You do not have to care about climate change to believe that clean energy is an important and strategic resource. Solar and wind power are now cheaper than coal in many places and sometimes cheaper than oil and gas. Clean energy sources help both hold down costs for Americans and prevent the United States from having to import so much foreign oil from countries hostile to our interests.
These advantages help explain why the right energy policy for the United States is an all-of-the-above strategy. The country should continue using fossil fuels like natural gas while shifting toward cleaner energy that does less damage to the planet. The combination can help Americans struggling with slow-growing incomes while also addressing climate change.
President Trump, however, has rejected the all-of-the-above approach in his second term. He is instead waging a war on solar and wind power. It is a mirror image of the strategy that conservatives criticize the fringes of the environmental movement for favoring. Rather than trying to put oil companies out of business, Mr. Trump is going after clean energy, and Americans will face higher bills as a result.
Mr. Trump signed a law in July that repealed the clean energy tax credits enacted by former President Joe Biden, eliminating hundreds of billions of dollars of investment into wind, solar and electric vehicles. Mr. Trump has also directed his administration to enact new regulations on clean energy and start specious investigations into its use, including one looking into bird deaths caused by wind turbines. His administration is trying to cancel wind projects off the coasts of Massachusetts, Maryland and Rhode Island, which would provide enough electricity to power more than a million homes. “Windmills, we’re just not going to allow them,” Mr. Trump recently said. Even some oil executives have criticized these moves as shortsighted.
Mr. Trump ran for president promising to reduce the cost of living and of energy prices in particular. He has failed so far. Inflation remains near 3 percent a year even as economic growth and job growth have slowed. Electricity prices are almost 10 percent higher than they were a year earlier, according to the most recent numbers. The main reasons for the electricity price surge have little to do with Mr. Trump and instead involve demand from A.I. data centers and supply constraints from the war in Ukraine. Yet the Trump energy policies are not helping — and will soon make matters worse.
Energy prices are likely to rise the most in states that have not prioritized clean energy, including Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma, experts say. The repeal of the tax credits alone may push electricity prices almost 10 percent higher than they would be otherwise by 2029, according to National Economic Research Associates, a consulting firm. Gas prices will also increase over the next decade, according to Rhodium Group, a think tank, as consumers who would otherwise have driven electric cars continue using vehicles that burn fossil fuels.
Mr. Trump’s approach to wind and solar is part of a larger story. It is, along with his tariffs, extreme immigration policies and attempt to take over the Federal Reserve, one more example of prioritizing ideology over the interests of American families.
Mr. Trump’s energy policy also weakens America’s global standing by giving a competitive edge to the country’s chief geopolitical rival, China. For years China has meticulously grown its clean energy industry with government subsidies and other policies. Chinese companies now produce 60 percent of the world’s wind turbines and 80 percent of solar panels.
Mr. Biden’s clean energy tax credits were meant to counter China’s moves. He understood that wind and solar would play an important role in the economy of the future, and that the United States should not let China control the global market. Mr. Biden’s approach was working, creating incentives for the private sector to build big clean-energy projects, including Toyota’s E.V. battery production facility in Liberty, N.C., and a Qcells solar panel manufacturing facility in Cartersville, Ga.
Low energy prices are also good for economic growth. If prices are higher here than in other countries, companies will invest less in America. Consider artificial intelligence: Technology companies are building data centers to power their bots’ processing abilities. These data centers use a lot of electricity. If energy supply cannot keep up with demand, America’s A.I. build-out will lag — again to the benefit of China.
The Trump administration argues that wind and solar are not reliable, and that has some truth to it. If the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, power cannot be generated. But this objection is mostly a canard. Advances in battery technology will allow the country to use wind and solar energy during off-hours. Wind and solar also do not have to generate electricity at all times. We have other forms of energy — nuclear, hydro, geothermal and, yes, fossil fuels — to handle the moments that wind and solar cannot. When a country is pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy, varying sources of energy complement one another. They increase overall supply and hold down prices for everybody.
We understand why the political right has sometimes been frustrated by the left’s skepticism of energy abundance. In both Europe and the United States, environmentalists who are rightly worried about the costs and dangers of climate change have at times imagined that the transition could happen more quickly than is realistic. In truth, oil and gas will be necessary to keep prices low and power the economy for years to come. But the political left is not the problem today. The Democratic Party under Mr. Biden expanded domestic oil and gas production while making major investments in clean energy.
The Republican Party has long denied the severe risks that climate change presents and stood in the way of sensible policies to address the extreme storms, flooding and heat that are already happening. Under Mr. Trump, Republicans have gone even further. They have become the party that stands in the way of lower energy prices for American households.
Source photograph by NurPhoto/Getty Images.
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