The Democratic Party’s embrace of power politics is putting the remains of US climate policy at risk.
In an effort to quickly reduce electricity costs, a growing number of Democratic-ruled states are pulling money from programs to save electricity and promote renewable energy, often by cutting fees on utility bills or redirecting those funds toward customer rebates.
Governors in New England and the Mid-Atlantic are retreating from the blue-state climate model that defined the Biden era: utility-bill fees, public subsidies and strict mandates aimed at cutting emissions and building a cheaper, cleaner grid, even if the payoff would come years later.
Now, some are targeting those same policies — even the climate goals he once advocated — as politically and financially unsustainable. Those policymakers say it’s a necessary response to rising utility bills that have overshadowed cost-of-living concerns — and good politics, too, as affordability is emerging as a defining midterm issue.
“We need relief now, which is why my administration is targeting tariffs on energy bills we control,” Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee (D) said in a statement. He earlier this year advocated for cuts to taxes and policy fees, which account for about one-fourth of his state’s residential utility bills.
Activists and experts warn that these steps are often short-sighted – and not just for the planet. For example, cutting energy efficiency programs could cost states real money in the long run.
“It’s like heating your house by burning all your blankets,” said Rebecca Foster, CEO of VEIC, a nonprofit that manages energy efficiency and other decarbonization programs for states.
“This is actually going to be counterproductive,” he added, “because efficiency is still the cleanest, cheapest and most reliable solution to reducing people’s bills in the short and long term.”
challenging trade-offs
Democrats across the country and in Washington are honing their messaging on energy policy, criticizing President Donald Trump for prioritizing fossil fuels and positioning themselves as the party that embraces clean energy in the name of affordability and climate change.
But the ground reality in states across the country reflects challenging trade-offs between near-term bill relief and upfront investments in efficiency, electrification and renewable energy.
In New York, Governor Kathy Hochul (D) argues that she is still committed to making progress on clean energy despite her effort to weaken the state’s signature climate law.
“It’s important to me that I continue to be the clean energy governor,” Hochul said at a campaign-style rally outside Buffalo last week to promote her affordable agenda. “We will make these changes. But in a way that doesn’t harm our struggling families across the state.”
Maryland Governor Wes Moore (D) is supporting legislation that would deduct energy efficiency fees from utility bills. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) last year abandoned attempts Incorporating major energy producing states into a regional cap-and-trade program for power plant emissions.
New Jersey Governor Mickey Sherrill (D), who won office on a pledge to freeze utility rates Want to access more clean-energy funds To meet the increasing bills. And in Massachusetts, a failed effort to lower emissions targets has turned into a proposed $1 billion cut. Ratepayer-Funded Efficiency Program.
Perhaps the biggest reversal is taking place in Rhode Island, where McKee — facing a serious challenge from a well-funded primary opponent — is trying to undo some climate policies he has already signed into law.
After proposing to delay Rhode Island’s renewable energy standard, curb and rework solar incentives, and limit utilities’ ratepayer-funded energy efficiency spending, McKee said earlier this year, “The biggest difficulty I hear from Rhode Islanders right now is their rising energy bills.” He said his proposal would save ratepayers $1 billion over five years.
Those measures, if they pass the Legislature, would destroy the state’s aggressive climate timelines. Rhode Island’s Climate Act forces the state to cut emissions 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. And its Clean Power Act requires all-renewable energy by 2033, building on major offshore wind solicitations — all policies initiated by McKee.
Now, with the Trump administration eliminating federal tax credits for renewable energy and specifically fighting offshore wind, McKee says the state’s climate policies have become an unrealistic burden on Rhode Islanders. Residents pay the highest electricity prices in the United States.
“We cannot ask Rhode Island ratepayers to bear the brunt of Trump’s chaos in Washington,” McKee said. “There is a new landscape out there, and we all need to realize it.
He added, “Other states are realizing this and they’re doing exactly what we’re doing right now.”
However, the cost of that short-term action may be higher in the future.
States are targeting programs with track records of reducing electricity demand and bringing new energy sources online. For example, energy efficiency programs provide Between $2 to $3 in savings For every dollar spent.
Limiting those programs would have “compounded costs,” said Emily Koo, a senior policy advocate and Rhode Island program director for the Acadia Center, a climate advocacy group based in the Northeast. Energy efficiency spending must already pass the cost-benefit test, he said, and renewable energy is the only way to break the state’s costly reliance on gas, which drives up power bills every winter.
“It feels like having the rug pulled out,” he said. “I see what the state is doing is just kind of caving in and accepting (Trump’s steps to roll back), and giving more of a blow to the clean energy economy.”
‘Guess what…prices went up’
After moving forward on climate policies during the Biden administration, many Democratic state leaders now say these policies run counter to affordability, at least for now.
Hochul, a moderate Democrat running for a second full term, is positioning herself as an affordable candidate against Trump-aligned Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
A key element of her pitch: trying to shorten the deadlines in New York’s landmark climate law to avoid what she calls “crushing costs.” In New York — and in other states and Washington — Republicans have attacked Democratic climate policies as drivers of rising costs and threats to reliability.
Some GOP lawmakers in Albany have taken a victory lap after Hochul acknowledged the potential costs of implementing the law. They blame rising costs on the party in power, and are betting voters will do the same.
“We can’t afford this. Democrats can’t talk about affordability and support these policies,” state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R) said at a celebratory news conference in Albany. “We have said for years that this will increase costs.”
New York has a particularly aggressive climate law. Most other states are not on track to meet near-term emissions targets, but those targets are often not legally binding. Hochul argues that the state court’s decision will force him to implement an expensive programAlthough the plaintiffs say that they are ready to talk. The governor is appealing the decision — and pressuring the Legislature to weaken the law.
Hochul acknowledged that his proposal would not lower bills. But she is campaigning against the climate legislation to show she will fight even higher costs.
At the same time, Hochul, McKee and other Democrats have not hesitated to point the finger at the White House.
“Cutting clean energy programs was the Trump administration’s position. It worked,” Maryland state Senate President Bill Ferguson (D) said at a press conference with Moore and other Democratic leaders this month. “Guess what happened: Prices went up.”
Ferguson — who helped pass Maryland’s 2022 Climate Solutions Now Act, the strongest in the country — is now throwing his weight behind legislation that would loosen the state’s emissions targets for energy efficiency programs to reduce utility bill fees.
And instead of raising taxes again, as they did last year, Maryland lawmakers are finalizing a budget that removes nearly $300 million from the state’s main clean energy fund to help bridge the state’s deficit, while redirecting millions of dollars to university research and low-income energy relief.
Maryland’s top Democrats say they still value climate policy, especially new solar and battery incentives that could expand electricity supply relatively quickly. But his top priority this year is cutting energy costs.
“No one governor can dictate what the bill looks like, or what utility fees look like or, frankly, what Washington does next,” Moore said. But “the things we can do to be able to help the people of our state, we will always do.”
losing the state’s backstop
As the Trump administration attacks green industry, the compounding loss of state support threatens to hollow out the sectors that sustained US climate action during previous Republican administrations.
Northeastern states in particular are moving to weaken their renewable portfolio standards – putting pressure on incentives that have historically promoted wind and solar power.
Rhode Island state Senator Don Euer, the Democrat who led the state’s 2021 climate legislation, said the governor’s proposals “could devastate the renewable energy industry while they are already shut down.”
“It’s taking really promising industries in Rhode Island — that were trying to develop their pivot-plans and relying on predictability to have such strong and aggressive state policies — that have now been thrown into chaos,” he said.
Renewable energy developers are “trying to figure out what they’re going to do and how their business is going to survive,” he said.
Cuts to energy efficiency programs could also leave real scars.
“We can’t just hit the pause button,” said Matt Hargrove, president of Total Home Performance, an efficiency company that operates in Maryland and Delaware.
Renovating buildings is a technical job that requires workers to acquire multiple licenses and certifications, he said. So even temporary cuts to energy efficiency programs could force them to lay off workers who would be difficult to replace.
“It could take up to a decade to build that workforce back up,” Hargrove told Maryland lawmakers last week.
Not every state is backing down from climate policy.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger (D), whose 2025 campaign on affordability helped Democrats regain control of the state, is moving to rejoin the regional greenhouse gas initiative.
While Republicans have condemned the move as a betrayal of their affordability pitch to voters, Spanberger has said the cap-and-trade system raises much-needed money for programs like energy efficiency and flood resiliency.
“This is about cost savings,” Spanberger said in his State of the State address earlier this year. “Withdrawal from RGGI did not reduce energy costs. In fact, it did the opposite – it took money out of Virginia’s pockets. Now is the time to right that wrong.”
