Illinois (KHQA) — President Donald Trump has made several comments against the growing clean energy industry and claimed it’s causing rising energy bills.
Now, a congressman from Illinois is pushing back.
“The reason why electricity prices are going up is because that clean energy is not being allowed to come online, not that it exists,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Krishnamoorthi wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy stating that Trump’s actions are “driving up energy bills for Illinoisans” and asked for more support with clean energy, not less.
“It doesn’t make any sense to remove electricity or the supply of electricity from the grid. That is just a dumb policy. We need as much supply as possible to drive down prices,” said Krishnamoorthi.
He said that energy demand is rising due to overall usage going up, and also because of data centers being built.
But, he said with Trump’s insistence on stopping wind and solar energy projects, supply for that energy is not able to keep up.
And, Illinois families will bear the consequences, possibly seeing their energy bills go up by an average of $180 per year.
He also said this will impact the local economy by causing 20,000 to 30,000 people who work for wind/solar projects to lose their jobs.
“Think about your neighbors who are working on these projects…I can’t tell you how many good paying union jobs, for instance, are related to the construction of these projects,” said Krishnamoorthi. “The loss of those jobs also hurt our local economy. So, in so many ways, he’s [Trump] making the affordability crisis worse right now.”
Krishnamoorthi said that by staying in the wind/solar market, it could help the U.S. stay ahead in the global market.
“If we don’t do these projects, we seed leadership to the Chinese Communist Party, which is trying to eat our lunch. They are trying to own the entire market for renewables around the world,” said Krishnamoorthi. “Now, we actually have a fighting chance of defeating them in this competition for renewables around the world because we’re starting to develop our own technology. New indigenous supply chains are growing and emerging in the U.S., but they’re unfortunately getting knee capped by the Trump administration’s approach, which doesn’t make any sense in the world.”
Trump has changed and lessened tax credits for clean energy with the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which Krishnamoorthi argues doesn’t make sense, since fossil fuels also rely on help from the government.
“What I can say is that there are subsidies for fossil fuels that also exist that deprive the federal government of important revenues, because those interests are very powerful. So, let’s just be honest about what is the true cost of fossil fuel exploration…if fossil fuel interests or anybody else, is allowed to successfully remove these tax credits, they may profit, but it’s going to be at our expense,” said Krishnamoorthi.
But he wants to be clear his stance is overall more energy on the grid.
“You don’t have to be against having a home that’s powered by natural gas or driving a car that uses gasoline to also be in favor of wind and solar and other types of energy coming online. If you have more of everything, then we have lower prices,” said Krishnamoorthi.
KHQA reached out to U.S. Congresswoman Mary Miller from Illinois, who has been generally supportive of Trump in the past, but she hasn’t responded to our request for comment yet.
