Here’s a trend that means higher and higher costs for virtually everyone. Many who aren’t all that affluent will feel the squeeze, each and every month. As that expense increases, we’re forced to cut back on other items we need to support our lives. And this squeeze goes beyond cutting back on little extravagances; it affects our ability to buy the healthy food we need. And the Iran war will certainly jump electricity costs even more. However, this is an issue you can fix … completely. Comments afterwards.
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Trump’s 18-Month Deadline To Cut Electricity Prices in Half Has Arrived. Rates Are Up 18%.
Yet another broken campaign promise.
Reason
7.20.2026
Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail that he would slash electricity prices in half within 18 months of returning to the White House. That self-imposed deadline is today, and—as with many of the president’s promises—he appears to have fallen short of his goal.
From Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 to April 2026, the most recent month for which government data are available, residential electricity rates have risen by an eye-watering 18 percent. From April 2025 to April 2026, rates jumped by 7.3 percent, or about twice the rate of inflation, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Unfortunately, for many consumers, there is not much relief in sight.
Last week, PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest grid operator, announced the results of its annual capacity auction, which determined the cost to procure power in the region for the 2028–2029 delivery year. The cost of the latest auction hit $16.4 billion, tying the previous auction’s record-high price and all but locking customers into historically high rates.
Nationally, utilities in the second quarter of 2026 “asked state regulators to approve $9.2 billion in rate hikes, up 26% from the $7.3 billion in rate increase proposals filed in the same period last year,” reports Utility Dive.
While it may be easy to place most of the blame on Trump, given the brashness of his promise, the president inherited a slow-moving train crash of unprecedented load growth from the data center boom, which coincided with the closure of coal and natural gas power plants. Together, this has led to rate hikes and warnings about grid reliability.
“It was an impossible promise to deliver on
because there really isn’t that much federal
government involvement in retail rates.”
… says Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute.
“It was always going to be a steep uphill climb.”
Indeed, while the federal government—primarily through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission—sets the rules governing interstate transmission lines and wholesale markets, what consumers pay each month for electricity is determined by a myriad of other factors, including fuel prices and the cost of building local distribution infrastructure, such as poles and wires. And though the price of wholesale electricity depends on where you live, states retain significant authority over many of the costs that make it to utility bills.
Trump does bear at least some of the responsibility, though.
His trade war, for instance, has made critical components more expensive. Like many other goods, most transformers in the United States are imported, primarily from Mexico and China. (At one point in the past 18 months, goods from the latter faced a 147 percent import tax.) Electrical steel, meanwhile, comes in from South Korea, India, and Japan, all of which were subject to “reciprocal” tariffs until the Supreme Court struck them down earlier this year.
When these duties were still in place, the investment firm Morningstar warned that they “directly threaten the ambitious agenda to upgrade and expand the U.S. power grid.” With them struck down, consumers are still paying for these duties, as well as the 15 percent tariff rate the administration maintains on “some electrical grid equipment,” according to Utility Dive.
As the administration has increased input costs, it has also made it harder for certain energy sources to connect to the grid. Beginning on Day 1, Trump blocked leasing for offshore wind in federal waters, which a federal judge later struck down.
In March, the administration unveiled a new strategy to stop offshore wind: paying developers to abandon these projects. That month, the federal government agreed to give TotalEnergies nearly $1 billion—a reimbursement for what it paid for its leases—to terminate planned offshore wind plants in New York and North Carolina and instead invest that money in fossil-fuel projects.
The federal government has since reached similar deals to terminate four other offshore wind projects, reports The New York Times.
Fisher, who is “not a fan of offshore wind” because “it pretty much only gets built with subsidies and mandates,” is also not a fan of these agreements. He says these plants could have added “substantial downward pressure” and reduced PJM’s auction price. Notably, even when the administration has done the opposite and forced power plants to stay open, consumers have been left to foot the bill.
Meanwhile, data centers’ electricity use added $6 billion to PJM’s auction.
With more Americans becoming increasingly anti–data center, states have implemented stringent regulations on these facilities. Last week, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul issued the nation’s first moratorium on data centers. New York’s ban follows Maine’s efforts to implement a similar measure that passed the Legislature but was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills in April.
There are better solutions than a moratorium. In March, Trump unveiled a Ratepayer Protection Pledge that would require signatories to front the cost of grid upgrades, water infrastructure, and power generation for data centers. The pledge has not really made an impact, but that could change as more governors and utilities get on board.
Some experts, including Fisher, advocate a Consumer Regulated Electricity (CRE) model that allows large-load customers (such as data centers) to connect directly to unregulated power plants independent of the grid. Fisher says this approach is more “nimble and innovative.” He also calls it a “hedge against the political risk” associated with data centers.
New Hampshire adopted CRE-adjacent rules last year. And in January, Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) introduced a bill that would make it easier for data centers to plug directly into a power plant.
Solutions like that could provide a fix to the affordability crisis. But even they are unlikely to provide the kind of relief that Trump promised and failed to deliver.
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The Garden Atrium home in which I live – about the same size as a 3BR, 2B rancher – has a 5kWh array of solar panels. They added roughly $15,000 to the cost of the home … or about $75 a month on a mortgage. The solar panels pay for 100% of our home’s electrical use – including my wife’s pottery kiln – and for the power for our electric car.
Last year, we traded in our gas car, a very efficient VW, for a Hyundai IONIQ6, because the VW needed repairs that would have cost a few thousand dollars. (All the ads on TV for car repair insurance are for gas cars, not electric. An EV is essentially a huge battery on four wheels. Both types of cars need maintenance on brakes, but gas engine repair cost is a bear!)
We’re not even close to being “wealthy.” Our primary source of monthly income is our Social Security payments. But $75 a month seems reasonable enough in our budget. And if oil prices start varying all over the place, it has no effect whatsoever on us. Above all the financial worries, what I really enjoy most is the freedom of not being chained to a utility or a gas company!
What I’ve done is readily achievable for you. The technology is as available as groceries at the corner store. But … it’s up each of us to do what feels to me as the more adult responsible response, rather than hope, as children do, that someone on whom we’re dependent, like a politician, fixes a problem that we can, and should fix for ourself. Adding D’s comments …
“The cost of electricity becomes clearer as the United States moves deeper into the Iran war. This war is increasing quite significantly the cost of oil and oil-based products. As Mr. Trump increased his support of oil-based corporations, it has only increased costs to consumers.
“The goal of living in these times is two-fold:
“First is to live in harmony with Earth;
“Second, to live in community and joy.
“To live in harmony with Earth asks each of us to live more simply and use fewer resources. And the second goal, to live in community and joy, requires us to share the load with others, take burdens off of others’ shoulders, if you can, and find, above all, what truly makes you joyful.
“Some of these behaviors are as simple as putting solar panels on your roof, thus using the sun versus using up fossil fuels. Some are more difficult, like finding joy in your daily world, including some long-term goals. We believe when you start appreciating joy in your daily life it will make it easier to make larger adjustments in behavior changes.
“May you find your joy and … find the ability to follow through and take care of Earth at the same time.
Ending with another thought …
We both have reasonable levels of education. I took it to a doctorate, but I’m not some kind of genius. What I seem to do more than many is actually implement ideas that “make sense but may be new and not widespread.”
Being the “first on your block” to try something can hurt socially if others see you as not normal. But … I put solar panels on my roof, to see if they really do wipe out my electric bill. And I experienced that they did. Then …
In 2013, I test drove an EV to see what it really was like. It felt odd to move without noise. And it was peppier than any gas car I’d driven; I had to adjust how heavily I pressed “petal to the metal.” I found that an EV is just as comfortable to drive. And when we drove cross country for three days, we had no problem finding a level 3 recharger, (the kind that takes just 20 minutes or so, to give us 400 more miles at a fraction of the cost of gas.)
This transition also fights destructive climate change. And there are no “electricity spills” polluting our seas or international wars over who gets sunshine. It’s also practical; a less expensive way to do what we wish to do.
And we’re free of dependency on politicians’ promises or corporate greed.
You can believe that if I can do it, so can you. It just makes good sense.
