Boston (August 7, 2025) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, along with Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Senators Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Angus King (I-Maine), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), today sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin detailing how the Trump administration has increased energy costs for families, calling on the Trump administration to take immediate action that will actually support energy affordability in New England and across the country. The letter follows the publication of an op-ed, authored by Administrator Zeldin, that pushed for weakened clean water protections and new natural gas infrastructure as the solution to address rising energy prices.
Earlier today, Senator Markey held a press conference with climate and affordability advocates to call out the Trump administration’s war on affordable solar and wind energy, energy efficiency, and programs like the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) that help families in New England and across the country afford their energy bills. Jamie Dickerson, Senior Director of Clean Energy and Climate Programs at the Acadia Center; Robert Hart, Campaign and Advocacy Manager at the Environmental League of Massachusetts; Jenifer Bosco, Managing Director of Energy Advocacy at the National Consumer Law Center; and Anne Corbin-Fennell, COO of Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), joined the Senator.
In their letter, the lawmakers write, “On Tuesday, you wrote an opinion piece in the Boston Globe about your thoughts on New England’s energy grid, attempting to diagnose the issue of rising energy prices in the region. Costs are too high and are only getting higher, but unfortunately, your op-ed failed to mention the immediate source of these rising prices: the actions of your Administration and Republicans in Congress. While energy demand surges, your policies are strangling America's cheapest and quickest-to-deploy sources of energy—solar and wind—by hiking costs, creating insurmountable permitting hurdles, and injecting uncertainty into the market. At the same time, the Trump administration is attempting to kill programs meant to lower energy bills. The end result is fewer affordable megawatts on the grid, higher electricity costs, and less support for struggling American families. If you want to solve the problem of energy costs in New England, we would direct you and your colleagues to immediately address these straightforward sources of uncertainty and increased costs created by the Trump administration.”
The lawmakers continue, “It would make economic sense for the gap between supply and demand to be filled by cheap, accessible solar and wind. Utility-scale solar and onshore wind are the cheapest sources of electricity on average to operate and quickest to build – even without subsidies. The victor of the energy race is clear through the results of the free market. In 2024 alone, wind, solar, and batteries accounted for 94 percent of all new electric generation capacity—with 50,000 megawatts of new solar power, 4,000 megawatts of new wind, and 11,000 megawatts of batteries added to the grid. Compare these with the 2,500 megawatts of natural gas and zero from coal added last year. But instead of continuing to meet surging power demand with the energy at our fingertips and allowing the free market to prosper, the Trump administration is doing everything in its power to stymie wind and solar.”
The lawmakers conclude, “With ongoing misinformation and misdirection on energy costs in the press, it is important that we set the record straight on why families are finding it harder than ever to keep the lights on, stay cool in the summer, and stay warm in the winter. We urge you to stop making the energy cost crisis worse, end your attack on our energy grid, and instead support the solutions that could lower costs today – build cheap, deployable power, fund programs to help families afford energy bills, cut demand with energy efficiency, and end unfettered exports.”
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