This key voter issue is rewiring American politics

It has been a big week in energy news, with several resounding wins for efficiency advocates.

On Tuesday, voters in Georgia flipped two seats on the state’s Public Service Commission, which oversees utilities and sets rates. They installed a pair of Democrats on this little known, yet powerful, body for the first time in nearly two decades. Further north, Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey handily won after making rising energy prices a centerpiece of their campaigns. The victories came just a few days after The New York Times reported that the Environmental Protection Agency is quietly reconsidering plans to eliminate the popular Energy Star program.

Taken together, these developments suggest that energy costs could be moving the political needle in ways that other issues, like climate change, have not. And, with next year’s midterms on the horizon, it’s an issue both political parties will increasingly have to grapple with.

“When the costs of climate change become evident, there’s a political necessity to find policy that works,” said Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman who represented South Carolina and has become a leading conservative voice on climate change. “When people see them on their utility bills and they see them in their property tax bills, that’s when they start asking, is there any way to head this off?”

The Trump administration’s potential reversal on Energy Star is one example of the political power that energy prices can have. In May, EPA officials announced at a staff meeting that Energy Star would be “eliminated.” The backlash was swift. Within weeks, a coalition of industry groups wrote to congressional leaders in support of a program that saves Americans some $40 billion a year in utility bills. They called minimizing that financial burden “a clear priority across party lines.”

Republicans, Democrats, appliance manufacturers, and corporate giants like Home Depot lined up in defense of Energy Star and, according to the Times, the EPA is quietly backing off its plans to fully shutter the decades-long initiative, widely considered among the most successful government initiatives in modern history. Its signature blue label is now nearly as recognizable as the Nike swoosh or a Coca-Cola can.

The EPA says the future of Energy Star is still being finalized, and many of the people who work on the program have been laid off or left. But the potential walk-back is a notable change of course for a Presidential administration that has, by and large, moved to gut federal climate and environmental policies. “This is a classic Lee Zeldin leap before you look at the situation,” said Jeremy Symons, a senior advisor at the nonprofit Environmental Protection Network, about the EPA’s administrator. When industry argued that the Energy Star label helps them sell appliances, Zelden appears to have listened.

“Energy star is an American success story,” said Symons. “It’s really a no-brainer.”

Energy costs played a large role in several key political races as well, most notably in Georgia, where the campaign for public utility commission seats revolved around affordability. Republicans argued that fossil fuels offer the best route to stable and affordable power prices in the state. Democrats pointed to a string of rate increases — six in the past two years — to contend that alternatives, such as renewable energy and nuclear, are the way forward. “We need to invest in a smarter, more resilient grid that’s capable of handling the extreme weather that Georgia experiences while also expanding that access to clean energy,” then-candidate Alicia Johnson told Grist in June.

On Tuesday, Johnson and fellow democrat Peter Hubbard, who is a clean energy consultant, flipped two Republican seats by 25 point margins in a race that drew national attention and funding. The wins are the Democrats’ first statewide victories in a non-federal election since 2006.

High energy costs were also a theme of gubernatorial races inNew Jersey and Virginia. In the Garden State, Democrat Mikie Sherrill vowed to declare “a state of emergency on energy costs.” In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, also a Democrat, campaigned on a platform that included calls to expand clean energy generation and promote home weatherization to ease consumption. Despite President Trump trying to pin surging prices in those states on the Democrats, both Sherrill and Spanberger beat out Republican challengers.

In New Jersey, the local chapter of the League of Conservation Voters funded a campaign ad that attacked the Republican candidate, Jack Ciattarelli, for spiraling electricity rates. The video has 6.9 million views on YouTube and Sara Schreiber, the national organization’s senior vice president of campaigns, said internal polling showed the ad drove up Ciattarelli’s unfavorable rating among all voters by 6 percent, and a staggering 8 percent with Trump voters.

“People care about this issue, they hear what the candidates are saying, and they are siding with the candidates who are offering clean energy solutions to help lower their costs,” said Schreiber.

Dan Jasper, of the climate nonprofit Project Drawdown, said it’s not surprising that framing climate as an affordability issue helps win elections. “When you say “climate,” I think that just seems too far in the future for people,” he said. “But when you put it in terms of everyday expenditures, people start to listen for sure.”

As attention turns to next year’s midterm races, election watchers say utility bills could again be a centerpiece of campaigns across the country. It’s a concern that President Donald J. Trump has already repeatedly brought up, including with promises to cut prices in half. But with energy demand on the rise for the first time in decades and prices rising twice as fast as inflation, Inglis said “I would think that Democrats should really make an issue out of that.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged the risk in August, saying, “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.”

Jesse Lee, a senior advisor with the climate-politics nonprofit Climate Power, says that the impact of rising costs is so widespread that it could become an issue almost anywhere. But he’s particularly watching states that have seen large rate increases in recent years, such as Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Incumbent moderate Republicans without much a buffer could also be at risk, he said, pointing to Mike Lawler of New York as one example.

Building out the supply of clean energy in the U.S. is a clear antidote to rising demand, Lee said. While Democrats have generally embraced a path lined with renewable energy, many Republicans, including President Trump, have panned that approach.

“Anybody with eyes can see that this is a glaring vulnerability for [Republicans],” Lee said. “Democrats should be embracing it.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/energy/rising-energy-bills-are-rewiring-american-politics/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org