In this paper, distributed power control is proposed as a means to improve the energy efficiency of routing algorithms in ad hoc networks. Each node in the network estimates the power necessary to reach its own neighbors, and this power estimate is used both for tuning the transmit power (thereby reducing interference and energy consumption) and as the link cost for minimum energy routing. With reference to classic routing algorithms, such as Dijkstra and Link State, as well as more recently proposed ad hoc routing schemes, such as AODV, we demonstrate by extensive simulations that in many cases of interest our scheme provides substantial transmit energy savings while introducing limited degradation in terms of throughput and delay.