STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump had a busy day. Yesterday, he talked of his personal intervention to urge authorities to let an American play in the World Cup. Last night, as Team USA lost, the president did not post on Truth Social about the game at all, moving on to praise of his own speeches. Democrats accuse the president of missing what people care about - high prices - but can they do any better? New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill says she wants to get power bills under control. WNYC's Mike Hayes asked how much a governor can do.
MIKE HAYES, BYLINE: Ten years ago, Catherine Hunt moved into a one-bedroom apartment in the Rossmoor senior living community in Monroe Township, New Jersey. At the time, Hunt says her electricity bill was manageable.
CATHERINE HUNT: Oh, it was pretty low. It was right around $50 a month at the most.
HAYES: What's it costing you now?
HUNT: Well, the cost went up to close to $400.
HAYES: Four hundred dollars per month last winter. Living off of Social Security, there was no way Hunt could afford that. So she just turned off her heat. Then she'd layer up, throwing on a winter coat like she was going outside. Instead of welcoming family and friends into the apartment, she'd entertain them at a local restaurant.
Did you have to warn your visitors?
HUNT: Yeah. I just told - you know, there's no heat in here, so you probably won't want to visit. It's really...
(LAUGHTER)
HUNT: But I'll meet you at - you know, I'll meet you at Sal's.
HAYES: In the last year, New Jerseyans on average paid about 22% more for electricity than they did the year before. That's an annual increase of close to $400 per household, according to data from MIT and the climate news site Heatmap. That's the highest spike in any state. Only Washington, D.C., has seen a bigger increase. Catherine Hunt's neighbors are definitely feeling that spike, like Zulay Camino-Greaves (ph)...
DAVID DECKER: I want to know...
ZULAY CAMINO-GREAVES: I live in a small house - two bedrooms and one bathroom - by myself. So I shower once a day, blah, blah, blah - $662.
HAYES: ...And David Decker (ph).
How's your electric bill?
DECKER: What? My electric bill?
HAYES: Yeah (laughter).
DECKER: I try to give it to someone every month. Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
HAYES: Why are costs going up so much in New Jersey? Well, it's several things at once. Rising inflation is contributing and higher prices for natural gas, but more than anything...
ABE SILVERMAN: The fundamental challenge is that we are experiencing tremendous growth and demand for electricity.
HAYES: Abe Silverman is an energy research scholar at Johns Hopkins University. He says most of that increased demand is from data centers. There are already more than 80 data centers operating in New Jersey alone, and the state expects more to come online in the future. The regional grid operator says this major growth in demand is driving up prices. Silverman says ultimately, the only way to bring down prices is to build more power generation, including more wind and solar power.
SILVERMAN: We absolutely need to be thinking about how do we expand the pie. And at the same time we're expanding the pie, we need to think about who's paying for that expansion.
HAYES: New Jersey lawmakers just passed new rules making big data centers foot the bill for some grid upgrades and new power generation. Governor Mikie Sherrill says that's only fair.
MIKIE SHERRILL: That's an incredibly expensive proposition, and having the data centers take on that burden can significantly drive down the cost to consumers here in New Jersey.
HAYES: At least a dozen other states have proposed similar policies. So has President Trump and members of Congress. New Jersey is also trying to make it easier to build more renewables and nuclear power. Experts say these actions could slow rate growth over the long term. In the short term, Sherrill directed the state utility regulator to turn down requests from utility companies to raise rates.
SHERRILL: So what we did is we froze the cost per kilowatt hour. So think of it as like freezing the cost per gallon at the pump.
HAYES: But Catherine Hunt says freezing rates aren't enough when you're freezing it at such a high number.
HUNT: Well, it would still cost too much. If they froze it at what it is now, I would have to go through another winter turning off my heat.
HAYES: As for turning on the costly AC this summer...
HUNT: Now, that's a problem. I'm asking other people what they're going to do.
HAYES: What are you hearing?
HUNT: That they don't know. They're just looking at it, and they're deer the headlights right now.
HAYES: Ahead of the midterms, candidates across the country are making the same affordability promises that Governor Sherrill did. But if New Jersey is any indication, high prices aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
For NPR News, I'm Mike Hayes in Monroe, New Jersey. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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