From Net Zero to Fossil Fuel Lifelines: The Federal Energy Flip Explained

The grid’s direction has changed course. Biden’s subsidies and clean-energy buildout are giving way to Trump’s emergency orders to keep coal and gas alive — with consumer price tags on both paths.

For years, the U.S. energy sector has been moving — sometimes slowly, sometimes by leaps — toward a cleaner grid. Under the Biden administration, federal rules pushed utilities to retire aging coal and gas plants and replace them with renewables and storage. Now, in a sharp pivot in power policy, the Trump administration is steering in the opposite direction. The Department of Energy has begun using emergency powers to keep fossil-fuel plants from shutting down, arguing the grid can’t afford to lose them without risking blackouts.

Both paths come with costs. Biden’s clean-energy rules leaned on federal funding, tax credits, and subsidies to accelerate the buildout of renewables, but also required utilities to make heavy upfront investments — costs that often showed up in rate cases. Trump’s approach pulls back on those rules, but it’s not cost-free: keeping uneconomic coal, oil, and gas plants alive could run $3.1 billion a year by 2028 — expenses that also end up in household bills.

Energy policy doesn’t flip overnight. Turning a system as massive as the U.S. power sector takes time. Consumers feel that lag — the overlap of yesterday’s policies and today’s pivots — in real time. And while the arguments in Washington focus on carbon goals versus reliability fears, the reality on the ground is simpler: whether the future is built on renewables or fossil fuels kept alive past their prime, households will continue to pay the price.