On Energy, Trump’s Partying Like it’s 1959 - Rob Horowitz

On Energy, Trump’s Partying Like it’s 1959 - Rob Horowitz

The Trump EPA’s repeal of the scientifically sound endangerment finding, underpinning much of the federal government’s executive authority to take on climate change, is only the most recent action in an energy policy, which, with apologies to Prince, can be summed up as “Party like it's 1959.” As the rest of the world moves inexorably to more cost-effective, non-carbon producing renewable energy, the president is doubling down on a back to the 1950s' approach, using the power of the federal government to boost planet-heating fossil fuels at the same time he puts roadblocks in the way of solar energy and wind power. He is doing so even when it increases the costs American consumers pay for energy., This is the result, for instance, of the Trump administration’s decision over the objections of impacted utility companies to keep inefficient and expensive coal plants online well beyond their scheduled closing dates.

 

Promulgated under the Clean Air Act, the 2009 EPA endangerment finding states that 6 specific greenhouse gases, most prominently, carbon dioxide and methane, ‘threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”  As a result, they fall under the power of the Clean Air Act to regulate air pollutants that harm human health. 

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This finding has withstood a series of court challenges, and the broad scientific consensus and data it is based on have only grown stronger over the intervening years. “The science has gotten even stronger, particularly regarding attributing harm to the changing climate: we can now say with certainty that rising CO2 and methane are altering the climate, and that this is leading to longer and more severe droughts, floods, hurricanes, and larger and more intense fires.” Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, told The New York Times.

 

Wishing away the growing negative impacts of climate change or denying the settled science that greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels is the main driver of global warming is a level of irresponsibility that will make it harder to limit the increase of global temperatures to the range that scientists tell us is essential to keeping our planet habitable.   Calling climate change a "scam" as the president has repeatedly done or simply saying that he doesn’t believe in it as if it’s a matter of belief as opposed to evidence, may have a receptive audience among some in the fossil fuel industry and among the climate-denying fringe, but it does nothing to change the underlying and undeniable reality.

 

Even taken on its own terms, however, the administration’s no-holds-barred effort to curb the growth of non-carbon-producing renewable energy rather than embracing an all-of-the-above approach will drive up costs and make us less energy independent.  The administration is currently using all the powers of the federal government to delay and even block hundreds of wind and solar projects throughout the nation.   A close-to-home case in point is the continuing effort despite court defeat after court defeat to halt the nearly completed offshore Revolution Wind project that will--if it’s finally allowed to be completed-- meet a considerable percentage of Rhode Island and Connecticut’s demand for energy. 

 

Wind and solar account for about 20% of US electricity generation overall and about 90% of new capacity. The use of wind power is especially prevalent in red states. With its more than 15,000 wind turbines, Texas, for example, employs wind power to supply nearly 30% of its electricity.  As A.I. drives up demand, any sensible energy policy would focus on expanding these new sources of energy--not standing in their way.  

 

As the Trump administration works overtime to rewind the clock, somehow thinking it can stop the march of energy progress, China is filling the vacuum, positioning itself to dominate tomorrow’s global energy markets.  China makes most of the world’s solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles and exports these products robustly to meet rapidly expanding global demand. It also gets the soft power benefits we used to reap from being viewed as a proactive, positive mover on combating climate change.

 

While Mr. Trump continues to party like it’s 1959, China’s approach to energy and the climate is based on 21st-century reality.  Nostalgia has its place, but it’s no way to run a country.