The affordability crunch is pushing Democrats to scale back climate ambitions

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.

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.”

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