'He's forcing higher bills'

Plus: Even more "presidential exemptions" from the Trump administration to ignore pollution laws and data center debate in New York and Texas.

Jul 17, 2026

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION KEEPS BURNING through taxpayer money, and electricity prices keep going up, anyway.

As part of it’s latest round of hundred-million-dollar handouts to the coal industry, the administration said it would dole out $100 million to build two new coal-burning power plants in West Virginia and Alaska. The cost, CNN reported, could be “astronomical” — more than four times as much as it would cost, an independent analysis found, to develop the same amount of solar power.

No coal plants have been built in the U.S. in more than a decade, and the last two that were — one in Texas, and one in Indiana — make it awfully clear why.

Within two years, the plant in Indiana became Duke Energy’s least efficient plant overall, despite being its newest. And the plant in Texas stopped running altogether in April 2025.

Sandy Creek, east of Waco, cost $1.2 billion originally to build, but Alison Wenzel, my colleague at Environmental Defense Fund in Texas, noticed on a recent road trip that the plant was missing its telltale pollution.

As it turns out, the plant experienced a major equipment failure and won’t be available to produce any electricity for anyone until at least 2027 — and no one’s missed it.

Even as data centers have rushed to the state, the market-driven, widespread development of cheap, reliable sources of wind and solar energy and battery storage has helped meet record-breaking demand and kept prices relatively stable. With Sandy Creek AWOL, ERCOT, the grid operator in Texas, hasn’t needed to issue a single voluntary conservation notice since 2024.

The U.S. no longer needs coal plants, as Ted Kelly, another colleague at Environmental Defense Fund, has said over and over and over.

And over. And over.

And over.

That’s because there are very good reasons why none has been built in 13 years. They cost too much to run. They pollute too much. They are not particularly reliable, despite the administration’s claims. Ironically, coal plants tend to break down during the increasingly extreme heat that their own climate-changing pollution is making worse. They are a big part of the problem.

President Trump has already whiffed on his self-imposed deadline, set when he was campaigning two summers ago, to cut electricity prices in half. All this roulette with no-reward coal is going about as well as things did in the ‘90s at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City.

Still, staring at household electricity prices that have gone up by 18% so far, the administration keeps doubling down on the riskiest choice — the most expensive, least reliable source of energy we have.

More polluter passes

To make matters worse, the Trump administration keeps giving exemptions to coal plants and other industrial facilities to ignore environmental laws.

Last March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set up a special email address and invited more than 500 of the country’s largest industrial facilities to ask for free passes, essentially, to release more of the kinds of pollution that can cause premature death, heart disease and cancer.

In more than a few cases, the facilities had already installed the technology they needed to comply with the law they were asking to ignore. Previously, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona tried to wrap his head around allowing a century-old copper smelter a mile from an elementary school to pollute even more brain-damaging lead than it already has been.

After handing out more than 180 passes like Halloween candy already, the administration exempted even more facilities this week from a rule that was estimated to reduce air toxics-related cancer risk for people who live nearby by 96%.

“The Trump administration has once again tried to open a back door for polluters to avoid following basic clean air rules,” Rosalie Winn, my colleague at Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “These protections are intended to keep people safe from some of the most toxic forms of air pollution. Ripping them away will mean more cancer, more children struggling to breathe and more lives cut short.”

We’ve been keeping track of all the exemptions. You can search our map to explore which facilities have requested and been granted them so far. (It’ll be updated soon to include this week’s additions!)

Add to your tabs

Here’s how offshore wind helped New England beat record heat | Canary Media

EPA proposal could delay smog cleanup for a decade or more in the nation’s most polluted areas | Environmental Defense Fund

Trump officials accused of stacking top chemical safety board with industry ‘mouthpieces’ | The Guardian

Stories from the States

Even though not a single data center has been proposed to be built where I live, our city council responded recently to hours of public comment and advanced a one-year ban. As they become more and more concerning to communities across the country, two states have taken action of their own.

New York

On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order that puts a similar one-year moratorium on any new data center of a certain size. Kate Boicourt, my colleague in New York, explained what it means:

“This executive order acknowledges the pressing questions New Yorkers have about data center development and the need for smart grid planning. State leaders should use this moment to catalyze system-wide reforms to the ways we plan, permit and pay for energy. These transformations are needed to create a modern grid that protects ratepayers and supports the clean, affordable and reliable power so critical to our state’s future.”

Texas

Virginia has more data centers than anywhere else in the world, but Texas is closing in fast. The state already has 335 data centers humming along, and 247 more are in development.

And they will require a lot of electricity. (Not to mention water.)

And that raises a lot of questions. Is the state’s grid — which for the most part does not connect to others — going to fail again? How is Texas going to produce enough power to meet demand as its population grows, too?

Who’s going to pay for it?

Two of my colleagues in Texas tried to provide answers this week and urged state leaders, ahead of another legislative session, to start planning now:

“Policymakers, tech companies and utilities should create enabling conditions for data centers to realize bring-your-own clean power solutions that can serve their load, reduce costs and reduce stress on the grid. They should also expand access to distributed energy resources — such as residential battery storage, rooftop solar and energy efficiency — to support data center growth and increase reliability. At the same time, they should ensure data centers strengthen, rather than strain, local water resources, and take further steps to protect ratepayers from price increases spurred by data centers.”

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