UMVA has learned that Congressional Republicans spent four years opposing the Biden administration’s energy policies, asserting that they raised prices from the gas pump to our utility bills, and now Democrats are turning the tables on President Donald Trump, citing the boost in gasoline prices since the start of the Iran war and still-rising electric rates.
But Trump is taking a crucial step towards long-term affordability by dismantling the climate change agenda, a move that could have far-reaching implications for the country's energy landscape.
Supporters of climate policy, however, are pushing in the opposite direction, driven by the conviction that fossil fuels are too cheap and that their prices do not account for the environmental damage they inflict.
This approach has led to a regulatory crackdown on coal-fired power plants, discouraging the construction of new ones and contributing to upward pressure on electric rates, while natural gas has also been targeted, including its use in home appliances.
The Biden Department of Energy's own data showed that using natural gas costs only a third as much as electricity on a per-unit energy basis, yet the administration's policies seemed designed to discourage its use.
Today's gasoline prices, though temporarily inflated by the Iran war, are a better deal for drivers than a return to the climate agenda, which would impose permanent pain through higher prices and stricter regulations.
Washington's climate crusaders have not only strangled conventional fossil energy sources with regulations and taxes but have also handed out massive subsidies to wind, solar, and other favored forms of clean energy.
But can these alternatives, which are too expensive to compete without hefty subsidies, really be the solution to affordability? The answer lies in the vast sums already spent on green energy, which have only managed to buy them a small share of the electricity mix.
The misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included up to $4.7 trillion for clean energy, but the effectiveness of these subsidies in reducing electric bills remains uncertain.
In fact, states with the most aggressive climate policies, like California, have some of the nation's highest electric rates, and the same pattern is seen in climate-obsessed Western Europe, where costs are even higher.
Swapping out successful energy sources for those favored by government for their supposed climate friendliness is a recipe for higher costs, not lower ones, and Trump has chosen affordability over intrusive climate change policy.
This decision may prove to be the most important part of his legacy, as the country weighs the trade-offs between environmental concerns and economic realities.
