Congress Is Living in a Fantasy World with the Budget Bill 

In his 2011 biography of former Apple leader Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson describes the iconic CEO’s power to create a “reality distortion field,” convincing those around him that what appeared impossible was achievable, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

There’s a similar reality distortion field at work in the halls of Congress in 2025, where legislators writing the budget bill – aka “the One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBB) – have convinced themselves the US can somehow meet skyrocketing electricity demand without wind and solar. 

Unless actual reality enters the picture and something like common sense prevails over fossil fuel politics, American families can look forward to higher energy bills and potentially even rolling blackouts in the months and years ahead. 

Four facts matter here. 

1. Electricity demand is soaring 

The US needs to build huge amounts of new power generation – and quickly. 

Globally, the rapid growth of AI and power-hungry data centers means electricity demand is exploding worldwide. In the US, grid operators are facing up to load growth projections five times higher than forecasts in recent years, with overall demand estimated to grow nearly 16% by 2029.  Meeting that demand is going to take a lot of new generation.  

2. Fossil fuels can’t meet this demand  

For anyone counting on new gas plants to be the answer here, a recent POLITICO headline offers a healthy reality check: “Want to build a gas plant? Get in line.” 

In a nutshell, only a handful of companies manufacture the majority of critical gas plant components like turbines. And because these few firms are already at capacity with current orders, the earliest some developers can get the parts they need just to begin construction is 2030. 

Plus, the costs for gas plant technology keep going up, leading one utility CEO to describe gas as “now more expensive than it ever has been in its history.” Who pays the cost of these increases if and when these plants do get built? You. 

3. Clean Energy Can Meet Demand Affordably 

Almost all US new energy capacity in recent years has come from one sector: clean energy. 

In 2024, a staggering 93% of new capacity came from just wind, solar, and battery storage. 

There is no mystery to why: While the cost of gas power goes up, renewables are the cheapest form of new electricity. Plus, according to financial analysts Lazard, they’re the fastest to build and deploy in the US. 

If America is asking how we can quickly and affordably meet surging energy demand, the answer is literally just above. (And blowing in the wind.) 

4. Energy Prices Are Already Rising  

Thanks in part to AI data centers, natural gas prices, and increasing electrification across the US on one hand and projections of a hotter than average summer and greater cooling demands on the other, home energy bills are expected to reach the highest average levels in 12 years for June to September, according to recent analysis. This translates to an average of $784 for the summer period, rising faster even than the cost of inflation overall. 

At a time when more and more families are having to choose between paying their energy bills and paying for rent or groceries and federal programs designed to help are likely disappearing, this is not a small matter for many. 

On the flip side, adding more renewables to the grid helps cut costs and bills for consumers. The only question is why aren’t we going all in on clean energy? 

Congress Targets the Cheapest Form of New Energy in the Budget Bill 

None of these facts seem to matter in Congress, where both the House of Representatives and Senate have released versions of a budget reconciliation bill that effectively eliminates federal support for wind and solar energy. 

Heatmap has put together an excellent rundown of how the two versions phase out, limit, or remove clean energy incentives created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.  

But without getting too far into the weeds, the key takeaway is that both versions gut incentives helping families install clean energy at home and helping developers quickly build the affordable solar, wind, and battery projects the US needs to meet soaring demand.  

Analysis of earlier language from the House shows that repealing clean energy credits would mean much less new electricity capacity– as much as 114 GW by 2030 and 302 GW by 2035. (For comparison, the entire US grid had nearly 1,300 GW of generation capacity in 2024, meaning these cuts would give up a lot of power.) 

Notably missing from any of the debate: Any realistic discussion of how the country is supposed to make up the gap, without more solar, wind, and storage. Or how working families are supposed to handle the higher bills coming their way.  

The bottom line is that both versions of the OBB now in Congress offer a terrible bill that will raise energy costs and mean much less energy on the grid. Not to mention threaten jobs and investments in communities coast to coast.  

The bottom line is that lawmakers can create an enormous reality distortion field in the media and pretend the OBB is a great deal for America, but hard realities like higher electricity bills and less energy on the grid are ahead if anything like the current versions of this bill pass. 

We deserve better. 

Take action: Tell the Senate to protect the clean energy incentives that cut costs and put Americans to work.