The purpose of the nation’s electricity grid that powers our homes and businesses is to provide reliable electricity. That’s hardly a radical concept. But tell that to policymakers who spent decades imposing their anti-energy climate agenda on American electricity customers, threatening grid reliability.
This problem has gained new urgency due to rising electricity demand from data centers that power the AI revolution. This makes it even more important to roll back years of governmental policies that have compromised the reliability of the electricity grid.
Many states passed laws (called renewable portfolio standards) that require the use of certain percentages of intermittent electricity sources, such as wind and solar, that can’t meet ongoing power demand. The wind doesn’t blow all the time, and the sun doesn’t always shine.
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And many states shuttered superior electricity sources such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear that meet the ongoing continuous demand for electricity and can be called upon to do so when needed. These sources were shut down in part because of economic pressures caused by market distortions from subsidies that give renewable sources an advantage over reliable power plants, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear.
They were also shut down due to overt attempts by politicians and environmental groups to close disfavored sources of electricity, such as the Indian Point Nuclear Generating Station in New York. Coal plants have been a major target for closure, with 290 coal power plants (40% of U.S. coal plants) closing between 2010 and May 2019, many for overtly political reasons.
Compounding grid reliability woes was a seemingly endless stream of federal rules. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly tried to use regulations to shift our nation from reliable sources of electricity to unreliable sources such as wind and solar. The agency also adopted regulations such as the Biden administration’s de facto electric vehicle mandate that put greater stress on the grid by increasing electricity demand.
To its credit, the Trump administration is taking action to get rid of these rules; however, the fate of these actions is still up in the air.
Then there is the Inflation Reduction Act. In 2022, Congress passed this law with a projected $1 trillion or more of subsidies to change how Americans use and produce electricity. This includes massive subsidies for wind and solar.
In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act included an array of subsidies that increase the pressure on the grid by artificially increasing demand for electricity just as reliable electricity sources are being removed from the grid. This includes pushing electric vehicles as a means to help kill off gas-powered cars and trying to steer consumers away from using natural gas appliances and toward electric options. This is despite the fact that natural gas costs less than a third of what electricity does on a per unit of energy basis.
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There has been some progress in undoing these bad policies. Congress and President Donald Trump enacted the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which helped get rid of many of the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies. Yet some of the subsidies are being phased out over time, so they are still doing damage. This includes the infamous Investment and Production Tax Credits that prop up wind, solar, and other “clean” energy technologies at the expense of reliable electricity sources.
Never mind that these are the same federal subsidies that the wind and solar industries have repeatedly said over the decades they need for a couple more years to be profitable. The boondoggle tax credits have continually been resurrected after they have lapsed.
In 2026, policymakers should prioritize addressing these unfortunate policies, particularly as electricity demand will only increase due to new data centers needed to power the burgeoning AI revolution. Without the decades of bad electricity policy, this new demand would likely be a far less daunting issue for reliability. But here we are.
A July 2025 Department of Energy report shows a 100 times increase by 2030 in the projected hours where an insufficient amount of electricity is produced if the currently projected power plant retirements take place. This would be disastrous, and as the Energy Department has stated, “such a surge would leave millions of households and businesses vulnerable.” That’s a future where Americans may have to get used to some brownouts and blackouts, which is simply inexcusable.
Reliability has too often been subverted to less urgent policy objectives. If policymakers want to push some ancillary objectives, environmental or otherwise, such objectives should never come at the expense of reliability.
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At the state and federal levels, the issue of reliability must be front and center to ensure reliable generation is the top priority for the grid. In fact, government intervention that shuts down reliable electricity generation and props up wind and solar (or any source for that matter) should be prohibited. The same goes for government meddling in the form of subsidies that artificially increase electricity demand and put greater stress on the grid.
If strong reliability requirements mean less wind, solar, coal, or whatever source, then so be it. The purpose of the grid is to ensure that when Americans flick on the switch, the lights come on. It isn’t to promote specific energy sources and the special interests that benefit from foisting them onto the grid.
Daren Bakst is director of energy and environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, where Paige Lambermont is a research fellow.