Source: United States House of Representatives – Representative Paul Tonko (Capital Region New York)
WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman Paul D. Tonko (NY-20) led a letter with more than 50 members of the House to Donald Trump ahead of his State of the Union address, calling for the president to take tangible and immediate actions that lower energy bills and provide relief to Americans while improving the long-term outlook on energy prices.
“Despite your campaign promise of lowering energy bills by 50% in your first year in office, household electric bills have gone up 13% nationally and residential natural gas prices are up nearly 60% in the past year,” the letter reads. “This trend is expected to worsen in the years ahead.”
The letter continues, “The American people are counting on us to address the rising cost of energy. Families should not have to choose between heating their homes and paying for other necessities. Businesses should not face uncompetitive energy costs that threaten jobs and economic growth. While no single action will solve the energy affordability crisis on its own, it is clear that your administration has embraced numerous policies that have worsened the situation.”
The letter was signed by 53 House Democratic Members, including Reps. Barragán, Beyer, Bonamici, Boyle, Brownley, Carbajal, Casten, Castor, Chu, Clarke, Cleaver, Cohen, Davis, Dean, DeGette, DeSaulnier, Dexter, Doggett, Fletcher, Friedman, Garamendi, Goldman (NY), Huffman, Jacobs, Keating, Kennedy (NY), Lee (NV), Levin, Lieu, Lynch, Magaziner, Matsui, McBride, McClain Delaney, McCollum, McGarvey, Min, Morrison, Mullin, Nadler, Norton, Pingree, Quigley, Salinas, Schakowsky, Sorensen, Stanton, Suozzi, Thanedar, Titus, Tlaib, Tonko, and Velázquez.
The full letter can be read HERE and below.
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear President Trump:
We write to urge you to take immediate action to address the energy affordability crisis facing American families and businesses. Despite your campaign promise of lowering energy bills by 50% in your first year in office, household electric bills have gone up 13% nationally and residential natural gas prices are up nearly 60% in the past year. This trend is expected to worsen in the years ahead.
Energy affordability challenges are not a hoax. We are hearing directly from our constituents who are feeling the financial impacts of higher utility bills. Tens of millions of U.S. households have struggled to pay energy bills or reported other energy cost concerns.
Your administration has taken numerous actions that have directly contributed to these rising costs that Americans are facing. As you prepare for the State of the Union, we urge you to use your address as an opportunity to change course and take the following immediate actions to lower energy costs and provide utility bill relief to Americans:
End the blockade of clean energy projects at the Department of the Interior. Your administration has actively sought to block renewable energy projects, issuing stop-work orders for offshore wind and implementing burdensome, unclear, and inconsistent permitting practices for renewable energy projects across the board. Blocking or stalling these projects will lead to higher electricity costs for American families and is already threatening grid reliability. In December, the independent, non-partisan grid operator ISO-New England stated, “canceling or delaying [offshore wind] projects will increase costs and risks to reliability in our region. Beyond increasing risk to reliability, delays of new generating resources also will adversely affect New England’s economy and industrial growth.” The true costs of these decisions have largely not yet been reflected in utility bills, but households will see the consequences in the years ahead. Cancelling the five offshore wind projects already under construction could raise electricity costs for Americans an estimated $45 billion over the next decade.
Call for re-enactment of energy cost savings tax credits. Last year, you signed into law a repeal of critical energy tax credits, which is expected to increase residential energy bills by over $100 annually in the near-term and as much as $400 annually by 2035. These credits reduce energy projects’ costs, and therefore their impacts on electricity customers. Longstanding consumer-facing credits helped directly reduce energy costs for consumers, allowing households to immediately cut their utility bills. There is bipartisan support for reinstating these credits, which drive investments in solar energy, wind energy, and energy efficiency upgrades to deploy new, low-cost energy resources and reduce energy consumption. Due to the loss of these incentives and uncertainty caused by your administration, nearly $35 billion in energy investments, along with 38,000 U.S. jobs, were cancelled last year.
End or provide exemptions from tariffs on equipment, materials, and components needed for energy projects. Energy projects rely on complex, international supply chains. While we support efforts to increase domestic manufacturing of energy technologies and construction materials, your reckless tariff policy is creating investment uncertainty and directly increasing project costs that are ultimately passed on to Americans through higher electricity rates. Under one scenario, Wood Mackenzie estimated that most types of energy technologies will experience cost increases of 6% to 11%.
End Department of Energy (DOE) orders forcing expensive, unnecessary coal-fired power plants to continue operating. In the past year, DOE has issued numerous “emergency” orders to require costly coal-fired power plants to postpone previously scheduled retirements and continue operating at great expense to ratepayers. These orders force Americans to subsidize expensive, polluting, and unneeded electricity generation when lower-cost alternatives are available, artificially inflating prices. The continued operation of one power plant in Michigan has cost people in that region an additional $80 million on their energy bills during just a four-month period last year.
Release DOE funding to promote residential energy savings. Since January 2025, DOE has been withholding previously allocated and approved funding for the vast majority of states to implement energy efficiency and appliance rebate programs. These funds are intended to lower the costs of purchasing ultra-efficient appliances and retrofitting homes, which will result in considerable savings on utility bills. The home efficiency rebates can help qualifying homes save up to $8,000, while the appliance rebates can help qualifying homes save up to $14,000. Together, these programs would lower energy costs for consumers by up to $1 billion each year. DOE should immediately make this funding available to states whose programs have not yet launched and are simply awaiting DOE approval, so that our constituents can claim rebates to lower their bills through efficiency upgrades, weatherization improvements, and adoption of heat pumps.
Reverse terminations of previously awarded energy grants. In the past year, your administration has terminated more than $30 billion of competitively awarded grants from DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) intended to deploy low-cost energy projects and upgrade the electric grid. These awards include EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which includes the National Clean Investment Fund, the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, and the Solar For All program. These programs are estimated to result in $52 billion in energy cost savings over the next 20 years. EPA has the power to end its attack on these programs at any moment, which would allow funds to immediately start flowing to projects that lower energy costs across the country. Similarly, DOE’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program provided several billion dollars in grants to modernize and harden grid infrastructure. Without these federal funds, the full cost of these infrastructure projects will be fully paid by utility customers, resulting in higher bills to maintain reliable service in the face of increasing numbers of extreme weather events.
Request additional funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) in the upcoming Fiscal Year 2027 President’s Budget Request. These well-established programs provide a lifeline to struggling Americans. LIHEAP provides utility bill assistance to millions of Americans each year, but current LIHEAP funding levels are only sufficient to serve 1-in-5 eligible households. Through WAP, more than 35,000 households receive energy retrofits each year, resulting in an average of $372 in annual savings on their utility bills. These programs deserve more funding, and yet your past budget requests to Congress have sought to eliminate these essential, proven programs. You should reverse course and begin the Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations cycle by calling upon Congress to provide significant increases to these programs.
The American people are counting on us to address the rising cost of energy. Families should not have to choose between heating their homes and paying for other necessities. Businesses should not face uncompetitive energy costs that threaten jobs and economic growth.
While no single action will solve the energy affordability crisis on its own, it is clear that your administration has embraced numerous policies that have worsened the situation. The actions we have outlined above are within your Administration’s authority and can be implemented immediately to provide meaningful relief to Americans while improving the long-term outlook on energy prices.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.