Like far too many Americans can attest to this summer, my monthly electricity bills have been higher than ever.
My monopolistic provider, ComEd, “is one of America’s largest utilities… with more than 4 million customers across the northern Illinois region.”
Actually, ComEd is a subsidiary of Exelon Utilities, which includes six major utilities that provide electricity and natural gas to more than 10.7 million Americans.
This summer, ComEd announced it will increase the electricity supply rate by 10 cents per kilowatt-hour.
According to Fox 32 Chicago, “That’s a 45% increase from this time last year, when the rate was 6.9 cents. For most customers, that means paying around $10.60 more every month on their electric bill.”
An extra $10 per month may seem trivial, but it adds up.
As the left-leaning Center for American Progress notes, in 2025, “nearly 60 utilities are raising or trying to raise electric bills by $38.3 billion and gas bills by $3.5 billion, affecting 56.7 million and 26 million electric and natural gas customers, respectively.”
From 2021 to 2024, “average monthly residential electric bills increased by $22 per month, or $264 annually.” During that period, approximately 77 million households reduced or went without “basic necessities such as medicine or food in order to pay an energy bill.”
Over the past year, about one in three Americans “say that they have struggled to pay their electricity bills,” based on the most recent “Addressing Energy Affordability” survey.
Per the report, “Two years after we conducted our first Snapshot Survey, we find that American consumers are increasingly struggling with their electricity bills, particularly those that make under $50K per year and those that rent.”
While there are many reasons behind the constant increase in electricity prices over the past few years, one of the primary drivers has been the so-called green transition.
Unfortunately, Big Electricity is in bed with Big Green.
This insidious relationship has resulted in utility companies embracing wind and solar over conventional power sources like coal.
In recent years, utility companies have prematurely retired perfectly operational coal-fired power plants under the false premise of climate change. Meanwhile, the number of “green” energy industrial-scale projects in the United States has expanded significantly.
Big Electricity is going gangbusters on wind and solar because of misguided policies and vast subsidies, not because wind and solar are more reliable or affordable.
Case in point: President Biden’s grossly misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Never forget: “After its enactment into law, Biden acknowledged the IRA had ‘nothing to do with inflation.’ Rather, the green subsidies contained in the bill, which the Biden administration said would total $369 billion, amounted to what they described as ‘the most significant action… taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.’”
Fortunately, the Trump administration rejects climate alarmism and relies on sound science and common sense. As such, Trump’s climate realism agenda prioritizes affordable, reliable, and clean energy.
In the years to come, as the pro-energy provisions of the reconciliation bill are put into effect, the sheer supply of domestic energy production should increase substantially. At the same time, the demand for electricity will increase exponentially as data centers, AI, and quantum computing continue to emerge.
I think most Americans realize that energy is the lifeblood of the economy. During the Biden years, many Americans struggled to make ends meet as prices at the pump spiked and their utility bills surged.
It does not have to be this way. America is blessed with abundant affordable, reliable, and clean energy resources. If we simply take advantage of our vast reserves of natural gas, oil, and coal, the U.S. economy will boom. Even better, Americans will spend less disposable income on utilities and gasoline, leaving more money in their pockets and alleviating some of their angst.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.
Image: RawPixel.com