TO: Interested Parties
FR: Pete Maysmith, President, LCV
RE: Banning Clean Energy is Costing People Money–Let’s Say So 

The climate threat remains real, present and costly. People are losing their homes in massive floods, parents are keeping their kids inside because of wildfire smoke, families are struggling with insurance premiums, energy bills, and groceries. Trump’s attacks on cleaner, cheaper and faster renewable energy not only worsen future impacts of a warming world–they have created a rising cost crisis for people right now. This provides us an opportunity, if we take it, to win this debate once and for all and make progress on clean energy that is both immediate and lasting. 

Don’t Be Afraid to Say the Electric Bill is Too Damn High and Call Out who is Making Them Higher

Energy prices are rising twice as fast as inflation while energy demand from data centers and others is only expected to rise sharply. Yet instead of prioritizing the energy that is fastest and cheapest to deploy, the Trump administration is raising costs by cancelling those projects and programs, and stubbornly forcing the country to build or keep less popular, slower-to-get-online, and more expensive sources like coal and gas. Important stories include::

• The administration has forced the old, dirty Campbell coal power plant in Michigan to continue operating despite being due for retirement at the cost to ratepayers of $1 million a day.
• The newest coal plant in the country failed so catastrophically that it will be offline for two years. 
• While Trump has announced $625 million to support the coal industry, he has cancelled $679 million for support of offshore wind and halted permitting for multiple wind farms.

High energy bills rank right up at the top with grocery and health care as urgent issues the public is most worried about. The public wants politicians who support affordable solutions that work right now. Trump’s solutions are far less popular with the public while clean energy is extremely popular.

That is why we must focus on affordability even more than we already are. 

Political leaders and climate groups must work to meet people where they are–they are rightly stressed about the rising cost of everything. It’s also critical to acknowledge that many people don’t yet know that clean energy is cheaper, even though it’s true. Twenty years ago you would hear: “solar and wind are luxuries we can’t afford,” and the fossil fuel industry and MAGA Republicans still promote these falsehoods. Meanwhile a quiet energy revolution has happened. A new analysis found that nearly all states with a higher-than-average amount of wind and solar power are paying lower-than-average electric bills. Innovation, scale, and good policy brought costs for solar and onshore wind down 75% and 62% respectively from 10 years ago.

Overcoming outdated beliefs is difficult, especially when the conversation about energy has still been too disconnected from the daily lives of most people and when misinformation remains rampant. We must say: “With prices on the rise and energy demand also expected to rise dramatically, the status quo won’t cut it, we’ve got to do something different right now.”

Policy Must Be Focused on Building Things and Lowering Costs

The climate movement and our champions in office at the federal, state and local level need to put consumers first by supporting action on rising costs, and building infrastructure that lowers their costs. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle must fight for funding to process permits and modernize more efficient reviews that include community engagement and result in faster build timelines for popular clean energy and efficiency programs. State leaders across the country are also already passing policies–including bipartisan policies–that put consumers first and deploy clean energy at scale, reduce pollution, and lower utility bills. And in recent years, states such as Illinois, Michigan and Massachusetts have all passed legislation to speed up solar and wind siting and permitting.

Just this year, Minnesota made sure utilities can’t pass along the cost of data centers’ energy demand to customers. Oregon established protections against data center rate hikes as well and directed utilities to adopt technologies to improves transmission lines. Ohio passed a historic bipartisan energy law that improves the grid, requires utility transparency, and creates a framework to prioritize brownfields and former coal sites for renewable energy. In Michigan lawmakers are working on a Ratepayers Bill of Rights, “a legislative framework to protect consumers from skyrocketing energy prices, poor service, out-of-control utility executive pay and the undue influence Big Energy CEOs wield in Lansing.”

These policies will lead to more clean energy that is better for the environment, and they are framed by the concerns people have right now to get costs under control. They will ease the burden on people spending the highest percentage of their income on energy. We need more solutions that follow this model and more leaders to speak out in support of them.

Go on Offense–Call Out Who is Raising Your Bills

It’s not enough to make the case that clean is cheaper and faster. We need to loudly and repeatedly say that banning clean energy and subsidizing expensive, outdated solutions is costing us money. We must call out the politicians like Trump, MAGA Republicans in Congress, and utilities who are forcing higher energy costs on families. Republicans are starting to acknowledge their short-sighted policies will result in higher energy costs and less manufacturing in their own districts. Now is the time to make sure the pressure to reverse course becomes insurmountable.

That’s why we are already running ads and field programs, hosting 140 district events, generating over 10,000 petition signatures, and 3,000 calls into offices asking members to stop raising costs and showcasing the widespread frustrations from community members. And we will continue this work along with our partners in key districts across the country because more has to be done.

Download PDF Energy Affordability Memo