The cost-of-living has emerged as one of the biggest political headwinds facing Donald Trump in his second term, and according to a report from ABC News, his leadership has sent one particular cost soaring that will hit close to home, literally, for many: energy bills.
Citing new findings from a Democrat-aligned climate advocacy group, Climate Power, ABC News on Monday reported that energy bills across the US have increased by 13 percent since Trump returned to the White House in January. This analysis was based on data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The report laid the blame for this increase on a few factors, primarily citing Trump's "One Big Beautiful" federal funding bill, which he signed into law over the summer. According to Climate Power, this bill is "driving up utility costs and destroying jobs by removing cheaper, cleaner energy sources from the grid, all while funding new tax breaks for the oil and gas industries."
The report also estimated that, due to the new energy projects cut or delayed since Trump's return to the presidency, the US has lost out on 24,958.5 megawatts of planned energy generation. Trump's policies have notably targeted green energy projects, scaling them down significantly or eliminating them outright.
This loss of energy serves to exacerbate another issue driving up costs, according to Climate Power: the proliferation of power-hungry AI data centers. David Spence, a professor of energy law and regulation at the University of Texas, explained to ABC News that demand for energy is ballooning in 2025, and outpacing production "by a lot."
"We're just not able to bring new supply on as quickly as demand is growing, and that's driving prices up," Spence said.
The Trump administration has claimed, contrary to available evidence, that green energy sources drive up the cost of electricity prices. In fact, many green energy sources at a sufficient scale can produce notably cheap energy, with Australia set to offer homes three hours of free power a day thanks to a surplus of solar energy.
Trump has also claimed for years that wind power turbines cause cancer rates to increase in areas where they are built, and increase whale deaths when built offshore, despite no studies finding a credible link for either claim. A BBC News report indicated that Trump's opposition to wind turbines might have originated when 11 of them were constructed off the coast of his golf course in Scotland, a change in the coastal view he decried as "ugly."