Energy bills in US have increased 13% since Trump took office, new report says
- - Energy bills in US have increased 13% since Trump took office, new report says
JULIA JACOBO, BRIANA ALVARADO and MATTHEW GLASSERDecember 15, 2025 at 4:29 PM
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The amount of money Americans are paying for their energy bills has increased since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, according to a new report.
In the U.S., electric bills have increased 13% in 2025, according to Climate Power, a climate advocacy organization whose national advisory board features prominent Democratic politicians and activists. Climate Power analyzed data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The report pointed to the massive spending bill Trump signed in July, which it claims is "driving up utility costs and destroying jobs by removing cheaper, cleaner energy sources from the grid, all while funding new tax breaks for the oil and gas industries."
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Projects that were canceled or delayed since Trump’s election have led to a loss of 24,958.5 megawatts of planned energy generation, which could have powered more than 13.17 million homes, according to the report.
Prices are expected to spike even further, especially as rising energy demands are driven by data centers and extreme heat, the study said.
"A lot of it is data centers," according to Mark Wolfe, co-director of the Center for Energy Poverty and Climate.
Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg via Getty Images - PHOTO: A Microsoft data center in Aldie, Va., Oct. 28, 2025.
In the electricity sector, demand is currently outpacing growth "by a lot," David Spence, a professor of energy law and regulation at the University of Texas, told ABC News. He agreed that data centers are "partly" to blame, in addition to other energy intensive technologies, such as Bitcoin mining and electric vehicles.
"We're just not able to bring new supply on as quickly as demand is growing, and that's driving prices up," Spence said.
MORE: Fact-checking what Trump said about climate change during the UN General Assembly
Another recent analysis found that U.S. households are paying 9.6% more in utility bills this year on average versus 2024, according to the December energy snapshot by the Center for American Progress and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Americans are also in debt due to higher energy costs, said Mark Pierce, an attorney and the executive director of Protect Borrowers. As of November, Texas had the highest number of residents in utility debt, with more than 943,501 households with overdue balances, according to research by Protect Borrowers.
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images - PHOTO: An electric vehicle (EV) at an EVgo fast charging station in San Francisco, Sept. 30, 2025.
Energy affordability and "what to do about it" is currently a topic "that everybody on Capitol Hill wants to talk about and is fixated on," Daniel Bresette, president of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, told ABC News.
When asked for comment on the Climate Power report, a White House spokesperson told ABC News: "Fixing the energy crisis Joe Biden created has been a priority for President Trump since day one. Joe Biden’s green energy policies sent electricity prices soaring more than 30 percent over four years, and Blue states that refuse to adopt President Trump’s energy dominance agenda continue to have sky-high energy prices."
Trump's policies cut "unnecessary and burdensome regulatory costs, enabling producers to increase supply and lower prices for American families and businesses," the spokesperson said. "The data is clear: high energy prices are a choice, and many Blue states like California and Maine have implemented policies that make paying your electricity bills unaffordable."
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Trump has long criticized sources of clean energy, promising during the 2024 presidential campaign to continue to "drill, baby, drill" to bolster fossil fuel production in the U.S..
He has denounced wind energy since his first term, claiming in 2019 that the noise from wind turbines "cause cancer" and stating in May 2024 that turbines "kill whales." There are no case series, clinical studies or epidemiological studies reliably documenting a link between wind turbine exposure and cancer. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "There are no known links between large whale deaths and ongoing offshore wind activities."
K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images - PHOTO: Solar panels cover a parking lot at San Diego Mesa Community College, Oct. 7, 2025, in San Diego.
In August, the Environmental Protection Agency terminated Solar for All, a $7 billion Biden-era grant program intended to help pay for resident solar projects.
Environmental groups condemned the cut, warning that lowering energy bills, especially in low-income households, would be more difficult as result.
Trump also spent a considerable amount of his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September disparaging renewable energy sources, claiming that renewable energy sources "don't work" and are "too expensive."
MORE: Trump's policies could impact the environment long after he leaves office, some experts say
Last month, a GOP plan to open the National Petroleum Reserve to drilling was finalized when the Senate voted to overturn Biden-era Arctic protections.
"What’s happening behind the scenes is the Trump Administration is doing everything it can to squash clean energy," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Thursday during a media briefing. "Clean energy is almost always low-cost."
More than 165,000 jobs in the clean energy sector have been lost or stalled as a result of Trump's policies, according to the Climate Power report.
Source: “AOL Money”
