New report: Trump's anti-renewable policies set to cost US households over half a trillion dollars, as summer blackouts and price spikes hit hardest

A new analysis from clean energy think tank Energy Innovation finds that the Trump administration's rollback of clean energy policy will add more than half a trillion dollars to American households' collective energy costs by 2040, even as it publicly promises lower bills. 350.org says the findings confirm what millions of Americans are already living through this summer: a sudden AI-driven electricity crunch colliding with policy choices that are making the problem worse, not better.

According to the report, the cumulative impact of the administration's actions, including the repeal of clean energy tax credits, new barriers to permitting wind and solar, and a tilt toward more expensive coal-fired power, will raise the average household's energy costs by $460 by 2035, rising to $490 a year by 2040. That comes on top of electricity rates that have already spiked 7.4% nationwide since last fall, with more than a dozen states seeing double-digit increases, driven in part by the explosive growth in data center electricity demand.

The findings land just as households across the eastern US are living the consequences directly. A "heat dome" and severe storms over the Fourth of July weekend left almost a million households without power across more than a dozen states, and sent wholesale electricity prices up more than 240% in New England and doubled in New York City. Detroit was among the hardest hit: roughly 350,000 people lost power, some for four to five days, with outages still ongoing for some. Detroit's utility, DTE, ranked among the worst-rated in the country, has pushed through repeated rate hikes even as reliability has failed to improve, including a $242.2 million increase approved in February during a deadly cold snap, and a further request in April for up to $474 million, an 11% increase.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has intervened in DTE and Consumers Energy's current rate cases over the pattern, saying DTE continues to treat Michigan families like an open checkbook to satisfy its shareholders, whether through massive rate hike requests or secret data center contracts.

Candice Fortin, US Campaigns Manager at 350.org, said:

"This report puts numbers on something households are already feeling in their bills and their blackouts. We were told cutting clean energy would lower costs. Instead, we're seeing the opposite: rates spiking, grids failing under record heat, and households paying more while data centers' electricity use explodes. You can't fix an affordability crisis by blocking the cheapest, fastest power we have to build. The fossil fuel industry and this administration's policies are adding fuel to the fire, and ordinary ratepayers are the ones getting burned."

The Trump administration disputes the report's findings, with the White House and Department of Energy characterising Energy Innovation's analysis as partisan and arguing that rolling back clean energy regulation will ultimately lower prices by letting market forces determine new generation. Energy Innovation and other independent analysts maintain there is a direct line between the administration's policies and rising bills, pointing to the growing gap between the promise of cheaper energy and the reality households are experiencing this summer.