For Californians, the anxiety over monthly utility bills has become a nightly ritual. Electricity rates have climbed sharply, and gas prices remain hostage to global turmoil. Families find themselves absorbing costs they never created and can't control.
The good news, according to Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.), is that these high prices are not inevitable—they are the result of deliberate choices. Levin, who spent years as an environmental lawyer before coming to Congress, points to data showing that renewable power is among the fastest and cheapest sources to add to the grid. When cleaner options are sidelined, he argues, households pay the price.
Levin identifies two intertwined drivers of rising energy costs. First, the price of power itself climbs when lower-cost sources are pushed aside in favor of volatile fossil fuels. Second, the mounting bill for climate-related damage—through insurance premiums, disaster recovery, and taxes—lands on consumers. Both are worsening, and both trace back to the same set of policy decisions.
The financial toll is staggering. In 2024 alone, NOAA recorded 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, costing nearly $183 billion. Over the past five years, such events have cost more than $746 billion, and those costs ripple through utility rates and tax bills. Last year's climate-fueled wildfires in the Los Angeles area killed 440 people, displaced over 200,000, and devastated Altadena and Pacific Palisades, leaving residents with billions in recovery costs and little federal help.
So who benefits when the cheapest energy is blocked? Levin points to the fossil fuel industry, which spent decades denying climate science. Now, as accountability looms, the industry has shifted tactics: discrediting scientists, influencing judges, and rewriting rules before evidence is heard. The Supreme Court case Suncor v. Boulder will decide whether states and localities can sue to recover disaster costs linked to industry deception. Internal Exxon documents from the 1970s and 1980s warned of catastrophic climate change, even as the company publicly cast doubt.
Levin highlights troubling examples of industry influence. Before the National Academies released its report on the deadly 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave, opposition researchers combed through scientists' emails. One panel member resigned fearing attacks; another was removed after being targeted by an oil-industry website. A Guardian investigation revealed that a fossil fuel-funded center at George Mason University's law school hosted expense-paid seminars for federal judges, with funding from ExxonMobil and the Charles Koch Foundation. Internal fundraising materials sought to instill “healthy skepticism” toward climate science, and one featured speaker was Chris Wright, now Trump's Energy Secretary.
Allies in Congress have introduced legislation to shield these companies from liability, following President Trump's reported promise to oil CEOs to do their bidding in exchange for a billion-dollar campaign contribution. The result, Levin says, is that when polluters avoid paying for damage, the cost shifts to families. Utilities also pass billions in new infrastructure costs onto residential ratepayers to serve data centers and large corporations. Electricity rates have already risen by up to 13 percent since Trump took office, and gas prices are climbing again amid overseas turmoil.
To counter this, Levin and Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) introduced the Energy Bills Relief Act, now with over 160 House co-sponsors. The bill expands affordable clean energy, restores tax credits, invests in home efficiency and low-income assistance, speeds up grid interconnection, and ensures data centers and corporations pay their fair share. As Levin notes, efficiency—not just supply—is key to true energy abundance, and the bill aims to lock in those gains.
Levin concludes that the fossil fuel industry has run the same playbook for decades: deny the problem, delay the reckoning, and leave someone else to pay. The cost of that strategy shows up on every utility bill, and Levin insists it's time for a change—for the sake of the planet and family budgets.
