Trump’s War on Clean Energy Threatens his own Allies

Union of Concerned Scientists:

Weather extremes such as heat waves and cold snaps, paired with an overreliance on methane gas, are taxing the New England electric grid and hitting ratepayers’ pocketbooks with the regional grid operator, ISO New England, reporting a 67% increase in the price of energy between 2024 and 2025. According to a report released today by RENEW Northeast, even a small offshore wind fleet can make a major difference for grid reliability and affordability in the region.

The report found that had 3,500 megawatts of offshore wind been operational during this past winter—equivalent to the output of two offshore wind projects currently under construction and two others proposed for the region—New England wholesale energy prices would have dropped more than 10%, saving consumers approximately $400 million collectively on their energy bills. The Union of Concerned Scientists is a member of RENEW Northeast, a nonprofit association of renewable energy industry and environmental interest groups, which commissioned the study by Daymark Energy Advisors.

Last Friday, the Trump administration issued a stop-work order to Revolution Wind—an offshore wind project that is nearly complete and will supply enough energy to power the equivalent of approximately 350,000 homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The out-of-the-blue directive from the Trump administration has been derided by governors of affected states, labor groups, and ISO New England, which warned of the harm this would have on regional grid reliability.

Politico:

AMES, Iowa — President Donald Trump’s bid to kill wind power is straining the clean energy industry — and imperiling GOP lawmakers whose communities have seen wind as an economic boon.

Few of those lawmakers are more endangered than Iowa’s Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

Hailing from a state that gets nearly two-thirds of its electricity from wind turbines while paying some of the lowest power bills in the nation, Miller-Meeks has been a leading GOP champion in the House for an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy supporting the growth of renewables alongside fossil fuels. But she also cast a crucial vote for Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which wiped out billions of dollars in wind’s economic incentives — throwing Iowa’s 50-plus wind-related companies into uncertainty.

That vote is giving Democrats new hope of capturing Miller-Meeks’ district in Iowa’s southeast corner, where she won reelection last year by only 799 votes. (Trump won the same district by 8 points.) Republicans are scrambling to preserve their narrow House majority in next year’s midterms, with national polls showing most voters unhappy with the GOP’s sweeping budget bill.

In an August interview at the state Republican Party office in Des Moines, Miller-Meeks stood by her advocacy for wind power — saying it deserves a place in the nation’s energy mix even amid Trump’s full-bore backing for fossil fuels.

“Wind works,” said Miller-Meeks, who also chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus. “Iowa has proved that.”

But the following morning, she stood side by side at the Ames National Laboratory with Trump Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who used the occasion to argue that heavy federal government spending on renewable energy is “nonsensical.” He also called wind and solar “mature” industries that no longer need subsidies.

The contradiction won’t fly with Iowa voters, said Matt Mohrfeld, the Democratic mayor of Fort Madison, which is home to a Siemens Gamesa wind turbine plant that employs about 300 people.

“It does break my heart to speak out against Marianne Miller-Meeks because she’s a friend, but on this one she was wrong and it’s going to be a crucial mistake,” Mohrfeld said. “I don’t know how anybody in good faith could vote against alternative energy if they’re elected by the people in Iowa. She will not be reelected.”

A poll commissioned in June by the Democratic House Majority PAC showed Miller-Meeks down by 4 points in a head-to-head matchup with her likely opponent next year, Democrat Christina Bohannan, although independent polling in the race is not yet widely available. Cook Political Report rates the race as a “toss up.”

Bloomberg:

While the Trump administration says that adding wind and solar to the grid has been pushing up the cost of electricity, data shows that increased spending on power lines and poles has been the biggest driver of utility bill hikes. 

Utilities have been upgrading their grids to accommodate new sources of generation and demand, and network operators are also trying to improve resilience to extreme weather events and modernize infrastructure that was built in the 1960s and 1970s.

Higher electricity costs are a reflection of tight supply as well, as aging coal- and gas-fired plants retire and power consumption rises after years of relatively tepid growth. Demand is being propelled by industrial users and the power-hungry data centers behind artificial intelligence. Slowing the deployment of renewables could exacerbate the situation.

The phaseout of wind and solar incentives under Trump’s tax-and-spending law could raise average US household energy bills by $78 to $192 in 2035, and increase annual industrial energy expenditure by $7 billion to $11 billion, according to the Rhodium Group.