Trump's Wrong-Headed Energy Plan Ignores Clean Energy Revolution and Climate Change

Trump’s “America First” Energy Plan Leaves America Behind

January 30, 2017 Roland Hwang   Kit Kennedy    
National Resources Defense Council 
 

On the eve of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources confirmation vote for Rick Perry to be Secretary of Energy, it’s important to take a close look at the Trump administration’s plans for America’s energy future. The administration’s new webpage on “An America First Energy Plan” is—like much of the president’s rhetoric—wrong-headed, short on details, and divorced from reality.

In fact, it’s most notable for what it doesn’t say — there’s not a word about the clean energy revolution, a boom in wind, solar, and energy efficiency that is creating millions of jobs, saving billions of dollars, and even saving lives by cutting pollution. This misleading plan not only fails to put America first — it threatens to pull America back to the 20^th century. NRDC will fight to make sure that the Trump administration doesn’t succeed at making America’s energy choices worse.

Here’s a look at a breakdown of the Trump plan [in italics] contrasted with the authors' comments on what that plan gets wrong [no italics]:

The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans ...

One of the best tools at our disposal to slash energy bills is energy efficiency — but it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Trump plan. Since 1987, federal energy efficiency standards on appliances and equipment have saved Americans a cumulative total of $2 trillion on energy costs. Standards set in 2016 alone will save $75 billion on utility bills. With such tremendous cost-cutting power, it’s no wonder that federal efficiency standards have long enjoyed bipartisan support. Leaving efficiency out of an energy plan is a major oversight.

Despite wild swings in fossil fuel prices, America’s electricity bills and the per-kilowatt-hour rates recorded on them have been relatively stable and affordable for decades, thanks in good part to leadership at the state level in support of energy efficiency and renewable resources. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, U.S. electricity is cheaper today than it was more than a quarter-century ago, in 1990. And in some regions, solar and wind energy are already cost-competitive with fossil fuels, helping to lower everyone’s utility bills.

…and maximize the use of American resources… 

In 2015, nearly 70 percent of new electric generation came from American wind and solar power. Yet these American energy resources aren’t mentioned at all in the Trump plan — even though many heartland states, both red and blue, want more, as clean energy is helping revive both rural and rust-belt economies. And let’s not forget that Rick Perry’s home state of Texas is a national leader in wind energy. Today, more than 2.5 million Americans work in clean energy, from skilled factory workers making batteries for hybrid vehicles to military veterans who now scale turbine towers as wind energy technicians. China plans to create 13 million jobs by 2020 by investing in clean power. Where are the clean energy jobs in the Trump plan?

...freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.

Thanks to strong clean car and fuel economy standards set under the Obama administration, we’re already loosening the grip of oil dependence. The standards, which will double mileage for cars and light trucks by 2025, will also cut oil consumption by 1.5 million barrels per day — equivalent to current U.S. imports from the Persian Gulf. Standards save money for consumers, too —  nearly $4,000 over the lifetime of a vehicle. According to the BlueGreen Alliance, clean car standards will also create more than half a million jobs nationwide.

For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry.

The data clearly shows that environmental safeguards, rather than being a burden, have drastically cut pollution over the past 40 years while the economy has enjoyed tremendous growth. As the U.S. Environmental Protection reports, from 1970 to 2015, the Clean Air Act helped cut 70 percent of the soot and smog from American skies while the economy grew 246 percent. More than double the growth, less than half the pollution. That’s progress. Meanwhile, due to energy efficiency progress accelerated by appliance and equipment standards and building energy codes, the historical link between economic growth and total energy use was broken four decades ago and has not reappeared. GDP increased by 30 percent between 2000 and 2015, while total energy consumption remained flat.

President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.

The 117 million people whose drinking water supplies depend on Waters of the U.S. protections would hardly call it unnecessary. And when climate change creates international instability, dries up crops and ranchland, swamps low-lying communities and drives extreme weather that cost taxpayers $100 billion in 2012 alone, an action plan is surely in order. The Clean Power Plan aims to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 40 percent. Efficiency standards for appliances and federal buildings will play a big role in this, with a goal of cutting 3 billion metric tons of carbon emissions by 2030. There’s no reference to back up the wage increase mentioned in the Trump plan, but studies on the Clean Power Plan have shown that it would create as many as 274,000 jobs and deliver climate and health benefits worth $53 to $93 billion every year — including saving thousands of lives.