U.S. Secretary of Energy Wright: Under the Trump administration, you're going to truly see the launch of the nuclear renaissance. The coming years will be huge

U.S. Secretary of Energy Wright: Under the Trump administration, you're going to truly see the launch of the nuclear renaissance. The coming years will be huge

Household energy bills in some Republican-leaning states could rise by more than $600 every year, according to a new analysis of the reconciliation spending bill signed by former President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025. The legislation, dubbed the "big, beautiful bill," is poised to increase electricity rates by up to 18% by 2035, with states that voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election bearing the brunt of the increases [1].

The analysis, conducted by Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy thinktank, estimates that by 2035, household energy costs will rise by an average of $170 per year. The states most affected include Missouri, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Texas, which all voted for Trump in the 2024 election. In Missouri, energy bills could spike by $640 annually [1].

The reconciliation bill strips away support for cheap solar and wind energy production, forcing utilities to rely more heavily on existing, inefficient gas generators. This shift is expected to drive up energy costs, particularly in states that have not enacted their own policies to boost renewables. "Demand for electricity is increasing and without renewables we aren’t able to meet that new demand," said Dan O’Brien, senior analyst at Energy Innovation and author of the new study [1].

The bill also seeks to eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (Liheap), which aids around 6 million US households with their bills, and deletes subsidies for the construction of energy-efficient homes and upgrades to home cooling, heating, and insulation systems. This assistance is crucial for energy-insecure households, who often struggle to meet the cost of heating, cooling, and lighting their homes [1].

The rise in energy costs comes at a time when electricity prices for American households have already increased above the rate of inflation since 2022. Around 34 million households reported difficulties in paying energy bills in 2020. Lower-income people, as well as those who are Black, Hispanic, elderly, have young children, or live in poorly constructed and badly insulated homes, are most at risk of this sort of energy insecurity [1].

Extreme heat is the leading weather-related cause of deaths in the US, with advancing global temperatures due to the burning of fossil fuels causing longer and fiercer heatwaves. This summer in the US is expected to be hotter than the long-term norm for the season, with explosive demand for cooling causing a strain upon the grid in some places. In June, 110,000 people in New York City lost power due to a surge of electricity use during a hot spell [1].

In the hottest parts of the US, lengthy power blackouts could prove catastrophic. If a prolonged heatwave and a blackout hit Phoenix, Arizona, at the same time, half of the city’s 1.6 million residents would require urgent medical help and 1% of the population would die, a 2023 study warned [1].

References:

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/14/trump-tax-bill-energy-republican-states