Trump Energy secretary: ‘We're going to get blamed' for rising power prices — but they're Democrats' fault

Yahoo

a day ago

DES MOINES, Iowa — Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he knows Republicans could suffer political pain for the electricity prices that are rising before next year's midterm elections. But he hopes voters will know to blame the Democrats instead.
'The momentum of the Obama-Biden policies, for sure that destruction is going to continue in the coming years,' Wright told POLITICO during a visit to wind- and corn-rich Iowa. Still, he said: 'That momentum is pushing prices up right now. And who's going to get blamed for it? We're going to get blamed because we're in office.'
Electricity prices at the end of July averaged 5.5 percent higher than a year earlier amid surging power demand.
Wright's acknowledgment of economic reality offered a bit of a contrast to President Donald Trump's relentlessly sunny proclamations about the nation under his watch, from Trump's promises of a new "golden age" to his predictions that 'we're going to have the greatest economic boom in history.' Wright's words also look ahead to one of the potential sleeper issues of the 2026 election, as the parties seek to own the message about how Trump's effort to thwart the development of wind and solar power is affecting electricity customers' wallets.
His swing through Iowa last week highlighted the tensions: The state gets about 60 percent of its electricity from wind, a higher share than any other state.
At the Ames National Laboratory on Thursday, Wright was joined by Iowa Republicans who have urged Trump to take a less harsh approach to curtailing federal tax breaks for wind and solar power — among them, Sen. Joni Ernst and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who represents a critical swing district and chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus.
The costs of wind and solar energy have plummeted in the past two decades, and last year they accounted for 93 percent of the new electricity added to the U.S. power grid, according to the American Clean Power Association, an industry trade group. But Wright made the argument for the Trump administration to pour its support into coal, natural gas and nuclear power — after four years of former President Joe Biden putting hundreds of billions of dollars into renewable energy.
The Trump administration is 'swimming seven days a week to try to offset that negative momentum and try to bring electricity prices down,' Wright said Thursday during an interview at the Des Moines airport.
'But you can't turn on a dime,' the former oil industry CEO added.
Democrats are scoffing at the GOP attempt to blame-shift.
'There's an affordability crisis in electricity that is well on its way, and just with the decisions that they've already made, is probably baked in for the next several years,' New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told POLITICO before leaving for August recess. 'It's only going to get more acute as we get closer to next year's elections. They [Republicans] own that.'
In Iowa, Wright touted the importance of the Ames lab's critical materials research to help reduce dependence on Chinese supply chains. The trip was part of his goal of visiting all 17 of the Energy Department's national laboratories this year.
His visit also came just before the Treasury Department on Friday released new policy guidance that will make it even harder for wind and solar projects to use tax credits that Republicans phased out as part of their recently passed budget law — though the changes did not go as far as some in the clean energy industry had feared.
Democrats say Trump's policies could cause prices to rise by taking inexpensive clean power sources off the grid while pulling the rug out from under companies' plans to use the Biden-era incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act. Some power industry leaders have also cautioned that aggressive efforts to restrict development of wind and solar energy could raise electricity prices at a time when demand is soaring.
Iowa's senior senator, Republican Chuck Grassley, has joined Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) in placing holds on three of Trump's nominees after failing to secure assurances on the new tax credit rules. Grassley was not present at the lab, although he offered tentative praise Friday for the new Treasury guidance, saying in a statement that the language "seems to offer a viable path forward for the wind and solar industries."
In the interview with POLITICO, Wright said solar and wind projects that have already started the construction process should continue to qualify for tax credits. He said he has 'sympathy' for renewable energy developers concerned that retroactively disqualifying projects under development could expose companies to financial risk and disrupt their business plans.
Treasury's new guidance applies only to projects that start construction on or after Sept. 2.
'Within the administration, there's dialogues about, how do we handle this?' Wright said. 'People are mad about wind and they want to shut it down. There's people, of course, that love it, and want more of it. But we got to balance those things. And if a business invested a lot of money and made a plan, that's a legitimate interest. If you have projects under construction right now that meet that requirement, they're going to get the tax credits.'
Ernst told POLITICO on Thursday at a press conference during the lab tour that she has been continuing to urge the Trump administration not to harm ongoing wind projects in Iowa.
'There are a number of projects that have been planned already, and we would like to see those continue to qualify,' Ernst said.
Wright has frequently criticized wind energy — long a favorite target of Trump's — and in a recent X post argued that wind-powered projects are 'subsidized, inefficient, unreliable, land hogs that drive up electricity prices.'
But in the interview, Wright conceded that Iowa, which has some of the cheapest power prices in the country, has proved that a grid powered by wind energy can be successful in certain contexts.
He cited Alaska as another state where renewables could play an important role, because its remote location means it has limited infrastructure to transport natural gas and diesel for heating homes.
'Alaska is one of those places where wind has some value,' Wright said. 'Remote villages in Alaska where your power is coming from $10 a gallon diesel, a small wind turbine there — big win — [it] reduces your diesel consumption. Solar [as well],' Wright said.
Wright also spoke more positively about solar energy, which has not entirely escaped Trump's wrath.
He said because solar's costs continue to fall and it consumes less land than wind, sun-powered energy will thrive under the Trump administration.
'Its fundamental viability in a subsidy-free world is much better than wind, and we'll continue to see growth in solar,' Wright said.
But Wright said the Trump administration is looking to expand the use of so-called baseload power sources such as fossil fuels, nuclear and geothermal, which he argued are better suited to meet the needs of power-guzzling data centers.
'What we're doing is not ending renewables,' he said. 'The previous administration thought wind, solar and batteries were going to power the world. They're not going to power the world. So you just got to look at them in a more realistic context.'