NRDC Analysis Finds Trump Energy Policies Will Double US Power Sector Carbon by 2035

The Natural Resources Defense Council published a 38-page report on August 25 titled "An Affordability Crisis of Trump's Making," projecting that President Donald Trump's fossil fuel agenda will result in the loss of $700 billion in clean-energy investments over the next decade and double the power sector's climate footprint by 2035. The analysis is the first comprehensive modeling of the cumulative impact of Trump's energy policies since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July 2025 and repealed key clean-energy tax credits. NRDC used an energy model to compare scenarios with and without the administration's policy changes.

The Numbers

The NRDC analysis finds that Trump-era policies will result in the loss of between 390 and 540 gigawatts of new wind, solar, and energy storage capacity by 2035 — comparable to India's total installed capacity of approximately 520 gigawatts. Power-sector carbon dioxide emissions could be twice as high by 2035, reaching more than a billion metric tons versus just over 500 million metric tons in the counterfactual scenario. U.S. consumers will spend up to $30 billion a year more on electricity by 2035, with household bills increasing by up to 25% in some parts of the country. Trump campaigned on cutting utility bills in half within 18 months; in reality, utility bills rose 16% as of May 2026, according to Energy Information Administration data.

Health and Mortality Costs

More air pollution from older coal and gas plants running more often will result in up to 69,000 additional early deaths and 85,000 extra emergency-room visits and hospital admissions over the next decade, the report projects. The analysis attributes this to three policy pillars: forcing utilities to keep old, expensive fossil-fuel plants beyond planned retirement; restarting or building new coal plants; and stalling federal permits for wind development while layering tariff costs onto imported clean-energy components.

Policy Drivers

NRDC examined several policy actions including the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, which gutted tax credits on clean energy; the global tariff war that has strained supply chains and raised the cost of electricity generation technologies as a whole; the planned repeal of power-plant emission standards; permitting delays and cancellations; and the effective end of tax credits for wind and solar. Both NRDC's modeled scenarios included the rapid growth in AI-driven electricity demand, meaning the comparison isolates the effect of policy choices rather than demand growth.

What to Watch Through Year-End

Three checkpoints follow. The next round of utility integrated resource plans, due in October and November 2026, will reveal whether utilities are actually delaying coal retirements and canceling renewable PPAs at the scale NRDC projects. EPA's planned repeal of power-plant emission standards, expected to publish a proposed rule before year-end, will determine whether NRDC's "twice-as-high emissions" trajectory is locked in or faces a regulatory pushback. And state-level clean-energy procurement — particularly in Texas, Virginia, and Arizona, where utility commissions have pushed back against federal permitting delays — will be the first real-world test of whether subnational action can offset the federal rollback.