WASHINGTON, DC — The House Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on Rural Development, Energy, and Supply Chains held a hearing titled “Fueling the Golden Age: Future Resource Needs and Small Business Opportunity.” During the hearing, Ranking Member Kelly Morrison (MN-03) laid out the Trump administration policies driving up energy costs and making the affordability crisis worse for small businesses.
“Every part of the modern economy runs on energy. Without it, nothing could be grown, made, transported or sold. No small business could turn on the lights in the morning, and no worker could commute to their job,” said Ranking Member Morrison. “A growing economy needs an abundance of energy. But we must be clear-eyed about the factors driving up energy costs and fueling our current cost-of-living crisis.”
Morrison pointed to aging infrastructure, a shortage of skilled workers, and surging demand from AI data centers, whose share of national energy consumption could climb from 4 percent today to as much as 12 percent within two to four years. She also criticized the administration for blocking the cheapest sources of new power and repealing clean energy tax incentives through the One Big Beautiful Bill, costing an estimated 500 gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade. Meanwhile, tariffs have raised the cost of transformers and wires, and the war in Iran has kept gas above $4 and diesel above $5 per gallon since March.
“The cost-of-living crisis is being driven by the cost of energy, and this administration's policies are making it worse. Our small businesses are feeling the crunch,” said Ranking Member Morrison.
Trevor Higgins, Senior Vice President for Energy and Environment at the Center for American Progress, testified that energy costs have risen at more than four times the rate of overall inflation and wage growth over the past year, with commercial electricity up 10 percent and natural gas up 24 percent since the start of 2025.
“Energy prices are rising and the current administration's policies are making the problem worse, not better,” said Higgins. “The United States needs to invest in new clean energy generation, ensure data centers are paying their fair share, and build a bigger, better electrical grid.”
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