There’s a battle to define a narrative about what’s to blame for rising electricity prices. Some claim higher electricity prices are due to President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which curtailed subsidies for “cheap” wind and solar installations. Others blame AI’s rapidly expanding appetite for electricity, while some blame inflation. None of these charges hold up under scrutiny.
But shifting blame, usually with the help of a complicit media, helps with the only thing that matters to most politicians: seizing political power.
This is readily seen in California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom’s trip to Belém, Brazil, to rub elbows with the global elite at the UN’s COP30 global climate conference on Nov. 11. Newsom, an all-but-declared candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028, slammed the Trump administration for not attending the confab, accusing the president of “handing the future to China,” presumably in the category of selling solar panels embedded with secret kill switches.
Newsom went on to say that “We’re not turning backwards to the failed policies of the past — California is fighting for a clean-energy future, even as President Trump bends the knee to his Gulf-State patrons and takes a nap as the world burns.” Newsom also claimed that California is now operating its grid on “two-thirds clean energy,” with California operating on 100% non-fossil-fuel energy for at least part of the day nine out of 10 days this year.
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But California now has the nation’s second-highest electricity prices second-highest electricity prices, only behind Hawaii, with the Golden State’s electricity prices rising the most of any state since 2010: 127%, according to a new report from Jonathan A. Lesser, Ph.D., a senior fellow with the National Center for Energy Analytics.
The truth that Newsom doesn’t want Californians — or Democratic primary voters — to know is that “green” energy is expensive energy. That’s because, “60% of the time, (wind and solar) works every time” to borrow from the much-memed comedy “Anchorman.” And, it’s very costly to make sure the power is on when wind and solar aren’t producing.
This, Lesser notes, is one of the main culprits in rising electricity costs.
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The Biden-Harris administration’s reckless push for subsidized wind and solar — and California’s before that and since — has destabilized our grid and forced consumers to foot the bill for fortifying unreliable “green” energy with reliable gas power and expensive batteries — the latter of limited utility.
From the first quarter of 2010 to the second quarter of 2025, average residential electricity rates across the U.S. surged by about 63%, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. But the pain isn’t evenly distributed. States like Massachusetts and California not only endured the steepest hikes, but now boast two of the nation’s highest rates — over 30 cents per kilowatt-hour in some cases.
Critics peddle all sorts of excuses for these increases. One target is data centers, those power-hungry hubs fueling AI and cloud computing. Sure, they consume a lot of power — Virginia, a data center hotspot, has seen demand rise. But Virginia’s rates? Below-average increases and still under the national norm. If data centers are the villain, why isn’t the Old Dominion suffering like California?
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A recent International Renewable Energy Agency report touts falling costs for renewables. But as Lesser’s analysis shows, that’s a half-truth at best. Subsidies like the federal production tax credit — now $27.50 per megawatt-hour — let wind and solar operators undercut the market with negative bids, distorting wholesale prices and squeezing out reliable baseload plants — which end up not being built.
Here’s the missing link the green advocates ignore: the shift in our generating mix. Between 2010 and 2024, U.S. electricity capacity grew 16% to 1,325 gigawatts, outpacing a mere 5% rise in retail sales. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Dispatchable sources — coal, gas and nuclear, which can ramp up on demand — plummeted by 80 gigawatts. Intermittent wind and solar ballooned seven-fold, to 278 gigawatts.
This trend accelerated in 2025: More than 1,900 megawatts of fossil fuel retired by July, with another 12,600 megawatts slated for shutdown by year’s end and into 2026. What’s replacing them? More subsidized wind, solar, and pricey batteries.
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It’s policy malpractice. States like New Jersey and New York forced premature closures of reliable power plants such as Oyster Creek nuclear in 2018 and Indian Point in 2021, which powered a quarter of New York City’s needs.
Biden-era EPA rules, now being rolled back under Trump, would have shuttered most coal plants by 2032. Mandates for cars to have “zero-emissions” by 2035 in places like California ignore reality. Where will they get the electricity? Wind and solar can’t provide inertia or reactive power, essential for grid stability.
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The fallout? Skyrocketing prices.
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Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill — only now going into effect, so any electricity price increases to this point aren’t due to the law — flips the script. By rescinding President Joe Biden’s vehicle emission standards and fossil fuel crackdowns, it prioritizes affordable, dispatchable energy. Expect more nuclear builds, streamlined pipelines and fewer handouts to Big Green. This won’t spike prices — it’ll stabilize them by restoring reliable supply.
Biden’s (and Newsom’s) green zealotry promised cheap power, but delivered the opposite: unaffordable, unreliable electricity that hampers economic growth. Trump’s reforms demonstrate that true energy independence means ditching the myths and embracing what works.
Americans deserve a grid that powers prosperity, not one that bankrupts it.
