Overview
Prominent Democrats are alleging that energy prices are surging due to the policies of President Trump. These claims are fabricated, exaggerated, and lacking context that completely reverses their implications.
The Big Picture
The simplest falsehood about this matter comes from Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer, who claims that “energy prices are soaring” in “Trump’s America.”
Likewise, Time magazine published a commentary by a former Biden Treasury advisor named Anisha Steephen headlined “Americans’ Energy Costs are Rising. You Can Blame Trump and Big Tech.”
To the contrary, average energy prices have fallen by 3% since Trump entered office in January 2025:
In stark contrast, energy prices rose by 34% during Joe Biden’s presidency. This occurred even though Biden depleted 38% of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to reduce gas prices.
During Trump’s first term, energy prices rose by 7% before falling dramatically due to Covid-19 lockdowns and then rebounding to a 3% increase before Biden took office.
After removing the rest of the Covid rebound from the outset of Biden’s tenure, energy prices still rose by 28% during his presidency.
Because association does not prove causation, none of these facts prove that Trump or Biden are responsible for those outcomes. However, the 21% general inflation that occurred under Biden was largely due to policies enacted by Biden and congressional Democrats.
In short, Schumer’s and Steephen’s criticisms of Trump are patently false and actually applicable to Biden’s presidency. This is a classic example of projection, a nefarious propaganda technique.
Piped Natural Gas
While energy prices are down overall, some types of energy are up, particularly those whose retail prices significantly lag the factors that drive them.
For example, the retail price of piped natural gas purchased from utilities has risen by 9% since Trump entered office.
Exaggerating that increase by a factor of six, Cal Berkeley professor and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich claims that “household gas prices” have risen “by 56%” since “Trump took office.”
Reich’s source for the 56% figure is an article in The Guardian by a “climate reporter” named Dharna Noor, who declares that “household gas prices have risen by a stunning 56%” since “Donald Trump re-entered the White House.” Noor then casually mentions that “gas prices rose by 8%” over the prior year, the implications of which will be clear in a moment.
Noor’s source for both figures is a “fact sheet” titled “Trump’s Unfolding Energy Crisis” from a group called Climate Power, a “strategic communications organization focused on winning the politics of climate” and “electing climate champions.” Their sheet states that “natural gas prices rose 56%” since “Trump took office.”
After that, Climate Power partially lets the cat out of the bag by writing that “residential gas prices rose 8%” in “the year-over-year comparison between May 2024 and May 2025.” The hyperlink in that sentence leads to a dataset which reveals the full truth: piped natural gas prices plummet every winter and soar every summer:
As explained by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the retail “price of natural gas is much higher in the summer” due to the following factors:
Residential consumer prices for natural gas have two major components: costs incurred to buy wholesale natural gas and the related transportation and distribution charges. Because the fixed costs are spread over the smaller volumes used by customers in warm weather, residential natural gas prices are usually highest in the summer and lowest in the winter on a per unit basis when all charges are combined.
Thus, the government agency that measures the consumer price index seasonally adjusts the data on natural gas prices so the real rate of inflation is evident. Beyond failing to cite this relevant data, none of the facts about seasonality are disclosed by Reich, The Guardian, or Climate Power.
Worse still, Google’s Gemini AI completely inverts the facts of this matter by stating the following:
The claim that retail utility-piped natural gas prices rise in the summer and fall in the winter is incorrect. In most cases, the opposite is true: natural gas prices are highest in the winter and lowest during the spring and fall.
Beyond those half-truths and outright falsehoods, none of these sources reveal that the wholesale price of natural gas has declined by 23% since Trump entered office:
So why are retail prices up 9 percent? Per the Energy Information Administration, “residential and commercial prices often reflect the cost of gas purchased many months ago” because utilities:
- “are regulated by the state regulator, and rate changes may significantly (by a year or more) lag changes” in the utility’s “costs of purchasing natural gas.”
- “have several different ways to ensure adequate supplies of natural gas for the winter,” such as “buying and storing natural gas for the upcoming winter as early as April.”
- “purchase gas ahead of time for later delivery” by using “futures contracts” to “lock in a certain price for the utility and help shield the company from fluctuations in the spot market.”
In summary, the 9% (not 56%) increase in natural gas retail prices during the first six months of Trump’s term is mainly due to events that occurred during the Biden administration.
Moreover, the wholesale price of natural gas has declined by 23% since Trump entered office, while it rose by 52% during Biden’s tenure.
Residential Electricity
Reich, The Guardian, and Climate Power, as well as California governor Gavin Newsom, also try to pin on Trump a “10%” rise in residential electricity prices since January. Similarly, House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries says that “electricity prices are skyrocketing.”
Climate Power, the source of their talking point, says on the first page in the first sentence of its “fact sheet” that “household electric bills are up 10 percent nationally since Trump took office.” It then stealthily reveals on the sixth page that “electricity prices were 6% higher” than in the same month of the prior year.
Here again, all of these sources leave out vital context provided by the Energy Information Administration, which explains that:
- electricity prices are “usually highest in the summer when total demand is high because more expensive generation sources are added to meet the increased demand.”
- the prices “residential consumers pay for electricity lag changes in wholesale spot prices in a way that is similar to natural gas.”
In other words, the 6% (not 10%) increase in residential electricity price in the first six months of Trump’s term is due to Biden-era causes.
With disregard for those facts and no evidence to support its claims, The Guardian alleges, “Among the reasons for the increase are Trump’s new tariffs, as well as his undercutting of inexpensive renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.” These claims are refuted by the fact that:
- the wind and solar subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which were passed to “supercharge clean energy development,” are still widely in effect.
- it takes an average of about 25 months for solar and wind farms to become operational after they are approved, a long lag time that far predates Trump’s second term.
Furthermore, the notion that wind and solar are “inexpensive” is a fiction.
Summary
Average energy prices have fallen by 3% since Trump entered office, and the wholesale price of natural gas has declined by 23%.
However, retail natural gas prices have increased by 9%, and residential electricity has risen by 6%. In both of these cases, the primary price drivers date back to Biden’s presidency.
James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts, a research and educational institute dedicated to publishing facts about public policies and teaching research skills.
