As Trump Jets to Houston to Raise Money for Paxton, New Data Shows Texans Are Paying the Price
tags
HOUSTON — President Trump is set to touch down in Houston Thursday to headline a closed-door, big-money fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, with proceeds expected to benefit Ken Paxton’s cash-strapped Senate campaign. The event comes as new data shows just how much Trump’s energy policies — and the fossil fuel executives expected to help foot Thursday’s bill — are costing Texas families.
A recent report from Climate Power and the Center for American Progress Action Fund found Trump’s policies have added an estimated $2,083 in costs for the average Texas household since the start of 2025. Texas is getting hit hard at the pump, with gas prices up more than 50 percent over the past year — among the steepest increases in the country. Household electric bills have climbed 12 percent statewide since Trump took office, and a recent analysis from Energy Innovation projects his rollback of clean energy investment will cost households an additional $460 a year by 2035.
That’s a troubling trend as Texas keeps setting demand records. ERCOT hit an all-time peak of more than 91,000 megawatts on July 22 during a brutal heat wave — a record met primarily by natural gas and a record-setting showing from solar, which supplied nearly a third of the grid’s power that day. The grid came within reach of that record again on August 20. Solar and battery storage, now the fastest-growing sources on the Texas grid, helped keep the lights on through both peaks without conservation calls — even as ERCOT projects statewide demand could nearly double by 2032, driven by data centers and population growth, putting even more pressure on the grid Trump’s policies are working to starve of clean energy investment.
“Texans are paying more at the pump and more on their power bills while Trump flies into Houston to collect checks from Big Oil,” said Abby Cox, State Director at Climate Power. “Ken Paxton has made his loyalties clear: he stands with the polluters and donors profiting off the status quo, not the families struggling to keep up.”
###