Oil prices, data centers pave way for renewable energy comeback | Opinion

The energy affordability crisis caused by the Iran war and electricity-hungry data centers has now risen, like prices, to near the top of Americans’ political concerns. With hard-pressed consumers looking for answers, Democratic lawmakers have the opportunity to reset policy toward new low-cost technologies that can reduce costs and limit America’s chronic vulnerability to oil and electricity shocks.

Since President Donald Trump began attacking Iran on Feb. 28, gasoline prices have spiked, on average, by more than $1 a gallon, with the average U.S. household due to pay an additional $740 for gasoline in 2026 alone.

Seemingly tone-deaf to suffering consumers, Trump even claimed that high oil prices are not so bad because “when oil prices go up,” U.S. oil companies “make a lot of money."

But Trump’s oil-obsessed policies are inherently flawed because oil prices are determined on the global market, not here at home. Oil supply disruptions anywhere, especially in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz, end up costing American drivers at the pump, despite large U.S. oil production.

Culture wars short-circuited progress on renewable energy

Democrats in Congress tried to put the United States on a stronger footing a few years ago by incentivizing electric vehicles, charging stations, renewable energy and other domestic energy technologies. These technologies, together with policies to expedite the building of interstate powerlines and pipelines, can make America much less vulnerable to oil shocks and high electricity costs.

Unfortunately, Trump and congressional Republicans have pursued a political culture war against new energy sources, using the 2025 budget bill to kill technology incentives just as new private sector investments were reaching tens of billions and creating thousands of new jobs.

The Trump administration’s deliberate undermining of additional power sources took place even as electricity-intensive artificial intelligence data centers spread around the country and electricity prices jumped by 7% in 2025 over the prior year.

Now it’s time for Democrats to offer inclusive energy policies to help American consumers benefit from big cost reductions of advanced technologies. In the past decade, costs have fallen for solar energy, electric vehicles, electricity storage, fast EV charging stations and other technologies that can deliver lower-cost energy and provide consumers more choices.

Yet lawmakers must also avoid the political traps of the past. Leading studies find that electricity prices are due to rise even faster in the coming years unless more power is brought to market.

This means that, along with new energy sources, Democrats must also support growing U.S. natural gas production and nuclear power to keep consumer prices lower.

Alternative energy is getting cheaper

The good news is we no longer face the false choice between cutting emissions and cutting prices. We can do both.

Satellite detection and mitigation methods allow the natural gas industry and the energy-greedy tech industry to identify and plug leaks of gases like methane, a powerful climate pollutant, preventing billions of dollars in waste and helping to limit rising temperatures.

Advanced technologies lower emissions while cutting prices. Adding electric car batteries in tens of millions of homes and workplaces along with other cheaper power storage units, which could provide a quarter of new U.S. power this year, might greatly reduce the need for expensive and polluting backup power plants on the grid.

Cutting emissions also limits temperatures, reducing climate impacts from worsening storms and wildfires that are a leading cause of expensive and dangerous electricity disruptions.

Democrats in Congress have begun proposing bills intended to limit energy prices, but leaders plan to essentially replicate the overly large 2022 clean energy subsidies. This would be a political and policy mistake.

Costs have fallen so much that the previous levels of taxpayer subsidies aren’t needed for solar and wind. Instead, modest incentives passed by a Democratic Congress can be transformative for power generation, EVs and fast-charging stations.

New Democratic governors like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and others are already balancing the goals of reducing consumer costs and making the tech industry pay its fair share while still attracting new businesses important to their states.

US innovation must play catch-up on the world stage

Even so, America’s main economic competitor, China, is now by far the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles and renewable energy, gaining geopolitical advantage and controlling new markets worth trillions.

The United States must incentivize investments in innovative technologies like solid-state batteries that can leapfrog foreign competition, revolutionizing transport systems toward far lower costs. America can out-innovate any nation on earth, but MAGA is defunding energy breakthroughs and holding us back.

In the past, some voters viewed Democrats as more interested in cutting emissions than prices, but that can change quickly. The costs of transformative clean energy technologies are falling fast. Now lawmakers just have to make sure American consumers get the benefits.

Paul Bledsoe, a professorial lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy, served as an official at the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Clinton White House.