Trump promised to cut electric costs in half. Bills in energy-rich West Virginia now top mortgages

AP News ^ | Updated 2:27 PM CDT, April 9, 2026 | MARGIE MASON

[E. Pluribus Unum]

RAINELLE, W.Va. (AP) — Every month, Rebecca Michalski takes a deep breath before opening her electric bill. She lives on a fixed income, and heating her small house this winter has been staggering: Her February charge was $940.08 — more than her check.

It makes no sense. She turns the lights off during the day and only burns one lamp with an energy-efficient bulb in the living room at night, but she keeps falling further behind on payments. In desperation, she took out a loan after getting a cut-off notice during an extended arctic blast that kept the state’s heaters cranking when temperatures regularly dipped below zero.

“Every time you see that power bill, you’re just sick,” Michalski said, rifling through a stack of statements totaling thousands of dollars. “I already know before I open it. I just dread seeing how much.”

She’s taken to social media, demanding answers alongside thousands of other West Virginians, including those who have been posting screenshots of their monthly charges. They are angry and perplexed over soaring utility costs that are sometimes surpassing rents and mortgages in one of the most energy-rich, yet poorest, corners of America, where families have been forced to choose between paying for food or heat.

President Donald Trump, as part of his campaign pitch to “make America affordable again,” promised to cut Americans’ electricity bills by half during his first year to 18 months in the White House.

“And if it doesn’t work out, you’ll say, ‘Oh well, I voted for him, I still got them down a lot,’” he said. “You will never have had energy so low as you will under a certain gentleman known as Donald J. Trump.”

It hasn’t worked out.

Instead, electricity increased 4.8% in February nationwide and piped natural...

---

TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: affordability; aislop; asspress; cleancoal; coal; inflation; westvirginia

[Kleon]

Trump couldn’t have predicted these insane electricity-hungry data centers.

[dforest]

Well he should have. He has been meeting and hanging around all the top tech oligarchs.

[central_va]

Not Trumps fault.

[central_va]

Coldest most expensive winter in the east in decades.

[Fledermaus]

I never heard him say that.

AP drivel.

[central_va]

I never heard it either.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

West Virginia gets 86% of its power from coal plants.
Should be cheap as hell.
Something doesn’t smell right.

[Reily]

Data centers need to be built with their own power. Germa y is going back to nuclear, putting in a SMR. One of those needs to be placed with each data center. They could even sell power back to the local grid.

[rellic]

For the most part the Federal Government
doesn’t set local electrical prices.
That is all due to Local politics.
His comment was BS and thinking people
knew.
It was a suggestion, to the Democrats to quit
their war on low cost oil based energy.

[central_va]

Plus the ridiculously cold winter.

[LegendHasIt]

Using electricity for heating, cooking and maybe even vehicle propulsion is foolish.

Associated Press makes it sound like running one light bulb costs her a thousand bucks a month, and that it is President Trump’s fault.....(The story is not the story... the Political Agenda is the story.)

If this woman were wise, (assuming she owns her home, or has a rational landlord) she could get a ‘wood stove’ capable of burning coal, and a ton of good old West Virginia Coal for what she pays for three month’s electric bill, and maybe trade the Tesla for a gasoline vehicle...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I never heard him say that. AP drivel.

https://x.com/i/grok/share/5448211a2c2f42ba8b776b8d5b5ab0d4

Yes, Donald Trump repeatedly promised during his 2024 presidential campaign to cut electricity (and broader energy) costs in half within about 12 months of taking office (with some mentions of up to 18 months).

doggett.house.gov

He made this pledge in multiple speeches and rallies, often tying it to his "Drill, baby, drill" agenda of increasing domestic energy production to lower prices overall. Examples include:

• At a rally or event: “Your energy bill within 12 months will be cut in half... That’s my pledge all over the country.” He specified it would cover electricity for homes, cars, air conditioning, heating, etc., making the total electric bill “50% less.”
  theguardian.com
• At the Economic Club of New York (September 2024): “My plan will cut energy prices in half or more than that within 12 months of taking office.”
  pennsylvaniaindependent.com
• Other instances: “Under my administration, we will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months” and “We’re going to get your energy prices down by 50%.”
  doggett.house.gov

These statements were widely reported and documented in videos and transcripts from 2024.Note that the promise often referred to energy costs broadly (including gasoline), but Trump explicitly mentioned electricity bills and rates in many versions. Critics and fact-checkers have highlighted it as a bold, specific pledge with a short timeline, and reports from early 2026 (around the one-year mark of his second term) noted that electricity prices had instead risen in many areas—sometimes faster than inflation—due to factors like rising demand from AI data centers, grid issues, and other market dynamics. Gasoline prices saw some declines in certain periods, but electricity did not halve (and in many cases moved in the opposite direction).

politifact.com

Promises like this are common in campaigns but depend on market forces, policy execution, global events, and regulatory realities that a president influences but doesn't fully control. Trump’s administration later pointed to actions like declaring an energy emergency, reversing certain prior policies, and initiatives such as the “Ratepayer Protection Pledge” with tech companies to address data-center-driven demand without passing costs to households.

[Quickgun]

I never heard that, either. Mine was $68 here in Texas this past month. Will probably go to 175-$200 during the hottest months of summer. 1850 sq. foot brick home.

[DeplorablePaul]

Correct. Energy prices are set at the state level. The northeast grid is a good example. The grid operators are forced to buy expensive energy to meet the requirements of green laws. The AP’s article is anti Trump propaganda.

[Fledermaus]

I’m oriented where I don’t get much direct sun.

Summer months the bill is maybe $100.

Winter though pushes $200.

[johniegrad]

She lives on a fixed income, and heating her small house this winter has been staggering: Her February charge was $940.08 — more than her check.

I don’t believe this.

[MrZippy2k]

You know it’s a hack reporter when they didn’t breakdown the charges, i.e. how many kilowatt hours, at what price. How much for the transmission piece, how much on a long list of taxes and other add-ons. Then we could all compare apples to apples....but then we’d know the whole report is BS.

[Frank Drebin]

He should have...really? Did you foresee it years ago? We all have some of the same access to information as politicians and business leaders, some guess right, most don't. Plus even if you had guessed correctly the need for huge data centers is already being called into doubt due to hardware advances as well as Google's new software compression advances for LLMs.

The point being, things change constantly. Predicting the future now will have the same general success as people in 1900 trying to predict what to do with all of the horseshit they'd be dealing with in the year 2000.

[Mean Daddy]

Lot of factors. Assuming her whole house is electric, is her house older with bad windows, no insulation etc. plus what’s the source of her electricity? She’s in coal country but if they’re using natural gas, oil, solar or wind, those are expensive sources. When they use NG, they’re competing against homeowners. Only fuels that aren’t competing with homeowners is coal & nuclear.