4 Ways Trump’s Presidency Could Affect Your Utility Bills in 2025
Written by
Kerra Bolton
Edited by
Amber Barkley
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Consumers could see significant changes to their utility bills this year as President-elect Donald Trump’s second term draws closer. While Trump’s energy policies aim to lower costs, they could also have unforeseen consequences.
“Energy-related economic policies, incentives for renewable energy, tariffs and environmental regulation all hit home in terms of utility bills,” said Nick Barber, manager at Utilities Now, an online platform for utility companies to allow customers to manage their account and monitor their utility usage.
Here are four ways Trump’s presidency could affect your utility bills in 2025.
Lower Costs With Fewer Mandates
Trump vowed to eliminate President Biden’s alternative energy mandates, which require utility companies to include a certain percentage of renewable energy in their offerings.
While encouraging the use of renewable energy sounds like a worthy goal, Wayne Winegarden, an economist at the Pacific Research Institute, said alternative energy mandates came with a cost.
“Utility bills, especially in places like California, are higher due to the many alternative energy mandates that raise electricity costs while reducing its reliability,” Winegarden said. “Removing these mandates will help ameliorate these cost pressures and help reduce utility bills over time.”
Reduced Incentives, Lower Bills?
Another Trump energy policy that could affect utility bills is his promise to roll back Biden’s renewable energy incentives. These incentives largely provided tax credits for wind, solar and nuclear energy, as well as other measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting clean energy and supporting a sustainable energy economy.
Experts debate the consumer impact of rolling back renewable energy.
“Rolling back renewable energy incentives will help lower utility bills,” Winegarden said. “The renewable incentives encourage the uneconomic use of alternative energy resources. These resources are not only more costly, but they require expensive back-up generation that further increases costs.”
However, Barber said rolling back renewable energy incentives could increase utility bills, because incentives ultimately lower the cost of adopting solar, wind and other renewable technologies and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
“Without incentives, utilities would quite likely depend more on generation from fossil fuels, which implies increased operational costs that are passed down to consumers,” he explained.
Uncertain Fossil Fuels Prices
President-elect Trump is a staunch advocate for the fossil fuels industry and has advocated for boosting the production of fossil fuels, such as oil, natural gas and coal. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in recent years the United States “produces more crude oil than any other country, ever.”
Is that a good thing? On the one hand, increased domestic oil and gas production could lead to price stability and lower natural gas and electricity rates if savings are passed on to consumers. However, Trump’s aggressive stance on tariffs could create other problems.
“Tariffs as high as 20% on oil imports from Canada (52% of U.S. imports) and Mexico (10%) could significantly raise prices and act as an ‘invisible tax’ on American small businesses,” said Javier Palomarez, founder and CEO of the United States Hispanic Business Council (USHBC). “These tariffs would impact costs for fuel, transportation and manufacturing, hitting families and businesses alike.”
Possible Savings From Deregulation
Trump’s push to dismantle business regulations across many sectors, including energy, could lower your energy bills if utility companies reduce their rates as a result.
“Deregulation could free up capital and resources, enabling businesses to adopt more efficient production methods and stabilize energy prices,” Palomarez said.
He explained, “Still, industries heavily reliant on traditional energy, such as transportation and manufacturing, along with Hispanic communities, where 36.6% of workers are employed in energy-dependent sectors, face significant vulnerability to rising energy costs.”
Palomarez said while deregulation offers potential relief, it remains uncertain how much the Trump administration can achieve without collaboration from Congress or industry leaders.
Editor’s note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.
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