Democrats tee up energy affordability debate with new bill

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition have introduced a lengthy bill aimed at navigating rising energy costs for American consumers.

Reps. Sean Casten of Illinois and Mike Levin of California are leading the charge on the 419-page legislative effort unveiled Wednesday that they’ve dubbed the “Energy Bills Relief Act,” which takes aim at much of the Trump administration’s first-year efforts on energy policy.

“We had the president during the 2024 election say he was going to cut electricity bills in half, but in reality, they’ve gone up over 2025 roughly double the rate of inflation,” Levin said in an interview. “And I think it’s not enough to just be reflexively anti-Trump. If we’re going to talk about lowering costs, then we better have concrete plans to do so.”

Over the last 14 months, the administration has expanded the production and use of fossil fuels in the U.S. in an effort to achieve “American Energy Dominance,” and rolled back many previous incentives for development of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

The House Democrats’ bill would halt much of that effort. It would repeal portions of the July reconciliation law targeting renewable energy tax credits implemented under Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation package, and block the administration’s rescission of certain renewable energy grants.

Although the bill stands little chance of moving in the current Congress, Levin said it could have provisions that pass on a bipartisan basis this year. But ultimately, he said it’s an effort to prepare potential policy changes should Democrats gain ground after the midterm elections.

“I think it’s best to be prepared and opportunistic,” Levin said. “My experience doing this for a while is that you have to be ready for when the stars align. And obviously, right now, you have Republicans in charge of everything, but I think the day is coming where that won’t be the case, and we have to make sure that we’re prepared with plans of our own for when we have the opportunity to make policy.”

Competition agenda

The bill would place more priority and federal incentives behind renewable energy sources — an effort both members said could help drive down costs and create more economic competitiveness in the energy industry that would benefit consumers — as opposed to President Donald Trump’s focus on fossil fuels.

“The Trump administration’s policy priorities are to raise the cost of oil and gas,” Casten said in an interview.

He cited the administration’s increased exports of natural gas and its repeal of Energy Department loans to build interstate transmission lines to connect Midwestern wind power to other areas. He said these and other Trump administration efforts create an advantage for fossil fuel companies.

But based on the current market, Casten said, renewables have a natural advantage based on lower operating costs. “People want to own the technology that generates a higher return, and that happens to be renewables,” he said.

The Trump administration has criticized renewables like wind and solar for their intermittency — which it says makes those resources less reliable — advocating instead for generating sources that provide more energy density. But environmental advocates have said intermittency concerns can be balanced with supplements like battery storage, and that diversity of resources can provide more grid resilience.

The disagreement over how to manage U.S. energy policy has resulted in broad swings between administrations over the last 10 years, creating uncertainty in industry that can trickle down to the consumer in the form of increased costs.

And while the Democrats’ bill could prompt another such swing of the pendulum, Levin said opportunities for bipartisanship in the measure could give at least some of its provisions more lasting potential.

“I think it’s too early to know whether there are ideas in here that can get 60 votes,” he said, noting the Senate threshold to overcome the filibuster. “[But] in a post-Trump Republican Party, I think there will be Republican senators who want to see the restoration of clean energy tax credits. So I’m not giving up on 60.”

Added Levin: “I do agree that it’s not advantageous for anybody to have the pendulum swing back and forth and to use reconciliation for the bulk of our legislating, which is why I think there are a lot of a lot of things in here that ought to get 60, and we’re going to keep pushing for 60.”

Other titles in the bill focus on consumer cost cutting by expanding the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and other energy savings programs, modernizing the electric grid and transmission systems and incentivizing utilities to provide consumer savings.

GOP partners?

Casten said the two Democrats’ experience in the energy industry before coming to Congress gave them both “a keen understanding, frustration and, frankly, a mission to fix the problems in our energy regulation.”

Levin is a former environmental lawyer, while Casten co-founded a company with his father that worked to harness energy from industrial sources that would otherwise be wasted. Both were first elected in 2018.

Casten explained that while the bill’s proposed changes would go against Trump’s agenda, which received strong support during last year’s reconciliation debate, they are a market-based response to increasing energy costs that he thinks could resonate with some Republicans.

“I think some of my Republican colleagues still like capitalism. I think some of my Republican colleagues in places like Iowa, for example, would vastly prefer to see Iowa wind producers make more money than make less money,” Casten said.

“And they don’t have the competing pressure of having, I don’t know, [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune’s Bakken oil shale in his district, or [Speaker] Mike Johnson’s natural gas export production facilities in his district,” he added. “So we’ll get on there, but I don’t in any way apologize for opposing an idiot’s energy policy.”

As consumer electricity prices began to rise last year, Democrats hit Republicans over their curtailing of renewables tax credits at a time of surging energy demand, spurred largely by data centers for artificial intelligence. Democrats have argued anger over the price increases has contributed to their success in special elections and the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia last November.

While the lawmakers began work on the bill long before the beginning of the war with Iran, Democrats are now also hitting the administration over rising gas prices — reversing the dynamics of the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans criticized President Joe Biden.

“Nobody is happy about the fact that gasoline is so expensive right now. Nobody is happy about the fact that the price of electricity is going up right now,” Casten said. “And I think all of us understand that if you are the party that controls the White House and controls both branches of Congress, you will get blamed for those high prices, whether you deserve it or not.”

“Democrats know that because we got blamed for it in the Biden administration,” he added. “What we are doing in this bill is saying it’s one thing to complain about the current set of conditions. It’s something else entirely to say, ‘and we have the tool to fix it.’”

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—David Jordan contributed to this report.