Wisely sensing a political opening with gasoline prices up by more than $1 per gallon since the start of the Iran war, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) outlined an energy agenda that Democrats would pursue in 2027 should they win the congressional elections this November. Unfortunately, his speech revealed Democrats to have learned nothing from their 2024 defeat. They are still peddling an agenda limited to costly, inefficient, but supposedly clean energy that drives prices higher.
Speaking to the League of Conservation Voters, which is notoriously opposed to the use of all fossil fuels, Schumer outlined a five-point energy plan under which Senate Democrats would increase subsidies but only for “clean energy” projects, reform permitting — again only for their favored energy sources — spend more on the electricity energy grid with a special focus on battery storage for renewable energy, ramp up regulations to suppress the development of data centers, and increase energy regulation to encourage lower energy consumption. It is a recipe for higher costs, slower development, and sluggish wealth creation.
At no point did Schumer acknowledge that fossil fuels are and should continue to be an important element of American energy dominance.
Instead, he falsely claimed that “climate change makes everything more expensive.” This ignores ample evidence that warmer winters reduce demand for heating fuel and electricity, lengthen growing seasons, and increase crop sizes. Schumer also claimed that clean energy lowers costs and electric bills, which can be true if clean energy production is allowed to compete with fossil fuels, but this is not true when energy is subsidized through caps on carbon emissions and restrictions on fossil fuel development.
We have written multiple times on the need for permitting reform, particularly to lower energy prices, and there have been bipartisan breakthroughs on the issue. These efforts, even the bipartisan ones, include permitting reform for all projects, clean energy and fossil fuel alike. If we are serious about lowering energy costs and making energy supplies more reliable, we need more oil and gas pipelines just as much or more than we need new solar panels and nuclear projects. Unfortunately, Schumer is signaling that if they take power, Senate Democrats will allow permitting reform only for their pet energy projects. This would be a huge mistake.
Schumer is a deeply unpopular leader in the increasingly radical Democratic Party, and the plan he has outlined is an obvious piece of pandering to his critical Left flank. His promise for greater regulation of data centers is particularly egregious and ill-advised, considering that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) recently introduced legislation that would impose an outright ban on new data center construction. Data centers should work with local governments to ensure they add as much new capacity to the grid as they use, but an outright ban would be folly and would deprive localities of jobs, increased tax revenues, and greater electricity generation capacity, as well as put national security in danger as China adds new data centers every day.
If one has any doubt that Democratic energy-only policies lead to higher prices, compare gas and electricity prices in red and blue states. Due to state renewable energy portfolio standards that cap fossil fuel use and production, rooftop solar subsidy programs, and tighter gas refinery regulations, energy costs are uniformly higher in Democrat-run states than in their Republican counterparts.
EDITORIAL: WHAT ARE BLUE STATES GETTING FOR ALL THAT SPENDING?
The most telling part of Schumer’s speech was when he pitched higher federal subsidies not just as a way to produce clean energy but also to “expand our coalition,” since Democrats could force all new clean energy projects to use union labor.
Democrats are not interested in lowering energy costs. They view energy policy as another means to “expand their coalition” by punishing industries they don’t like (fossil fuels) while rewarding interest groups they favor (labor and environmentalists). That may lead to an abundance of votes, but not to an abundance of energy, and consumers would pay the price.
