FACT CHECK: Clean Energy Lowers Energy Costs

Washington, D.C. – Household utility bills have increased by 10% since Donald Trump took office, and instead of lowering costs like he promised, Trump is threatening to send them higher by blocking wind and solar, the cheapest energy sources available. He’s desperate to deflect blame, which even his own Energy Secretary admits will fall on them, by spreading lies about clean energy. Here are the facts:

• The non-partisan Energy Innovation found that the Republican budget bill would raise household energy costs by $170 per year by 2035.
  • Energy Innovation shared projections with CNN that provide state-by-state and year-by-year projected cost increases from the bill.
• Clean energy is the least expensive and quickest power generation source to add to the grid, while the cost to build gas power plants has tripled.
  • Wait times for gas-fired turbines are as much as seven years, while solar and wind energy are being deployed five times faster than all other energy sources combined.
• The CEO of NextEra Energy said renewable energy is “the only thing we have as a country that we can build” to meet current demand cheaply.
• States that have experienced the largest increases in wind and solar generation have not seen electricity rates grow faster than average, with several leaders in clean energy growth actually seeing residential electricity costs rise slower than inflation.
  • In Texas, the buildout of solar and wind energy reduced electricity costs by $11 billion in 2022 alone.
• Natural gas price volatility is a larger driver of electricity price spikes – the states most reliant on natural gas for electricity had the highest rate of retail price increases since 2020.
• Donald Trump hates wind energy because he thinks the wind turbines near his golf course in Scotland are ugly.