and derail development. With fewer clean energy projects able to break ground, electricity supply will tighten just as demand surges from AI data centers and worsening climate extremes—raising prices for everyone. Or, as Abigail Ross Hopper, the president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, put it, “This is yet another act of energy subtraction from the Trump administration that will further delay the buildout of affordable, reliable power.”
August 13: After illegally freezing NEVI funding, Trump’s DOT is still withholding billions for EV charging
Action: Following months of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s unlawful freeze of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued updated guidance for states to access the funding. But instead of restoring stalled deployment plans, the new rules keep red tape in place, further delaying the federal funding needed to expand EV charging.
Impact: While the administration claims its guidance “slashes red tape,” EV charging projects have been on hold since February, and states are still scrambling to figure out how to move forward. The delay hits rural communities the hardest, where residents are dependent on public charging infrastructure to make the switch to cost-saving EVs. Worse, the updated guidance eliminates a Biden-era requirement that 40% of funds benefit disadvantaged communities. That means fewer chargers, more gasoline use, and higher prices at the pump—especially in rural areas that overwhelmingly voted for Trump.
August 7: Trump’s EPA moves to illegally claw back Solar For All program funding
Action: Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it’s canceling $7 billion in Solar for All grants, falsely claiming it “no longer has the authority” to administer the program. The move amounts to an illegal attempt by Administrator Lee Zeldin to claw back clean energy funds that Congress already appropriated and communities are already using to lower energy bills.
Impact: Rooftop solar can be deployed in a matter of days, not years, and is exactly the kind of affordable, fast-to-build power needed as record heat and power-hungry data centers push the grid to the limits. But Trump’s EPA is sabotaging the program designed to bring it to more than 900,000 low-income households. Instead of delivering economic relief, they are moving to jack up working people’s utility bills while doubling down on fossil fuels and denying communities the tools they need to build energy resilience.
August 5: The Interior Department advances a laughably transparent escalation of Trump’s war on wind power
Action: Trump’s Interior Department continued its assault on wind development with yet another barrier, this time by indulging the president’s bizarre, bird-related conspiracy theories. New guidance from the department ramps up scrutiny of wind projects under the guise of protecting eagle populations, a move clearly aimed at further blocking one of the cheapest, fastest-to-build energy sources.
Impact: Despite actual bird experts supporting wind energy—because they understand that the real threat to wildlife is climate change—Secretary Doug Burgum’s cynical use of wildlife protections comes as fossil fuels pose a far greater threat to all kinds of species and ecosystems. In fact, just months before issuing this guidance, the Trump administration moved to gut the very law it cites, claiming it's a burden on oil and gas producers. While absurd on its face, the nefarious action could delay or block even more wind projects from moving forward. At the same time, higher costs from skyrocketing energy demand will be passed on to consumers.
August 1: Trump’s Interior Department moves to further restrict wind and solar power with new land use limits
Action: Secretary Doug Burgum issued yet another order targeting clean energy, this time mandating a “capacity density” test for energy projects on public lands. The new standard gives the agency sweeping authority to deny permits to wind and solar projects if they’re deemed less space-efficient than fossil fuels, an arbitrary metric designed to stack the deck against clean power.
Impact: While Secretary Burgum claims this move is about land conservation and disturbing wildlife, if he were truly concerned about protecting the natural environment, he’d be working to slow the climate crisis posing the greatest threat to it. Instead, as Heatmap News reported, anti-renewable activists view this and other recent orders as a path to their “Holy Grail” of forcibly decommissioning already-operating clean energy projects. By sowing uncertainty and signaling hostility to the sector, Interior is chilling investment, risking existing supply, and making it harder to bring new, affordable energy online. The result will be devastating for consumers’ wallets.
July 30: Trump administration cuts off all offshore areas for wind leasing
Action: Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rescinded more than 3.5 million acres of unleased federal waters previously designated for offshore wind development.
Impact: The sweeping move halts all future leasing on federal waters and wipes out $65 million in projected investments by 2030 that would have supported 56,000 jobs. With power demand rising and utilities struggling to keep up, killing new offshore wind projects means killing one of the best chances to bring cheap new power online—and locking families into higher electricity costs for years to come.
July 29: Desperate to stay in the spotlight, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy attacks private property rights to join assault on wind energy
Action: In a transparent bid to curry favor with the White House, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy jumped headfirst into the administration’s assault on wind energy. His department issued a new policy requiring wind turbines to be built at least 1.2 miles from roads and railroads, citing flimsy safety concerns and offering no real evidence.
Impact: The move threatens to eliminate vast swaths of land from clean energy development and undermines the rights of private property owners to lease their land for wind projects. “I’ve never heard of that,” said one rail expert, dismissing DOT’s justification—wind turbines interfering with train signals—as baseless. But the intent is clear: delay, obstruct, and dismantle wind development by any means necessary. In the real world, and not the bizarro world where the reality TV star president wages weird personal vendettas against wind energy, this means fewer new power sources, skyrocketing demand, and even higher utility bills for working-class families.
July 29: Trump’s EPA proposes killing the landmark climate regulation protecting the public from toxic pollution
Action: Trump’s EPA proposed rescinding the bedrock legal backbone underpinning many common-sense regulations, abandoning its mission to protect Americans from dangerous pollution and making climate denial the official policy of the federal government.
Impact: If the EPA successfully rescinds the endangerment finding, it will “defang its own regulatory power” to stop climate pollution while giving corporate polluters a free pass to poison our communities. For starters, it would immediately knock out the EPA’s ability to curb vehicle emissions, a top priority of fossil fuel companies. Trump’s own EPA analysis shows that repealing the rule would increase gas prices and lead to half a million job losses within a decade. Far from just a legal rollback, it’s a policy change that would hurt workers and leave communities more vulnerable to pollution and climate-driven disasters—while making everyday tasks like driving to work even more expensive.
July 29: Secretary Burgum orders Interior to root out any “preferential treatment” for wind and solar in the Interior Department
Action: In a sweeping directive, Secretary Burgum ordered Interior to identify and eliminate any “preferential treatment” for wind and solar across the department’s regulations, policies, and practices. The order baselessly claims the Biden administration intentionally misapplied the law in approving offshore wind projects, and signals that Interior may soon halt onshore development on federal lands as well.
Impact: According to Heatmap News, the directive requires Interior to reexamine every stage of project review—including actions occurring “after a project receives its final record of decision,” and to produce a report on fully-approved offshore wind projects’ impact on “military readiness,” laying the groundwork for future cancellations. It’s a nakedly political move, designed to bully American clean energy companies out of existence under the guise of “leveling the playing field.” Instead of helping meet surging demand with affordable new power, Trump’s Interior Department is stalling current projects, threatening future ones, and driving up energy costs for American families.
July 23: Trump doubles down on dirty, expensive energy to fast-track data center buildout
Action: As part of his AI Action Plan, Trump announced a sweeping initiative to accelerate data center construction—while vowing to prevent the “premature decommissioning” of fossil fuel plants. With AI infrastructure already pushing utilities and grids to their limits, Trump’s plan explicitly calls for quickly building and connecting to new “dispatchable power sources” to the grid, like gas and coal—while dismissing the cheaper and faster-to-build energy sources (yes, cheaper even without federal tax credits) that account for the vast majority of new generation.
Impact: The contradiction is glaring. On the same day the Department of Energy canceled a major loan for a multi-state transmission line to deliver cheap wind power, the administration made clear it would double down on dirty, expensive fossil fuels. Trump’s relentless sabotage of clean power (documented throughout this memo) has left the grid unprepared for surging demand. And now, by sidelining fast-to-build renewables in favor of costlier gas and coal, Trump is guaranteeing higher prices for working families.
July 23: Trump’s DOE cancels major loan for the Grain Belt Express, a multi-state transmission line to deliver low-cost wind power
Action: Despite a legally-binding contract, Trump’s DOE formally canceled a $4.9 billion loan awarded under the Biden administration for the Grain Belt Express, a transmission line set to stretch from Kansas to Missouri to deliver low-cost wind power to neighboring states.
Impact: The project’s developer noted in 2022 that few, if any, private lenders could finance a transmission line of this scale, making the federal loan essential. Without it, the project’s future is uncertain. Pulling the commitment with vague reasoning sends a chilling signal to other developers and injects new instability into the clean energy sector. Once again, the administration is artificially constraining supply and blocking abundant Midwestern wind power from reaching population centers that need it most, just as demand surges and prices climb.
July 17: Citing Trump’s permitting freeze, New York cancels offshore wind transmission goal
Action: New York’s Public Service Commission scrapped plans to build the transmission infrastructure needed to connect multiple offshore wind farms to New York City’s grid, directly citing the uncertainty created by the Trump administration’s anti-wind agenda.
Impact: New York City’s electric grid remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels—largely due to a lack of transmission capacity for clean power, according to the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice. With Trump throwing the wind industry into chaos—including recently declaring that he wouldn’t allow another “windmill” to be built in the U.S.—the decision reflects a growing national trend. States are being forced to pause or pull back on wind infrastructure investment. Trump’s “energy dominance agenda” is stalling projects and cutting off one of the most effective tools to lower electricity costs. And it’s working families who will pay the price.
July 17: The Federal Trade Commission lifts ban on two fossil fuel executives serving on Exxon and Chevron boards
Action: After Trump illegally fired two Democratic commissioners, the now Republican-dominated Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reversed its earlier decision barring two fossil fuel executives from sitting on the boards of Exxon and Chevron—despite evidence they attempted to collude with OPEC.
Impact: The FTC is meant to function as an independent consumer watchdog, but Trump’s power grab has turned it into a political tool. His executive order claiming authority to fire commissioners is facing legal challenges, but the damage is already underway. The FTC is supposed to protect consumers, not fossil fuel CEOs. The message from Trump’s FTC is clear: it’s open season for price gouging. Instead of cracking down on corporate abuse, the commission is now shielding it, giving oil companies even more freedom to manipulate energy prices at the expense of American families.
July 16: Trump’s Interior subjects nearly all clean energy permits to personal political review
Action: In a stunning new policy, the Interior Department now requires personal sign-off from Secretary Burgum for virtually all wind and solar projects connected to federal land—including projects that are primarily on private land but have elements that cross public land, like transmission lines.
Impact: The move creates a massive bureaucratic bottleneck, clearly designed to grind clean energy permit approvals to a halt. It hands a stark fossil fuel ally the power to stall or deny projects at will, injecting political interference into what should be a neutral permitting process. At the very moment when AI-driven demand and extreme heat are pushing grids to the brink, the administration is strangling the only power sources that can be deployed quickly and affordably. As POLITICO put it, the Trump administration has been “aggressively working to suffocate” renewable energy, and “its latest action could do the trick.”
The Pattern Is Clear
Trump’s so-called cost-cutting presidency is delivering the exact opposite. His energy agenda is engineered to benefit fossil fuel donors at the expense of working-class families. He’s slashing clean power, pushing the grid closer to the breaking point, and hiking energy costs at a time when everyday life is already unaffordable for many. Trump is making sure that Americans pay more to power their lives. All to protect fossil fuel profits.
Even his own party is starting to panic—not because they’ve suddenly embraced clean energy, but because Trump’s sabotage is threatening their states’ power supply and economic stability. Trump promised to bring down energy costs. Instead, he’s picking fights that even his own party says are undermining the very infrastructure needed to power our economy.
For more information or to speak with an Evergreen Action policy expert, please contact Deputy Communications Director Seth Nelson at seth@evergreenaction.com. Find previous actions Trump has taken to siphon money from American households here.
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