ICYMI: Trump and Van Orden raising energy costs, killing jobs
“Van Orden turned his back on Wisconsinites by voting for the Big Beautiful Bill, which is expected to increase Wisconsin families’ annual total energy bills by $95 by 2030 and lead to 8,200 job losses in 2030 and 30,000 job losses in 2035.”
MADISON, Wis. — Yesterday, State Rep. Jodi Emerson wrote a guest column for the Cap Times explaining how Trump’s and Van Orden’s policies raise energy costs and take jobs away from Wisconsinites. Emerson cites the Big Ugly Bill’s attacks on clean energy as the primary reason people, like Wisconsinites in the third congressional district, will suffer under Republican policies.
CAP TIMES: Opinion | Trump and Van Orden raising energy costs, killing jobs
By: Jodi Emerson | 3/19/26
Last month, Vice President JD Vance flew to Wisconsin to join Rep. Derrick Van Orden to do damage control for Trump’s job-killing and price-raising agenda.
In Plover, Vance and Van Orden echoed Trump’s talking point claiming “America is back,” but behind the photo-ops and factory backdrop, the reality is clear: Trump’s budget bill and his war on clean energy are gutting modern manufacturing, sending Wisconsin jobs overseas and driving up energy costs for hardworking families.
Since Trump took office, household electricity costs in Wisconsin have increased by 5.57%, and Trump and Republicans like Van Orden are to blame.
Last summer, Van Orden rubber-stamped Trump’s attacks on clean energy in the GOP’s budget bill, voting to slash federal cost-saving programs that offered Wisconsinites relief from rising energy costs. The bill repealed clean energy tax credits that other Republicans had asked House Speaker Mike Johnson to protect prior to signing the bill, noting that they had “spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country.”
Van Orden turned his back on Wisconsinites by voting for the Big Beautiful Bill, which is expected to increase Wisconsin families’ annual total energy bills by $95 by 2030 and lead to 8,200 job losses in 2030 and 30,000 job losses in 2035. In his own district, Van Orden’s vote put an estimated $2.35 billion in investments and 1,250 good‑paying clean energy jobs at risk.
Trump has called the affordability crisis a “hoax” and a “con job” and spent the last year implementing reckless policies that send already increasing energy prices through the roof. Now, utility costs are on the rise in red and blue states across the country as Trump and Republicans squeeze supply by taking clean energy options off the grid.
Trump’s rollback of clean energy investments also threatens good-paying union jobs that power Wisconsin’s middle class. The clean energy incentives Trump and Republicans repealed had helped create family-sustaining union jobs at a higher rate than the overall energy workforce and included prevailing wage requirements that protected the gains won by unions. These were pro-union policies that supported unions and made sure that American workers didn’t get left behind.
Trump knows he has a problem on his hands. He’s bending over backwards to figure out who to blame, but practically every day he proposes more costly, environmentally devastating giveaways to his billionaire friends, like opening more federal land for coal mining and using emergency powers to keep coal plants open, which could increase power bills even more.
As the least expensive and quickest power source to add to the grid, made-in-America clean energy is the commonsense solution. In the first half of 2025, solar and wind energy generation in the U.S. outpaced electricity demand and exceeded coal generation for the first time on record. This progress was due in large part to Biden-era energy policies that Trump has since clawed back.
This is a simple supply-and-demand problem. We must produce more energy to meet our growing demand, not make it harder to do so. Since Trump has taken office, his vendetta against clean energy has led to an energy project in Wisconsin losing $30.7 million in investments in our state. Wisconsinites are feeling the pain as their bills increase, and Trump continues to slash crucial energy options from the grid while demand soars.
After the State of the Union address, Van Orden embarrassingly tried, and failed, to get even a fleeting moment of attention from Trump, even after he voted against thousands of jobs and hiked his own constituents’ bills. Then he welcomed Vance to town in a desperate bid for validation from the very people he had been selling out.
The choice for people in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District is even clearer. JD Vance and Derrick Van Orden have shown their true colors. They tour factories while backing policies that cancel manufacturing investments, drive up energy costs and ship jobs overseas.
Wisconsinites must choose leaders who actually lower costs, protect our jobs and invest in our communities’ future.
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