One big mess
The Trump administration is imposing new costs on millions of families — more pollution, higher electricity bills — at a time when the price of everything is a top concern.
Next week, we’ll break down the big mess of a year that’s followed the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. Here are a few stories from this week that show how the administration is imposing new costs on millions of families — more pollution, higher electricity bills — at a time when the price of everything is a top concern.
EARLIER THIS WEEK: After a third deal, The New York Times reported “the government has so far spent roughly $2.5 billion to get companies to terminate their offshore wind leases.” The projects would have generated enough power for at least 4.4 million homes.
Stories from the States
All for nothing in Washington
To hear the Trump administration talk about it, there’s no way to keep the lights on without coal-burning power plants. It’s how they’ve tried to justify overriding local plans and ordering six different plants across the country now to skip scheduled retirements and stay operational more or less until they say so.
The Energy Department has never done this before. And new data show the plants aren’t nearly as necessary as they’re claiming.
In fact, the plants that have reported their output to the Energy Information Administration have produced 65% less power than during the same period a year ago.
A few of them are just sitting there. “One ran for a two-week stretch,” UtilityDive reported, “and one hasn’t operated at all.” The CEO of the company that owns it said on a recent earnings call, “Our expectation is that it likely will not run.”
“These coal mandates are increasingly being exposed for what they are: wasteful charades that leave families and businesses holding the bag,” Ted Kelly, my colleague at Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement.
Because, even though the plants are barely being used, the companies that own them are facing mounting costs to comply with the arguably illegal “emergency” orders. The costs to keep one plant in Michigan open have surpassed $180 million, which the utility is passing down to its customers in 11 states.
But the company that owns the plant in Washington that isn’t running and isn’t likely to doesn’t appear to know what it’s going to do. It’s looking at $43 million in costs, the Washington State Standard reported, but it has no customers and doesn’t expect to sell any coal power because it’s deeply uncompetitive.
So far, it hasn’t been able to find any other utilities willing to share the costs of compliance that keep piling up in exchange for exactly nothing.
‘More harm and higher costs’ in California
The Clean Air Act allows the state to set its own pollution standards for cars and trucks that are more protective than federal ones. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have granted these exemptions for more than 50 years to a state where there are both more cars and trucks and more people than anywhere else in the country.
All of a sudden, though, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Administrator Lee Zeldin tried to reclassify these exemptions so that they could be challenged through a congressional review process and, potentially, overturned. Essentially, the EPA appears to be maneuvering to override the state’s clear authority to force it to allow more pollution to come out of the tailpipes of millions of vehicles.
How that would help make America healthy again is anyone’s guess. But it would also potentially add to the cost of living in all kinds of ways when that is the last thing most families need, Katelyn Roedner Sutter, my colleague at Environmental Defense Fund in California, explained in a statement.
“California’s clean vehicles standards save thousands of lives, protect people from soot and smog that puts them at risk for serious health problems, save money, and reduce the climate pollution that contributes to threats ranging from deadly wildfires to soaring insurance costs. The Trump administration’s efforts to undermine these vital safeguards will only mean more harm and higher costs in California.”
Department of Delay
Speaking of blocking production: In another unexplained break from routine, the Department of Defense has been sitting on national security reviews for more than 100 wind energy projects in 25 states.
The projects could generate enough power for millions of homes every year, and they represent $47 billion in investment and 120,000 jobs. But the DoD “has not offered any meaningful explanation for halting legally mandated national security reviews, nor has it offered a timeline for when reviews will resume.”
At the same time, President Trump ordered the DoD to secure long-term purchasing agreements with coal plants to power military bases. “We’re going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now,” he said earlier this year.
Eight environmental groups filed a brief last week to compel a court to order an end to the freeze. “The Department of Defense is misusing a critical review process to block an enormous amount of clean, affordable power from connecting to the grid,” Kelly said, “just as Americans are struggling with rising electricity bills.”