Powering Our Energy Future
This month, as Congress and State Legislatures return to session, lawmakers are debating energy policies that affect everyday households, especially when it comes to energy bills, reliability, and long-term stability. These decisions will play a major role in how prepared we are for extreme weather, and supply disruptions.
Keeping Household Energy Affordability
One of the biggest priorities is protecting programs that help families manage energy costs especially during the temperature swings in the winter and summer.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) helps millions of households pay for heating and cooling for over 40 years. It provides financial support for energy bills, crisis assistance, and weather-related energy needs.
Unlike some federal assistance programs that see their funding increase with need, like Social Security or food stamps, LIHEAP funding must be appropriated annually by Congress. Sustaining this funding is critical, as the program continues to provide a temporary, yet essential, safety net for qualifying families struggling with rising energy costs during extreme weather.
Most LIHEAP recipients earn less than $20,000 annually, and more than 70 percent of households assisted include a senior citizen, a child under six, a veteran, or a person with a disability. Despite this need, the program reaches only a fraction of eligible families. In 2023, more than 34 million households qualified for LIHEAP assistance, yet only 5.4 million, or roughly 16 percent, received help, leaving six out of seven eligible families without support.
To help elevate the importance of this program and the communities it serves, We Stand For Energy will be supporting LIHEAP Action Day in February, encouraging policymakers to protect maximum funding for this critical assistance program.
Electric Companies Support Energy Affordability
In addition to federal assistance programs like LIHEAP, America’s investor-owned electric companies play a direct role in helping customers manage energy costs. Energy providers across the country offer weatherization programs, energy efficiency upgrades, flexible payment plans, budget billing, and targeted low-income assistance programs designed to reduce energy use and lower monthly bills over the long term.
These efforts help customers improve the efficiency of their homes, mitigate the impact of extreme weather, and avoid service disruptions during periods of financial hardship. Together with LIHEAP, energy-led affordability and weatherization programs form a complementary approach that strengthens household energy security and supports vulnerable communities year-round.
Meeting Rising Energy Demand
Rising energy costs are a growing concern as electricity demand continues to increase. The expectations of modern life, from AI and data centers to broader electrification of the economy, are placing added strain on the energy grid. Meeting this demand often requires new infrastructure and long-term planning to ensure the system remains reliable and affordable.
America’s energy companies are making long-term investments to strengthen the grid, support economic growth, and help customers manage energy costs with the rise in demand.
- Grid Investment and Reliability: Electric companies are investing billions each year to modernize and harden the grid, expanding transmission, improving resilience, and deploying advanced technologies that reduce outages, improve efficiency, and protect customers.
- Community Benefits from Data Centers: Data center development supports local economies by creating high-paying jobs, expanding local tax bases, and funding essential community services like schools, roads, and public safety, while being planned in coordination with grid reliability and community needs.
Building Energy Independence and Stability
Congress is focused on strengthening U.S. energy independence and long-term price stability to protect families from price volatility and supply disruptions. Meeting that goal requires a grid and generation system capable of supporting rising demand while maintaining reliability.
Electric companies are responding with historic investments in energy infrastructure and new generation capacity to ensure the system can meet future needs. More than $1.1 trillion in grid investment is planned over the next five years to modernize infrastructure, integrate new technologies, and improve resilience. At the same time, 91 gigawatts of new generation capacity is under construction, with hundreds of additional projects planned or proposed to support continued growth. As electricity demand rises—from data centers, electrification, and economic expansion—these investments are critical to maintaining reliability, affordability, and long-term energy security across communities.
Accelerating Project Delivery Through the SPEED Act
The recent passage of the SPEED Act represents an important step toward accelerating the development of critical energy infrastructure. By streamlining permitting processes, improving interagency coordination, and reducing unnecessary delays, the legislation is designed to help projects move from planning to construction more efficiently.
Prioritizing effective implementation of the SPEED Act will be key to realizing its full benefits. Clear timelines, predictable reviews, and coordinated execution will help ensure that new generation, transmission, and grid modernization projects can be built faster, supporting reliability, meeting rising demand, and strengthening long-term energy security for communities across the country.
Why These Decisions Matter
These decisions aren’t just beltway noise. The outcomes of this congressional session will directly impact American households, shaping how affordable, reliable, and resilient energy will be for years to come. From LIHEAP to infrastructure upgrades and energy independence measures, these policies are critical to protectfrom rising costs and ensure a stable, sustainable energy future.