Power price politics percolations
Regular Congressional programming will be quiet this week as a government shutdown watch consumes everything else. House GOP leadership may not bring the chamber back at all this week after it already narrowly passed a stopgap government funding bill. Attention has turned to the Senate, where the GOP needs several Democratic votes ahead of government funding expiring at midnight Tuesday. Top congressional leaders from both parties are meeting with Trump today at the White House.
As Democrats hold out in demands for extending health care subsidies, some in the minority party are also itching to ramp up the fight over rising electricity prices, which has stood out as a major element of stubborn inflation that is a vulnerability for Republicans heading into the 2026 midterm elections.
Case in point: Climate hawks Reps. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) and Sean Casten (D-Ill.) released a discussion draft of their "Cheap Energy Act," a hodgepodge of tax, permitting and utility regulatory reform policies to boost renewables in a bid to lower electricity prices. They are hoping it presses the argument that Trump policies targeting renewables are going to keep raising power prices.
“President Trump promised to cut electricity bills in half. But he has done exactly the opposite,” Levin told your ME host. “The most impactful thing we can do to lower energy costs for Americans is to expand access to clean, cheap energy.”
Casten argued Trump policies like boosting approvals of LNG exports and issuing emergency orders to prevent aging fossil fuel power plants from retiring are already contributing to higher fuel and utility prices even as some other moves take longer to bear out, like the GOP’s phaseout of incentives for solar and wind power through their sweeping tax and spending law.
“Yes, it takes time for these policy changes to [have] effect, but Trump has a proven ability and a willingness to drive up the cost of energy,” Casten told your ME host. “And it's factually true. And when you explain it to people, they understand it.”
Their comments come as Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright – who acknowledged to POLITICO that their administration will be blamed for rising power prices – have aggressively sought to amplify their argument that expanding use of intermittent solar and wind at the expense of fossil fuel plant closures is the source of the problem.
Something to watch: As Democrats look to fight Trump on power prices, party lawmakers are divided over whether it’s worth pursuing potential bipartisan deals in the coming months on issues like permitting reform that could provide relief.
Levin pointed to new bipartisan legislation from Reps. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) and Andy Barr (R-Ky.)to ease the buildout of transmission lines as evidence that there is “a growing contingency of Republicans who want to make it easier to build out the grid and connect more resources.”
“But I don't see how we can negotiate in good faith when Republicans are acting in such bad faith right now, especially since we don't have any guarantees that the president will follow any changes to the law when he's not even following existing law,” Levin said, referencing Trump’s revoking of renewable energy permits.