Analysis: After A Year Of Trump's Energy "Policy", It's Stupidity, Higher Costs And Pollution All The Way Down
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Overall, US households spent an extra $12bnon natural gas between January and September last year versus the prior year, which coincided with a 22% jump in LNG exports backed by the Trump administration, according to federal data analyzed by Public Citizen. Chris Wright, the US energy secretary and a former oil and gas CEO, last fall went to Europe to press the EU for ways to boost LNG exports by cutting or delaying their rules that curb methane. Increasing LNG exports has also been championed by an industry group, the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance that was cofounded in 2008 by multibillionaire fracking mogul Harold Hamm, a major Trump donor and fundraiser, and other industry leaders
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The administration’s strong pro-fossil fuel policies seem to have helped spur higher electricity prices which have been outpacing overall inflation rates, creating headaches for consumers, say energy experts and some congressional Democrats. Electricity prices rose 5.1% between September 2024 and September 2025, a much higher increase than the overall 3% inflation rate for goods and services in the period, according to consumer price index data,
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Similarly, other legal energy analysts voice strong critiques of how Trump’s strategy to boost coal usage is shortsighted and harmful. “Federal and state utility regulators determined that these [coal] plants could close,” said Ari Peskoe, director of the electricity law initiative at Harvard Law School. “By law, utility regulators must consider affordability and reliability. [The energy department] is pre-empting the utility regulators’ assessments that these plants cost too much and were not needed for reliability. [The energy department] is imposing hundreds of millions of dollars on consumers at least without any demonstration that the benefits outweigh the costs.”
Oreskes stressed further that: “There’s no way to understand this except as ideologically driven, combined with cronyism. People often think we have to choose between environmental protection and saving money – which is not actually true – but in this case, Trump ’s policies will throw environmental protection under the bus and raise the price at the same time. It’s a lose-lose proposition, and the losers are the American people.” Trump and his top energy officials seem to have intensified the drive for more fossil fuel usage, including coal, since last April when Trump signed executive orders to boost coal production in part by easing environmental regulations.
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/10/trump-anti-environment-agenda-pushback
