By Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Wall Street Journal.
Electricity prices are rising, and Democrats blame President Trump. For years, articles in the media have said that renewables provide the lowest-cost electricity, claiming that wind and solar generators were cheaper than coal, natural gas, and nuclear. But prices are soaring in green energy states that install wind and solar and close coal plants.
Rahm Emanual, former Democrat mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff, recently said that bigger electric bills “are a direct result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), which cut green energy subsidies.” But the OBBB became law in July, subsidy cuts don’t take place until 2027, and power prices have been rising for many years while subsidies were in place. Green energy states obsessed with climate policies are suffering from escalating prices.
Data from the US Department of Energy (DOE) show that electricity prices in California, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York have risen more than 30 percent in the last five years compared with just 22.5% nationally. Because of climate policies, these states closed their coal-fired power plants over the last 15 years, with the exception of one coal plant in Maryland and one in Maine. In comparison, prices in Georgia, Florida, Missouri, Texas and other states hampered less by green energy initiatives are rising less than the U.S. average. These states continue to be more friendly to lower-cost hydrocarbon fuels for electricity generation.
California’s electricity prices are up 59% over the last five years. The state closed all but one of its coal plants and all nuclear facilities except the Diablo Canyon plant. California now has the nation’s second highest residential electricity prices at 31.9 cents per kilowatt-hour, almost double the national price of 16.5 cents. The state’s massive investment in renewable sources, which accounted for more than half of California’s in-state electricity generation in 2024, has driven the price jump.
Power prices in Massachusetts are up 31% over the last five years. Residential prices are 29.4 cents/kWh, the third highest in the nation. The state produces only about half of the electricity it produced in 2010 because of closures of coal plants and the Pilgrim nuclear plant in 2019. Commercial and residential solar provided about one-fourth of Massachusetts power generation in 2024. Plans call for all new generating capacity to be wind and solar.
Surging electricity prices were a top issue in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. Candidates Jack Cittarelli and Mikie Sherrill both criticized the power policies of retiring governor Phil Murphy. Driven by green energy goals, New Jersey closed one nuclear plant, five coal plants, and two gas plants during the terms of governors Murphy and Chris Christie. Because of the plant closures, the state must now import about one-fifth of its power from other states. Both Murphy and Christie promoted offshore wind, but these projects are now stalled due to rising costs and Trump Administration opposition.
Green policies have created a costly natural-gas shortage in New England. In 2024, gas generated 55% of electricity for New England homes. But for more than a decade, New York blocked the construction of gas pipelines to New England in an effort to decarbonize. To reduce the shortage, the region imports liquified natural gas from Canada and overseas locations at higher prices.
The lack of pipelines forces residents in Connecticut and other New England states to pay as much as double the price for gas compared to residents in other states. Connecticut electricity prices have climbed 31% in the past five years largely because of gas restrictions. The Trump Administration is pushing to revive the Constitution and NESE pipelines to bring lower-cost gas to New England, projects that were blocked by New York.
New York electricity prices rose 37% over the last five years. The New York State Scoping Plan calls for 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and 100% zero-emissions electricity by 2040. The state closed its last coal plant and also the Indian Point nuclear plant in 2020, planning to generate increasing output from wind and solar sources. But renewables have not grown fast enough and the New York Independent System Operator now warns of a growing power shortfall.
Power prices in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and Texas have risen 21% or less over the last five years. These states continue to rely on lower-cost hydrocarbon fuels for electricity generation: Florida (73% gas, 6% coal), Georgia (41% gas, 16% coal), Missouri (14% gas, 67% coal), and Texas (54% gas, 21% coal).
Other DOE data shows that, in most cases, electricity prices in the leading wind states are rising faster than the national average. From 2008 to 2024, national prices rose 33.4%, with most of the increase over the last five years. But power prices in seven of the top 12 wind states rose faster than the national average, including California (116%), Minnesota (59%), Oregon (57%), Kansas (51%), Colorado (42%), Nebraska (40%), and Iowa (37%). Wind is more expensive than traditional electricity sources because wind uses huge amounts of land, requires two or three times as much transmission infrastructure, and is intermittent, requiring backup from dispatchable power plants.
Democrats should stop blaming Republicans for soaring energy prices in blue states that their own green energy policies cause. If they want prices to reverse course, then they should use the electricity sources that are actually cheaper.
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and author of the bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.
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Ah, but like their climate models, the LCOE pricing model is a higher reality, immune from such any need to be verified against reality.
Have faith, and keep the subsidies coming!
All the massive “misscalculations” somehow always benefit AGW and the great narrative.
I’m pretty sure It’s just a coincidence.
Red states should simply stop selling electricity to green states.
That way the green states finally find out how expensive cheap green energy really is.
From the article: “Democrats should stop blaming Republicans for soaring energy prices”
They should, but they won’t.
Democrats are going to blame Trump for everything under the sun. That’s their standard method of attack. They do this to all Republicans, but especially to Trump. He’s the one in charge, and the Democrats have developed a special hate for Trump (TDS) so they are eager to blame him for everything, especially for problems the Democrats have caused themselves such as high prices. Trump didn’t drive prices up, it was the high inflation caused by Democrats. And now they blame Trump for it. It’s standard procedure for these liars.
Gasoline in Oklahoma is $2.49 a gallon as of Monday. Trump says he is going to get it down to $2 dollars. That’s about what the price was right after Trump left his first term.
Every decrease in the price of gasoline by $0.80 is the equivalent of adding one percent to the GDP of the United States.
It will be hard to get to a national average of $2/gal because of states such as WA, CA and others that do not have a local petroleum industry and thus have high import costs PLUS high taxes. PLUS, WA has a fee (indulgence) for major Carbon Dioxide producers. While not directly applied to gas, it raises the prices of gas and almost everything else. In non-metro WA the price of regular is about $3.85.
Democrats all love tax increases until tax increases are called Tariffs. Then they hate them because they “hurt poor people more”.
Complete and utter BS. They hate them because Trump increased them. State sales taxes are regressive and hurt the poor the most, just like tariffs. The highest state sales taxes by far are in democrat run states.
The only difference is you can avoid tariffs completely by buying Made in USA items. Not so with state sales taxes.
“The only difference is you can avoid tariffs completely by buying Made in USA items”.
Whether you pay a tax or a tariff, buying USA products might feel good but will result in overall higher prices and that is bad news for poor people.
There is NO way around this..
But buying local means jobs and earnings for the poor, while importing stuff benefits only the traders and Investors.
Your objection makes you sound like an old and jaded Bolshevik, who gets paid to excrete Critical Theory over everything that might sound like freedom.
Please explain how we could raise a family on one salary when things were made of iron, and now we can’t afford groceries because we save soooo much buying plastic shituff that breaks after two uses. I still have my steel spade from 1985, every single one bought this century? Scrap metal that the scrap dealer does not even want.
Go on, explain!!!
Bolshie!
Of course there is. You can buy or barter American made items at yard sales, craigslist, facebook market place and thrift stores for a dime on the dollar with no or reduced sales taxes. Poor people have been doing this for years.
Since I’ve now shown your assertion to be incorrect, will you retract it?
“Democrats are going to blame Trump for everything under the sun.”
& Republicans blame Democrats for everything under the sun … It’s a form of tribalism.
We see exactly the same in the UK between the Labour & Tory parties. Every time there is a change of government, the new incumbent wastes huge effort & money, dismantling the previous government’s efforts (the good, bad & indifferent), then forces its own ideas (good, bad & indifferent), knowing most of those will be removed by the next change of government.
We have too much government, all lining their pockets with our money.
“& Republicans blame Democrats for everything under the sun”
That is because the Democrats are at fault.
One of the two complaining parties is wrong, and one is correct. I would submit it is the Democrats who are the ones who are wrong. They are wrong on every count. It is easily demonstrated when facts are added to the conversation.
The first day in office, Biden cancelled all of Trump’s EOs, all, the good, the bad, and the ugly (yes there were some). Just to eliminate Trump’s tenure.
So what’s new?
Exactly as Obama predicted in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle when he was running for president.
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
https://youtu.be/-NKzVvKIoLI?si=5zTi_Fxj2iyGjZxB
California has a cap and trade system. Look at the chart. No surprises from what Obama said there.
Apparently, democrats have poor memories or an extremely difficult time believing Obama when he speaks.
“Other DOE data shows that, in most cases, electricity prices in the leading wind states”
The graph here is very unconvincing It shows the states in order of wind use, with Texas (by far the biggest) on the left. The top 8 states show a generally lower price rise. It’s only by including California that it looks like wind might be more expensive. But Cal ranks only 10, and wind could only be a minor contributor to the price rise, if at all.
California imports 33% of it’s electricity from other states because it cannot produce enough of it’s own. California cannot regulate the price of electricity bought from other states.
It’s not a secret. California pays more for all it’s energy needs because we are “saving the earth.”
That tells us nothing about the cost of wind energy
Even you know that green energy is way more expensive,so please stop this nonsense.
As the president and Citibank proxy who wasn’t even allowed to pick his own cabinet said 15 years ago: ” Under my plans energy prices will skyrocket “.
The same thing said Goldman Sachs Svengali and Stasi Merkel: ” Energy is too cheap”before she started phasing out nuclear energy (because co2).
Cut the green energy fanboys from getting help from outside and their economies will tank within less than a year.
The UK and Germany tell us what wind energy costs.
“That tells us nothing about the cost of wind energy”
You are divergent from the theme of the article. The focus is on who or what is to blame, not how much wind costs.
To blame for what? If wind lowers prices?
“If wind lowers prices?”
Which it doesn’t.
The implementation of erratic, intermittent sources into a grid is extremely expensive.
Fwiw: The graph is showing generation (The leading U.S. states for wind energy generation are Texas, followed by Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas) not use.
Point taken. The eight biggest generators (wind) show generally smaller than average price rises, with the biggest (Texas) showing an actual reduction.
Yeah those renewable really working to keep the prices down in Australia
Electricity was up 37.1 per cent in the 12 months to October that from the Reserve Bank of Australia and it is causing surging CPI and no rate relief for home owners.
Albanese and Chalmers shoot and they score .. ready for the run out of lame excuses:-)
And the strategies for deliberate (brainless) power costs were overseen by Bozo Bowen.
So successful was Bozo’s stint at the helm of energy pricing for ordinary Aussie housholds, he’s being given the job of rolling out his “success formula” to developing countries as president of the 2026 CoP.
What could go wrong?
“The eight biggest generators (wind) show generally smaller than average price rises, with the biggest (Texas) showing an actual reduction.”
What the chart does NOT show is what percentage of electricity consumed in a give State was generated by WTGs or even what the mix is. It also does not compare total consumption by State.
The chart also does not display percent of electricity imported and associated costs and markups.
Repeating: That is not the point of the article. See my post above.
Nick is chasing grasshoppers again.
We have Nick here to pick a single thread and pull on it rather than critique the whole article.
Nick’s phraseology, as usual, leaves a bit to be desired and his rabid focus on one nit is his standard approach.
The point Nick made is the one graph does not directly support a conjecture that massive WTG causes electrical price increases. To that point, concur. The graph by itself as a stand-alone is unconvincing.
Alternative explanations however are at least partially addressed in the text.
It is also true in the referenced chart, the top 8 WTG States, 5 had lower than national average.
The mapping from that chart to the former shows that there are several States with price issues that are not in the top 12 WTG States. The article did address NG and energy imports, both non debatable factors.
It is more likely that State government mismanagement is the primary cause and that mismanagement leads to higher prices in 7 of the 12 top WTG States.
Based on a focus on this specific point, the article leads to an unsupported conclusion that WTG is the “control knob” of electricity prices.
Now to see how the conversation continues.
“rabid focus on one nit”
It isn’t a nit. It is the featured diagrm at the top, and one of the two quantitative data advanced. And it really is good evidence that in fact heavy investment in wind does give better price performance. Especially Texas, which has by far the greatest investment, and the best price result.
“It is more likely that State government mismanagement is the primary cause”
Well, that can happen, but how does it help the argument here?
Texas still has a large and mostly functional DISPATCHABLE gas electricity supply.
Wind acts more like a parasite on their system.
Supplemental power is its only sensible application.
““It is more likely that State government mismanagement is the primary cause””
In nearly every case, that dysfunctionality and mismanagement is from State governments following idiotic anti-CO2 agendas.
Nick, is there anything that would convince you that grid scale wind and solar do not decrease electricity costs?
Well, presenting a graph that shows that high wind states have lower price increases won’t do it.
Forget the graphs.
Let’s see what unsubsidized consumer electricity bills look like.
‘Candidates Jack Cittarelli and Mikie Sherrill both criticized the power policies of retiring governor Phil Murphy.’
Can’t wait to see what policies ol’ Mikie has up her sleeve to bring down NJ electricity prices. Are NJ voters really that naive that they think she’ll buck climate alarmism, one of the Left’s most potent weapons in its ongoing quest for power?
Trump will help Mikie out by denying permission for Mikie to build off-shore windmills.
“Rahm Emanual, former Democrat mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff, recently said that bigger electric bills “are a direct result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), which cut green energy subsidies.”
How stupid can you get? Cheap energy doesn’t need subsidies, if your energy is being subsidized it is not cheap.
He now that his voting base can barely generate a thought of their own , let alone a critical one that requires 2 steps.
“How stupid can you get?”
In the case of Rahm Emanual, he can get very stupid. Blaming high electricity prices on Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill is rediculous, and is a good example of how stupid Rahm can get. Most of The Bill’s provisions don’t take effect until the first of the year 2026, and subsidies for unreliable windmills are continued until 2027, so Rahm is distorting the truth, just like all Radical Democrats do. They have to distort the truth because the truth makes the Radical Democrats look very bad.
Just like they have been declaring that it will be Trump;s fault that health insurance costs will go up when ObamaCare subsidies expire.
The fact that O’bummercare need such massive subsidies, shows what a totally idiotic scheme it was in the first place.
Rule nr1 on this platform: nothing is EVER blamed on Trump. Whatever it is. Pretty much rubberstamped.
This will get some negative points even though they know i’m right, right?
It’s a trigger.
TDS is an insidious disease of the mind. !
Trump has only been there less than a year, and still has a lot to do to counter the greenie agenda, which is the real reason for high electricity prices, basically everywhere there is more than a tiny amount of “renewables”
“TDS is an insidious disease of the mind. !”
Most definitely. Democrats are driving themselves crazy over Trump. They hate that after all their efforts, they could not lay a glove on Trump.
Trump is dismantling the Radical Democrats’ Socialist Paradise and this has driven the Radical Democrats around the bend. They are no longer rational (if they ever were).
I’m sure that you are 100% aware that rising electricity prices in the USA are related to green policies Trump is fighting,
as this happens all over the western world where these policies happen.
So let’s not pretend that this here is some obvious Trump nonsense like the Venezuela aggression that is as ridiculous as AGW as Venezuela isn’t even close to be one of the top drug producing states(Afghanistan dropped out of the list after the USA left and opium production went down 80%) and not even close to be a major drug hub like Israel (this is a trigger to the woke right).
Of course the majority rather gets triggered than do research,
but in this case your comment is BS, for a simple reason.
There is no way for any president to drive electricity prices up within a few month.
Only if he shuts down power plants.
Didn’t happen – therefore this is a mix of years green policies and AI demand.
“So let’s not pretend that this here is some obvious Trump nonsense like the Venezuela aggression that is as ridiculous as AGW as Venezuela isn’t even close to be one of the top drug producing states”
I think there are a lot of reasons for Trump’s actions with regard to Maduro and Venezuela, not just the drug trafficking.
Donroe is looking at the Big Picture with regard to Central and South America. Trump doesn’t like the influence China and Russia and the Mad Mullahs of Iran are exercising in the region and he is doing something about it.
First on the list is the ouster of Maduro, who will be replaced by the winner of the last election in Venezuela. Maduro won 30 percent of that vote. He lost. He should now leave while he still can.
I agree that Venezuela is concerning.
I can see better approaches than what Trump chose. I agree with the policy and disagree with the implementation.
Perfection is unobtainium. There is no perfect world, no perfect country, no perfect government, no perfect politician.
“Rule nr1 on this platform: nothing is EVER blamed on Trump.”
More like anything blamed on Trump is challenged here with facts.
Blame something on Trump. Let’s see how you do.
Poor little Marxist, can’t get reality to go along with it, so it has to lash out.
We have shown why it isn’t Trump’s fault. Care to for once, actually put forth an argument to defend your position, or are you going to continue whining that the mean man took away your subsidized cookies?
“It’s a trigger.”
Wrong. There are no such reactions to legitimate concerns. The responses to which you allude are unfounded attacks.
There is much that Trump does that is disagreeable to many. But, pray tell, how is skyrocketing energy prices Trump’s fault?
Be specific. No hand waving or Harris word salads.
We have a choice. As disruptive as it can be, we must undo the damage inflicted by prior administrations going back to Clinton-Gore (Dem and Rep). Note: Not everything prior administrations have implemented are damaging. This will require selective prioritization.
Or we must accept an alternative future where the economy is cratered, we lose chunks of the country to pay off massive debt, and the common people have nothing, are cold and hungry and living in the dark, and are definitely NOT happy.
Friendly advice: Do not deal in absolutes. “Nothing” is an absolute.
Friendly advice: Leave your ego at the door. Proclaiming yourself right is pure ego.
I blame Trump for a number of things, including the free cell phones he was supposed to give us all.
(or was that Obama? So many people to blame for things we haven’t been given for free by government these days, it’s hard to remember 😫 )
Understand, subsidies do not reduce the cost of electricity, they simply hide those costs. Common sense will tell you that the more systems (e.g., wind, solar, gas, coal, hydro, etc.) you put in place the more costly electricity will become. Each will have to charge enough either through rates or subsidies to be profitable or they will fail. The new mantra is to use technology to balance the demand across these sources of energy and that will be the savior. No, it won’t. If you add another layer the high cost technology to balance the energy from these sources that is another cost layer. The most economical and reliable approach is to stop the wind and solar madness and reduce the complexity and unreliability and its associated costs.
Socialists are upset that other people aren’t willing to pay for their free stuff.
Nothing new here.
What the article does not show (or if it does then I missed it) is a comparison between states heavily into renewables and other states. ie, something that ties price increase to renewables.
The featured diagram does that, but in reverse. It shows the US average, and to the left the states generating the most wind energy. The problem for here is that the high wind states had lower increases. The windiest (Texas) had a decrease.