Democrats Need to Own Affordability, Starting With the Grid

If there is one lesson in politics elected officials should always keep in mind, it is this: people vote with their wallets. That’s one key reason why Donald Trump and party are facing a potential blue wave this Fall. He ran in 2024 promises relief from inflation. They have not only failed to deliver. They have made the problem far worse. 

Voters are not following the intricacies of federal energy policy, but they care about whether their bill went up again this month. And across huge swaths of this country, especially in the PJM grid region that covers Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and much of the mid-Atlantic, the answer has been yes, again, for years.

That is the backdrop against which I have watched a group of Democratic attorneys general, led by Washington state and Massachusetts, file comments opposing a recent reform from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. There is a long, justified history of skepticism toward industry claims about what permitting reform will and will not affect. But I think they have this one wrong, and I think the stakes of getting it wrong are too high for Democrats to stay quiet about it.

FERC’s blanket certificate program lets basic natural gas infrastructure projects, think compressor station upgrades or storage improvements, move through an expedited approval process instead of the full multiyear review required for major new pipelines. The cost threshold for what qualifies as “small” had not been adjusted since 2006. Two decades of inflation and rising construction costs later, that threshold had become almost meaningless, pushing routine work into the same slow queue as billion dollar projects. FERC’s fix updates those numbers to reflect today’s costs and ties future adjustments to an index that actually tracks infrastructure construction, rather than a generic economic measure that never kept pace. Major projects still go through the same rigorous review they always have.

 FERC approved it unanimously, five to zero, including commissioners known for their climate credentials. When commissioners who take clean energy seriously and commissioners appointed by a different party both conclude a reform makes sense, that is usually a signal worth taking seriously rather than dismissing.

The states of the attorney generals pushing back desperately need relief, and that is exactly what these FERC reforms will do. Since 2020, residential electricity prices have risen 73.7 percent in Washington, D.C. and 38 percent in Massachusetts, two of the jurisdictions leading this opposition. In the PJM region specifically, New Jersey has seen the fourth highest price increase of any state in the grid, Maryland the second highest, and Michigan the twelfth highest, with the region as a whole in what grid operators themselves have described as a capacity crunch. Unquestionably, MAGA Republicans will weaponize these facts for political purposes if these reforms do not go into effect. 

Rising demand for electricity, driven by everything from data centers to electrification, is not going away. If we do not bring more supply online, prices keep climbing regardless of what any of us wish the energy mix looked like. That means an all of the above approach: renewables and nuclear where we can build them fastest, and yes, natural gas infrastructure that is properly reviewed but not needlessly delayed by a permitting process stuck in 2006.

Democrats spent the last several years watching Donald Trump fail to deliver on the cost of living he promised to fix, from groceries to housing to energy. That failure is a real opportunity for our party, but only if we are willing to be the ones who actually bring costs down rather than the ones who explain why every solution has a problem. Let’s not give him a talking point to blame his failures on our party. I have real respect for the attorneys general involved here, and I know their concerns come from a good place. But protecting ratepayers means supporting reforms that get affordable energy built.