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350.org
Trump's Anti-Clean Energy Policies Set to Cost US Consumers $650 Billion by 2040
"The fossil fuel industry and this administration's policies are adding fuel to the fire, and ordinary ratepayers are the ones getting burned," said one campaigner.
Jul 08, 2026
The Trump administration's rollback of clean energy policies will cost American consumers $650 billion in additional energy bills by 2040, according to an analysis published Wednesday by a nonpartisan think tank.
Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based energy and climate policy think tank, said in its report that "federal policy changes since January 2025 will increase energy prices, slow economic growth and job creation, increase air pollution and healthcare costs, and worsen grid reliability."
The analysis examines seven major policy shifts during the second term of President Donald Trump, who—for the third time—ran on an aggressively pro-fossil fuel and anti-clean energy platform:
- Passage of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA);
- The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) reconsideration and repeal of Clean Air Act Greenhouse Gas Standards, Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, and Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines for electric power plants;
- EPA's repeal of the endangerment finding and federal tailpipe emissions standards;
- Passage of Congressional Review Act resolutions overturning approvals for state-level tailpipe emissions standards;
- Actions to limit renewable energy development—especially onshore and offshore wind plants—including limitations on issuance of new permits;
- Department of Energy cancellations of hydrogen hub funding and easing of 45V tax credit qualification for natural gas-based hydrogen; and
- EPA's cancellation of the $7 billion Solar for All grant program.
According to the analysis, "Households will pay an additional $650 billion for energy—an average of $460 per household in 2035 and $490 in 2040."
Additionally, the report states that "cutting policies that drive innovation and efficiency in the transportation sector will inflate gasoline prices 14% in 2035 and 26% in 2040, atop near-term upward pressure from the Iran War and other market forces."
"OBBBA and reduced federal support for domestic manufacturing and innovation will cost the US economy 820,000 jobs per year on average over the next decade, in addition to the 144,000 clean energy jobs lost within the past 18 months," the publication forecasts.
"Slowing down electrification and domestic energy manufacturing will lower [gross domestic product] in all years, totaling $2.3 trillion cumulative lost GDP, with effects flowing into other economic sectors," the study warns. "The US economy will lose $150 billion in GDP in 2030, peaking at a $250 billion net loss in 2032, then reverting to losses of $200 billion in 2035 and $120 billion in 2040."
Furthermore, "worsening local air pollution will raise healthcare costs by $43 billion, with annual increases of $4 billion in 2035 and $4.5 billion in 2040, contributing to rising household costs alongside rising energy prices and goods inflation."
Energy Innovation stressed that states must act to mitigate the costs and harms of federal inaction. The report recommends helping wind and solar projects qualify for expiring tax credits under safe harbor rules, removing barriers to additional clean energy development, boosting electric vehicles, supporting energy efficient electrification, and stimulating investment in new clean industries.
The new analysis—whose findings are disputed by the Trump administration—comes amid an unabated affordability crisis that Trump vowed to tackle, and as electricity prices soar in much of the nation as a heat dome, fueled by human burning of fossil fuels, broils large swaths of the country in what many experts warn is the new normal in a worsening climate emergency.
Responding to the analysis, Candice Fortin, US campaigns manager at the climate action group 350.org, said: "This report puts numbers on something households are already feeling in their bills and their blackouts. We were told cutting clean energy would lower costs. Instead, we’re seeing the opposite: rates spiking, grids failing under record heat, and households paying more while data centers’ electricity use explodes."
"You can’t fix an affordability crisis by blocking the cheapest, fastest power we have to build," Fortin added. "The fossil fuel industry and this administration’s policies are adding fuel to the fire, and ordinary ratepayers are the ones getting burned.”
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As Millions Endure Extreme Heat, Climate Group Tells Congress: 'Protect People, Not Data Centers'
"The reason the grid has so little headroom is that data centers are consuming electricity at a scale it wasn't built for, around the clock, every day of the year," said a 350.org campaigner.
Jul 03, 2026
With at least 250 million people across the Midwest and Eastern United States facing high temperatures on Friday due to what the National Weather Service dubbed a "prolonged, dangerous heatwave" that's expected to last through Fourth of July weekend, a leading climate group called on Congress to "protect people, not data centers."
Specifically, 350.org—an international movement for climate action founded nearly two decades ago—wants US lawmakers "to establish a moratorium on new data centers and ban utility companies from cutting off electricity access of American households who can't afford to pay their bills, as an emergency measure to protect lives."
The group on Friday shared an online tool that allows Americans to send an editable letter to Congress with the latter demand. It stresses that deadly summer heatwaves are "fueled by climate change," and "in 27 states, it's perfectly legal for utility companies to shut off your electricity if you fall behind on your bills, even on the hottest days of summer."
Candice Fortin, 350's energy affordability campaigns manager, said in a Friday statement that "no American should lose their life over an electric bill. Losing air conditioning in this heat isn't an inconvenience—it's life-threatening. Air conditioning in a dangerous heatwave is what keeps elderly people, pregnant women, and young children out of the emergency room, and higher use during summer heatwaves is something every utility plans for."
"Yet ordinary households are once again paying the highest price for a crisis they didn't cause," Fortin explained. "The reason the grid has so little headroom is that data centers are consuming electricity at a scale it wasn't built for, around the clock, every day of the year. And worse: fed by fossil-fueled energy sources that make heatwaves more frequent and more deadly."
As data centers contributed to the strain on US power grids on Thursday, Data for Progress released poll results showing that—along with billionaires, many of whom have made their fortunes from Big Tech—Americans see the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency companies that are driving the surge in data center construction as top villains to US society and the economy.
To reduce grid strain and the risk of blackouts, the US Department of Energy this week granted permission to PJM Interconnection, which serves 67 million people across 13 states, to force data centers to temporarily use backup generators if necessary. However, such systems generally run on diesel or gas, which means more air pollution for surrounding communities.
Fortin said Friday that "350.org is calling for a moratorium on new data center construction, to give citizens and their elected representatives time to put democratic rules in place to manage their impact on our energy, water, and land."
Two progressive firebrands, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), recently introduced a bill to do just that. Their proposed Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act is endorsed by Food & Water Watch (FWW), which last year became the country's first national organization to call for halting approval of new AI data centers and, ultimately, in December, led a related letter to Congress backed by hundreds of other advocacy organizations, including multiple 350 chapters.
Since that letter, Big Tech has continued to make billions. Fortin noted that "Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta raked in net profits of over $80 billion in the first three months of 2026 alone. In fact, investor-owned utilities kept, on average, a profit of 14.6 cents on every dollar they collected from ratepayers. They can afford to wait while communities catch up."
The current heatwave "is a preview of every summer to come," she warned. "Our leaders must choose who they will protect: tech companies and investor-owned utilities, or people. Access to clean, affordable energy is a right, not a privilege. Real independence means no American is ever again forced to choose between a power bill they can't afford and heat they can't survive."
Over the past few years, calls for state and national bans on utility shutoffs have mounted, particularly during hot and cold spells. During another period of high temperatures last summer, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) led a pair of letters to Democratic congressional leaders as well as governors and mayors arguing that Republican US President Donald Trump "has put millions of lives at risk by dismantling federal agencies and lifesaving programs that help working families keep their homes cool and survive deadly heatwaves like the one this week."
The coalition—which also included FWW and 350—urged the New York Democrats who serve as minority leaders in the US Senate and House of Representatives, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, to fight for legislation that includes "a robust nationwide moratorium on electricity, water, and broadband shutoffs during months of extreme heat, and mandate that utilities reinstate disconnected services, waive late-payment fees, and forgive all utility debt for low-wealth households."
Months later, this past April, the US Energy Information Administration released a report showing that utility companies disconnected American households from electricity more than 13.4 million times in 2024—which, as CBD pointed out, came as "electric utilities raked in record profits of more than $54 billion and dividend payments of $34 billion," and "investor-owned utility executives were paid $530 million."
Jean Su, director of the CBD's energy justice program, said at the time that "this federal data is the most sobering portrait we have of the country's brutal energy affordability crisis... It's inexcusable for utility executives and shareholders to make record profits while families suffer climate extremes and get punished for being poor."
"We're grateful to Congress and the Energy Information Administration for establishing the first-ever study of how many millions of people are having their power shut off because they can't afford to pay," she added. "The only sure way out of this mess is to replace the price gouging of fossil fuel utilities with affordable, renewable community energy."
As Friday reporting from The Washington Post highlighted, it's not just potential utility shutoffs endangering Americans in the 23 states under an "extreme heat warning" from NWS. The newspaper found that although "about 93% of homes have air conditioning nationwide, as do 96% of households in the areas with high heat risk this week," around 3 million households currently impacted by soaring temperatures lack AC.
"Access and use of air conditioning is extremely important," Jaime Madrigano, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Post. "We know that air conditioning is probably one of the only really proven effective strategies that we know actually does save lives when it comes to heat-related mortality."
Madrigano also recognized those who have AC units or systems at home, but are struggling to pay for them amid rising costs across the economy: "We know a lot of people are dealing with high utility bills. That's a very pressing crisis in this country right now," she said. "You may have to choose between food and medications or air conditioning, and the more pressing concern may be feeding your family."
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$1.1 Trillion Big Oil Subsidies Spark Fresh Calls for Windfall Tax on Profits From Trump's Iran War
"The $1.1 trillion that governments are pouring into fossil fuel subsidies this year is not a safety net, it is a ransom payment."
Jul 01, 2026
With the US and Iranian governments engaged in 60 days of peace talks, the United Nations' latest projections about the illegal war's impact on fossil fuel subsidies this week triggered new demands for taxing the windfall profits of climate-wrecking Big Oil.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Monday released "Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock," a report detailing how governments have navigated the "most severe oil supply shock in history," caused by Iran limiting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response to the Trump administration and Israel's unlawful assault.
As fossil fuel prices have soared worldwide, the report states, "governments have moved quickly to cushion households and firms from higher energy prices through fuel subsidies, tax cuts, price caps, strategic stock releases, emergency procurement, export restrictions, demand-management measures, and fuel switching."
"While energy subsidies had fallen by roughly half in 2024 as energy markets stabilized, the downward trajectory has sharply reversed," the document notes. "We estimate that global fossil fuel subsidies are currently on track to reach $1.1 trillion in 2026 and could reach as high as $1.43 trillion in a severe scenario where the average oil price reaches $110/barrel... This represents an estimated $410-$740 billion increase from 2025."
UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in a statement that "the global spillover of the Middle East conflict is profound and potentially long-lasting. Developing countries, many already struggling with debt, have temporarily managed to protect people from the worst of the energy shock."
"These countries are doing everything they can, but there is a hidden cost," he stressed. "To deal with today's crisis, governments are postponing tomorrow's investments. Money that should be building schools, hospitals, and clean energy systems is being used simply to keep economies afloat. Without international support, these countries won’t escape the shock. They are absorbing it at the expense of future growth."
"No country should have to sacrifice its future development to manage a crisis it did not create," De Croo argued. "First, we must unlock multilateral liquidity in ways that are easy to access for low- and middle-income countries. Second, we must accelerate investment in renewable energy. Every clean energy investment reduces exposure to future shocks. The crisis has made one thing clear: Energy security and the energy transition are no longer separate agendas. They are one and the same."
In addition to reiterating calls for a just transition to clean energy, the advocacy group 350.org has repeatedly advocated for a windfall profits tax targeting oil and gas giants cashing in on the conflict in the Middle East. Executive director Anne Jellema pushed for such policies again on Wednesday, noting the new UNDP numbers.
"The $1.1 trillion that governments are pouring into fossil fuel subsidies this year is not a safety net, it is a ransom payment," Jellema declared. "Every dollar spent shielding the fossil fuel industry from the consequences of its own price volatility is a dollar not spent on the clean energy systems that can bring costs down for good."
"We need a phaseout to end public subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel profits," she continued. "Not a one-off levy, but a permanent, legislated mechanism that redirects the extraordinary profits of an industry driving this crisis into the just transition every country needs. That means affordable clean energy, retrofitted homes, and funding to protect people from the extreme weather unleashed by fossil pollution."
In the United States, where President Donald Trump's war has cost Americans tens of billions of dollars at the pump, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in March, just weeks into the war.
Backing the bill, Food & Water Watch managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones said at the time that "historical evidence could not be any clearer: Big Oil will undoubtedly leverage the current crisis in the Middle East to maximize profit margins, pinching American families and enriching their executives and Wall Street speculators."
"This demands a policy response—namely, a windfall profits tax... which would recover much of these egregious, opportunistic gains and return them to everyday Americans," Jones added. "Fossil fuel companies must be held accountable for the profiteering they are orchestrating as we speak."
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