One Casualty Of Democrats’ Affordability Pivot: Climate Goals

The Democratic Party’s embrace of affordability politics is pushing what remains of U.S. climate policy to the brink.

In a bid to quickly lower electricity costs, a growing number of Democratic-governed states are pulling money away from programs to save power and boost renewable energy, often by cutting charges on utility bills or redirecting those funds toward customer rebates.

Governors across New England and the mid-Atlantic are retreating from the blue-state climate model that defined the Biden era: utility-bill charges, 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 they once championed — as politically and financially untenable. Those policymakers say it’s a necessary response to soaring utility bills that have come to dominate cost-of-living concerns — and good politics, too, as affordability is emerging as a defining issue of the midterms.

“We need to provide relief now, which is why my administration is targeting the charges on energy bills we control,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee (D) said in a statement as he pitched cuts earlier this year to the taxes and policy charges that comprise about one-quarter of his state's residential utility bills.

Activists and experts warn the moves are often short-sighted — and not just for the planet. Cuts to energy efficiency programs, for example, could end up costing states real money in the long run.

“It’s kind of like heating your home by burning all your blankets,” said Rebecca Foster, CEO of VEIC, a nonprofit that administers energy efficiency and other decarbonization programs for states.

“It's really going to backfire," she added, "because efficiency is still the cleanest, cheapest and most reliable solution to lower people's bills in the short and long term.”

Challenging trade-offs

Democrats across the country and in Washington are honing their message on energy policy, slamming President Donald Trump for prioritizing fossil fuels and positioning themselves as the party embracing clean energy in the name of affordability and climate change.

But the reality on the ground in statehouses across the country reflects the challenging trade-offs between near-term bill relief and upfront investments in efficiency, electrification and renewables.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) argues she’s still committed to making progress on clean energy despite her push to weaken the state’s signature climate law.

“I will continue being the clean energy governor, this is important to me,” Hochul said at a campaign-style rally last week outside Buffalo to promote her affordability agenda. “We will make these transitions. But in a way that does not hurt our struggling families across the state.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) is backing legislation that would slash energy efficiency charges from utility bills. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) last year abandoned efforts to have the major energy-producing state join a regional cap-and-trade program for power plant emissions.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D), who won office on a pledge to freeze utility rates, is looking to use more clean-energy funds to offset rising bills. And in Massachusetts, a failed push to loosen emissions targets has transformed into a proposed $1 billion cut to a ratepayer-funded efficiency program.

Perhaps the biggest reversal is brewing in Rhode Island, where McKee — facing a serious challenge from a well-funded primary opponent — is trying to undo some of the climate policies he already signed into law.

“The biggest hardship I hear from Rhode Islanders right now is their growing energy bills,” McKee said earlier this year, after proposing to delay Rhode Island’s renewable energy standard, curb and rework solar incentives, and cap utilities’ ratepayer-funded energy efficiency spending. He said his proposal would save ratepayers $1 billion over five years.

Those moves, if they pass the Legislature, would torpedo the state’s aggressive climate timelines. Rhode Island’s Act on Climate compels the state to cut emissions 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. And its clean electricity law requires all-renewable energy by 2033, underpinned by major offshore wind solicitations — all policies undertaken by McKee.

Now, with the Trump administration ending federal tax credits for renewables, and fighting offshore wind in particular, McKee says the state’s climate policies have become an unrealistic burden on Rhode Islanders. Residents pay among the highest electricity prices in the United States.

“We can’t ask Rhode Island ratepayers to bear the brunt of Trump’s chaos in Washington,” McKee said. "There’s a new landscape, and we all need to realize that.

“Other states are realizing it," he added, "and they are actually doing exactly what we’re doing right now.”

The cost of that short-term action, though, could be higher prices in the future.

States are targeting programs with a track record of lowering electricity demand and bringing new energy sources online. Energy efficiency programs, for instance, deliver between $2 to $3 in savings for every dollar spent.

Limiting those programs will have "compounding 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 already has to pass a cost-benefits test, she said, and renewables are the only way to break the state's costly dependence on gas, which drives up electricity bills every winter.

"It does feel like pulling the rug out," she said. "What I see the state doing is just kinda giving in and acquiescing [to Trump's rollbacks], and delivering more blows to the clean energy economy."

'Guess what ... prices went up'

After pressing forward with climate policies during the Biden administration, many Democratic state leaders now say those policies are at odds with affordability, at least for the moment.

Hochul, a moderate Democrat running for a second full term, is positioning herself as the affordability candidate against Trump-aligned Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

A key element of her pitch: trying to loosen deadlines in New York’s landmark climate law to avoid what she calls “crushing costs.” Republicans in New York — and in other statehouses and Washington — have attacked Democratic climate policies as drivers of rising costs and threats to reliability.

Some GOP lawmakers in Albany have taken a victory lap since Hochul acknowledged the potential costs of implementing the law. They place the blame for rising costs on the party in power, and are betting voters will, too.

“We can’t afford to do it. Democrats cannot talk about affordability and champion these policies,” said state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R) at a celebratory press conference in Albany. “We have said for years this is going to drive up costs.”

New York has a uniquely aggressive climate law. Most other states are not on track to meet near-term emissions targets either, but those goals often are not legally binding. Hochul argues a state court ruling would force her to implement a costly program, although the plaintiffs say they’re willing to negotiate. The governor is appealing the decision — and pushing the Legislature to weaken the law.

Hochul acknowledges her proposal won’t lower bills. But she’s campaigning against the climate law as a way to show she’ll fight even higher costs.

At the same time, Hochul, McKee and other Democrats haven't hesitated to point fingers at the White House.

“It was the position of the Trump administration to cut clean energy programs. It worked,” Maryland state Senate President Bill Ferguson (D) said this month at a press conference with Moore and other Democratic leaders. “Guess what happened: Prices went up.”

Ferguson — who helped pass Maryland’s 2022 Climate Solutions Now Act, among the strongest in the country — is now putting his weight behind legislation that would loosen the state’s emissions targets for energy efficiency programs, in a bid to lower utility bill charges.

And rather than raise taxes again, as they did last year, Maryland lawmakers are finalizing a budget that pulls almost $300 million from the state’s main clean energy fund to help plug the state’s deficit, while redirecting tens of 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 can boost electricity supplies relatively quickly. But their top priority this year is cutting energy costs.

“No governor can decide what a bill looks like, or what utility charges look like or, frankly, what Washington does next,” Moore said. But the "things that we can do, to be able to help the people of our state, we always will do.”

Losing the state backstop

As the Trump administration assails green industry, the compounding loss of state support threatens to hollow out sectors that sustained U.S. climate action during the last Republican administration.

Northeastern states in particular are moving to weaken their renewable portfolio standards — putting downward pressure on the incentives that historically have boosted wind and solar energy.

Rhode Island state Sen. Dawn Euer, the Democrat who spearheaded the state’s 2021 climate law, said the governor’s proposals could “kneecap the renewable energy industry while they’re already down.”

“It's taking what was a really promising industry in Rhode Island — who had been trying to develop their pivot-plans and rely on the predictability of such strong and aggressive state policies — who are now thrown into chaos,” she said.

Renewable energy developers are “trying to figure out what they're going to do and how their businesses are going to survive,” she said.

Cuts to energy efficiency programs could leave real scar tissue, too.

“We can’t just press the pause button,” said Matt Hargrove, president of Total Home Performance, an efficiency business that works in Maryland and Delaware.

Renovating buildings is a technical job that requires workers to earn several licenses and certifications, he said. So even temporary cuts to energy efficiency programs could force him to lay off employees who would be difficult to replace.

“It could take up to a decade to build that workforce back up,” Hargrove said last week to Maryland lawmakers.

Not every state is pulling back from climate policy.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), whose 2025 campaign on affordability helped Democrats retake control of the state, is moving to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

While Republicans have denounced that move as a betrayal of her affordability pitch to voters, Spanberger has said the cap-and-trade system raises much-needed funding for programs such as energy efficiency and flood resilience.

“This is about cost savings,” Spanberger said in her State of the State address earlier this year. “Withdrawing from RGGI did not lower energy costs. In fact, the opposite happened — it just took money out of Virginia’s pocket. It is time to fix that mistake."