SHOT/CHASER: Extreme Heat Strains Grid; Trump’s Budget Would Make It Worse and Spike Electric Bills Nationwide

Washington, D.C. — Extreme heat is threatening to break records in more than 250 cities this week as temperatures soar to triple digits and millions of Americans are told to stay indoors and ration their energy use. Now, Republicans in Congress are about to make it all much worse.

SHOT: Grids are strained across the country, thousands are already without power, and utility bills are spiking.

• Bloomberg: US Declares Power Emergency in Southeast on Heat Wave
• Reuters: Electricity prices soar as US regional grids wobble from extreme heat
• WHYY (Philadelphia, PA): Thousands of PECO customers still without power as dangerous heatwave intensifies
• The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH): AEP Ohio calls for emergency energy-saving during heat wave to prevent rolling blackouts
• WRAL (Raleigh, NC): North Carolina heat wave: Duke Energy urges people to conserve power and cut costs
• WFMY (Greensboro, NC): ‘I lost power at 9 o’clock last night’: 87-year-old woman rides out 14 hour power outage during extreme heat

CHASER: Trump’s budget bill will take clean energy offline, devastating the grid under extreme heat and leading to a nationwide Republican Rate Hike.

• As millions of people are suffering through an extreme heatwave across large swaths of the United States, Republicans are rushing to pass a budget bill repealing clean energy tax credits that allows homeowners to save money while easing strain on the grid.

• Taking cleaner, cheaper forms of energy out of the mix will further threaten our grid reliability and raise energy costs by $110 per household as soon as next year—at the very time Americans need reliable and affordable energy most, as data centers and extreme weather events cause demand and costs to surge.

• Energy shortages are also quickly getting worse as a result of the explosive growth of energy demand from AI and data centers, a need that already consumes 9% of U.S. electricity generation and is projected to double by 2030.

• Utility companies are warning directly that without more wind and solar energy, our grids will face further problems. NextEra Energy, John Ketchum, CEO: “If you take renewables and storage off the table, we’re going to force electricity prices to the moon.”