President Trump and congressional Republicans have complete control of the federal government. They’ve spent 2025 raising energy, grocery and healthcare costs and rolling back programs that help families. Now, they’re using their government shutdown to distract, delay, and do even more harm so they don’t have to work with Democrats to solve those problems.

Trump promised to lower prices, but since he took office residential electricity prices have risen a whopping 10%. Prices are expected to climb an additional 5.8% next year. Skyrocketing prices are the result of Trump’s all-out attack on clean energy. He’s attacking the fastest, cheapest form of energy to bring online, as part of a plan to benefit the oil, gas, and coal industries. And all of us are paying for it.

As part of Trump’s agenda to prop up oil, gas, and coal executives, he has:

• Gutted clean energy initiatives that provide good paying jobs and affordable energy.
• Halted construction and permitting of cheap, clean energy. One such project: Revolution Wind, which was 80% complete at the time of its cancellation. Another: Esmerelda 7, the largest solar project in North America, planned in Nevada.
• Forced outdated and obsolete coal plants to remain open.
• Attempted to sell off more of our public lands to dirty coal mining and oil and gas drilling.

Now, the Trump administration is using the government shutdown as an excuse to cancel even more clean energy. As soon as the shutdown began, the administration canceled $7.56 billion in clean energy investments in 16 blue states. These politically targeted cuts are a blatant example of corruption and will raise costs for households and businesses in red and blue states alike.

While they drive up our energy costs, Trump and congressional Republicans are also gutting healthcare and making it more expensive. In their Big Ugly Bill, Republicans cut over $1 trillion from healthcare. This cut stripped nearly 12 million people of their insurance. And their plan to reopen the government doesn’t address families’ healthcare premiums that are set to dramatically increase in a couple of weeks.

As they strip access to affordable healthcare, they’re also worsening our health by taking away protections that keep our air and water safe. Trump and congressional Republicans have:

• Tried to remove the 2009 EPA Endangerment Finding, which is critical to EPA’s efforts to limit climate pollution.
• Rolled back rules that limit vehicle pollution. These rules bring down emissions from transportation, one of the most polluting sectors in the country, and saves consumers money on transportation and healthcare.
• Rolled back limits on toxic air and carbon pollution from power plants. Air pollution kills millions of people each year and harms children’s developing brains.

Now, with the government shut down, no one is enforcing the few safety rules left. Trump’s EPA has halted:

• Most EPA inspections of clean water. That means we could be exposed to contaminated water — and we wouldn’t know until it’s too late.
• Enforcement of pollution regulations.

As climate change fuels more intense disasters like hurricanes and wildfires, insurers are raising home insurance premiums to cover the increasing costs of repairs. Premiums have risen 4.9% in the first half of the year and are up 11.3% from a year ago.

While the risks and costs of climate disasters rise, Trump has willfully made us even more vulnerable to them. He’s fired people who fight wildfires, forecast weather, and respond to disasters. He’s also fired climate scientists, and deleted their research and data from government websites. We’re all less safe during disasters because of it.

Now, with the government shutdown as his excuse, he’s illegally threatening to expand those firings. His actions would push critically understaffed and underfunded agencies like NOAA and its National Weather Service to a breaking point. Further firings would make it harder to monitor extreme weather. Ultimately, during hurricane and fire season, these actions will endanger millions of lives.

The danger doesn’t stop at forecasting and relief. The government shutdown also caused the National Flood Insurance Program to lapse. That leaves millions of families on the hook to pay for potential damage in the middle of hurricane season.

Protecting public lands is wildly popular across the country and all across the political spectrum. Instead of supporting these treasured and sacred places, the Trump administration is attacking public lands by:

• Expanding mining, drilling, and logging on federal lands.
• Weakening protections for national monuments.
• Gutting the National Park Service and other land management agencies and staff.

…all to benefit Big Polluters.

Since the government shutdown began, the Trump administration has continued its attacks on our public lands:

• President Trump issued an executive order approving the Ambler Road Project. Building a mining road through the Alaskan wilderness will threaten sustenance hunting and fishing, cross hundreds of rivers and streams, and cut through 26 miles of national park land and the lands of several Alaska Native communities. This destruction is all for the benefit of mining CEOs.
• The administration also held a lease sale for 167 millions tons of coal in Montana. The sale drew only one bid for $186,000, a fraction of a penny per ton of coal. BLM has rejected the bid. Despite the lease sale flopping, the Trump administration is charging ahead with more lease sales nationwide that could have disastrous impacts on our environment.

The continued efforts to sell off our public lands during a government shutdown proves an unfortunate fact: while the government is closed for everyday people, it is very much open for Big Polluters.

President Trump and congressional Republicans have made our lives too expensive. Their policies have raised energy bills, increased healthcare costs, and more. They are working for Big Oil and Gas, not the communities they were elected to represent.

Trump and Republicans in Congress need to come to the table to negotiate a win for the American people. We need a bipartisan government funding bill that makes our lives more safe and affordable. Contact your members of Congress today. Tell them to negotiate a bipartisan spending deal that lowers costs for families, protects our environment, and puts the needs of the people, not billionaires, first.