Trump’s Energy Price Hikes Are on the Ballot, and Voters Are Ready to Pull the Plug

To: Interested Parties
From: Evergreen Action National Press Secretary Samah Shaiq
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Re: Trump’s Energy Price Hikes Are on the Ballot, and Voters Are Ready to Pull the Plug

Today’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) report confirms what families feel every time they open a utility bill: Trump’s energy price hikes are making their lives more expensive. Energy costs rose over 20% since last year, more than any other category, while his Big Oil allies doubled their profits. Americans now rank gas among the top two costs squeezing their monthly budgets. And instead of offering relief, Trump is pushing policies that tether drivers to gas-guzzling cars and leave them at the mercy of volatile oil prices—at the same time his war in Iran is driving them up. 

Since Trump took office, electricity prices have risen nearly 10%. Gas prices are up 34.2% since a year ago, with diesel hitting a record-high of $6.29 a gallon last month. Families are stretching every paycheck just to keep the lights on and get to work. Extreme weather is making it worse: record-breaking heat has forced households to run their air conditioning harder and longer, sending utility bills even higher. As we head into winter, families will need reliable, affordable energy to keep them warm. Homes that heat with heating oil are on track to pay 50% more than last winter as Trump’s war in Iran has sent prices spiking. Yet he abruptly fired the staff who run the home heating aid program last year, then proposed cutting funding for the very lifeline that helps families afford heat and cut their bills. Instead of working to rapidly expand the cheapest, cleanest energy sources on the grid to cut families’ bills, Trump’s response is to double down on the bad policies driving costs up. 

None of this is an accident. It’s a choice to put his Big Oil donors ahead of American families. Just last month, Trump rolled back fuel economy standards, forcing Americans to burn more gas and handing the oil industry captive customers. He continues to erect barriers that could deliver desperately-needed cheap, clean energy to families and cut energy costs and pollution. Trump promised to cut energy costs in half. Instead, he’s delivering higher bills by design, putting his corporate donors ahead of the American people at every turn.

With the midterms just weeks away, Trump continues to drain Americans’ wallets, showing what’s at stake. Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from Trump’s disastrous energy agenda. But voters know who drove up their gas and electric bills. They know who tore down the protections that could have shielded them from a warming climate. And they’ll remember in November.

Below is an updated timeline of Trump’s latest actions raising energy prices since our last update:

Trump’s Energy Price Hike: An Updated Timeline

September 28: Trump guts fuel economy standards, handing Big Oil another win at families’ expense

Action: The Trump administration finalized its rollback of fuel economy standards for cars, SUVs, and pickup trucks, cutting the 2031 model year requirement to an average of 34.9 miles per gallon. That’s down from 50.4 miles per gallon under the previous Biden-era rules. Mileage standards, or Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, have been used since the 1970s to improve vehicles’ fuel efficiency, saving consumers money while reducing Americans’ reliance on volatile fuel prices. 

Impact: The day the administration announced its rollback, gas averaged $4.47 a gallon—up from $3.13 a year earlier. Now Trump’s making every new car burn more of it. Less efficient cars mean more trips to the pump, costing the average driver more than $1,400 in extra fuel over the life of their vehicle. That wipes out any savings the administration claims buyers will save up front, with the benefits flowing straight to Big Oil.

September 14: Trump’s EPA allows coal and gas plants to pollute without limits and tries to rig the system so future presidents can’t reverse course

Action: Trump’s EPA finalized a rule eliminating limits on climate pollution from coal and gas power plants. The same day, it proposed stripping the agency of its own authority to address climate pollution from the power sector, an attempt to stop any future administration from reversing course. A coalition of states and cities has already challenged the reckless, illegal move in court.

Impact: If the U.S. power sector were its own country, it would be the world’s fifth-largest climate polluter, and the EPA’s own analysis shows the harm its pollution inflicts on public health. Letting coal and gas plants pollute freely will wipe out $270 billion in climate benefits and $120 billion in public health benefits, and add 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon pollution—the equivalent of driving 326 million gas-powered cars for a year. Families will pay in dirtier air and higher health care bills while Trump’s fossil fuel donors rake in bigger profits. And by trying to rig the rules so no future president can act, Trump is working to lock families into relying on dirty, expensive fossil fuels for decades. Under Trump, the EPA is no longer protecting people. It’s protecting polluters. 

September 14: Trump forces a Michigan coal plant to keep running yet again, carrying out a plan straight from the coal lobby’s wish list

Action: Trump’s Department of Energy (DOE) issued its latest emergency order forcing Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant to run through mid-November, nearly 18 months after it was scheduled to retire. Less than a month later, a federal appeals court struck down the first of these orders, issued in May 2025, ruling that DOE overstepped its authority. Because the ruling only vacated the original order, the plant’s operator says it will continue complying with the current one while it reviews the decision. DOE hasn’t let up anywhere else. Since the ruling, it has renewed orders keeping coal units running in Indiana, Colorado, and Washington. In all, Trump is forcing nine coal units at six plants to stay open past their retirement dates.

Impact: Now we know who gave Trump’s DOE its marching orders. In March 2025, a top coal lobbyist sent Energy Secretary Chris Wright a letter urging DOE to use these rarely invoked emergency powers to prevent coal plants from retiring, the New York Times reported. Two months later, Trump’s DOE did exactly that. Now ratepayers are footing the bill. Consumers Energy, the Michigan utility that operates Campbell, has racked up $295 million in costs keeping it open—even though the plant’s retirement was projected to save customers nearly $600 million. 

In Indiana, one utility wants to charge customers at least $38 million to keep two coal units open. One has been broken since July 2025, and the other has been offline for maintenance since March. Another Indiana operator asked DOE to let its order lapse because the plant needed up to $18 million in repairs. Trump’s DOE renewed it three times anyway. This was never an emergency. It was always a scheme cooked up by coal barons to swindle families already struggling with skyrocketing energy costs. And Trump was happy to oblige.

August 13: Trump DOE cancels transmission corridors, blocking the power lines needed to bring down bills

Action: Energy Secretary Chris Wright canceled three proposed National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NEITC), which were designed to fast-track new power lines with federal financing and permitting tools. Together, the Lake Erie-Canada Corridor, the Southwestern Grid Connector Corridor, and the Tribal Energy Access Corridor spanned more than 3,500 miles.

Impact: Just one month earlier, Trump’s own DOE found “a pressing need” for new transmission to keep up with soaring electricity demand, citing, among other factors, data center growth. Then it pulled the plug on proposed corridors that would have used federal dollars to unlock far more private investment in power lines through some of the grid’s most congested and vulnerable parts. Congestion already costs consumers billions—more than $17 billion in 2025 alone—because cheap power can’t reach the homes that need it. With thousands more data centers potentially on the way in the coming years, it will only get worse. Instead of clearing the way for the infrastructure that would relieve it and cut costs, Trump’s DOE is leaving billions in public and private investment on the sidelines, and families will pay for it in higher electricity bills.

August 6: Trump’s scheme to kill clean energy continues with (another) billion-dollar, taxpayer-funded gift to Trump donors

Action: The Trump administration paid off yet another company to surrender its offshore wind leases, this time agreeing to hand over $1.2 billion in taxpayer money to German energy company RWE. In exchange, RWE will steer $900 million into a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Louisiana and $300 million into natural gas turbines. A few weeks later, the Washington Post revealed that the $900 million stake is being bought from a private equity firm run by an Australian billionaire who gave roughly $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee and owns a mansion near Mar-a-Lago.

Impact: This is the fifth such payoff in Trump’s scheme to kill cheap wind power and funnel the money into more expensive fossil fuels, bringing the total spent to strangle offshore wind to nearly $4 billion. “They are creating this enormous money pump, pulling billions of dollars out of consumers’ pockets,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, adding it’s “Trump’s sneaky way” of forcing Americans to pay off his fossil fuel donors. According to the Associated Press, RWE’s leases could have provided enough electricity to power more than 5 million homes. Instead, Trump’s handout will go toward exporting even more gas overseas—and driving up natural gas prices at home. 

The damage is piling up. U.S. offshore wind growth projections have plunged 85% since Trump returned to office, and East Coast states are stuck with rising power prices that offshore wind could help bring down. After the Post revealed that $900 million of the latest deal would land directly in a Trump donor’s pocket, House Natural Resources Committee top Democrat Jared Huffman summed it up best. “These fake ‘settlements’ were already an insane waste of taxpayer funds and a ridiculous charade,” he said. “This now adds the stench of corruption.”

July 15: White House admits in court it killed billions in clean energy funding to punish states that didn’t vote for Trump

Action: In a federal court filing, the Trump administration admitted that it terminated 284 clean energy grants worth more than $7.5 billion “based solely” on whether the recipient’s state voted for Kamala Harris, the New York Times reported. 

Impact: There was no other reason. Not waste, not poor performance. Just retribution. When Trump’s budget director and Project 2025 architect Russ Vought unceremoniously announced the terminations on Twitter/X last fall, the money had already been obligated for projects such as grid upgrades, methane leak cuts, and new clean power. These projects would have strengthened the grid and cut energy costs. Instead, Trump used people’s electric bills to settle political scores. It was one of the administration’s most naked abuses of power yet, and it lays bare Trump’s governing ethos: retribution first, no matter the price working people pay. And families everywhere, not just in the states Trump targeted, will pay that price.

Trump’s Energy Price Hike Agenda Is on the Ballot

Trump ran on a promise to cut energy prices in half. Today’s inflation data reflects what became of that promise. Every action documented in this memo pulls in the same direction: more money for Big Oil, coal barons, and Trump’s donors, and higher bills for everyone else. He’s gifting companies billions in taxpayer funds to kill cheap wind power. He’s forcing aging coal plants to stay open on customers’ dime. He’s making every new car burn more gas. And he’s yanking legally awarded funding that could have lowered bills in states that didn’t vote for him—and doesn’t care who knows about it.

Trump’s plan was always to govern for his Big Oil donors, not the families struggling just to keep the lights on. But in less than three weeks, voters get their say. Trump’s allies in Congress are scrambling to distance themselves from his corrupt agenda, but they own it. They voted for Trump’s disastrous economic bill that gutted the clean energy tax credits helping keep costs in check. They stayed silent while Trump handed out taxpayer funds to kill cheap wind power, with a billionaire Trump donor cashing in. Americans see the results every month on their gas receipts and utility bills. This November, Trump’s energy price hike agenda is on the ballot.

For more information or to speak with a policy expert, please contact Evergreen Action National Press Secretary Samah Shaiq at samah@evergreenaction.com.

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