During the 2016 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump vowed to dismantle much of President Obama’s policy regarding climate change. How much of the rhetoric from the campaign will become reality, and what can we expect from a President Trump on energy policy?
It will be some time before we know for certain. However, narratives about the potential impact of a Trump presidency are beginning to emerge. Early indications about the extent to which he plans to follow through on campaign promises can come from appointments he has made so far, including tapping Myron Ebell – a vocal opponent of the Clean Power Plan and U.S. participation in the Paris climate agreement – to lead his EPA transition team.
An article in the Washington Post outlines some of the options a Trump administration has for attempting to kill the Clean Power Plan – a vow he made during the campaign – including choosing not to defend it in court and halting the case for a revision of the rule. The New York Times has reported that the administration could also choose to slow any implementation of the rule through use of the obscure Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the executive branch:
“Lawyers in the office pore over thousands of pages of federal regulations daily and pride themselves on meticulously reviewing the fine print, even if that takes months or years. Under the control of the new administration, the office could slow President Obama’s latest regulatory initiatives by repeatedly sending them back for additional work,” the article said.
While these are all possibilities, scrapping the plan completely at this point is easier said than done.
According to the International Business Times, “Trump will certainly wield a considerable amount of power to pull back on environmental regulations, but instantaneously undoing the Clean Power Plan … isn’t likely. The progress made by the EPA and what are now-altered market trends stand in the way of the stroke of Trump’s presidential pen and the end of the Clean Power Plan.”
Whether or not the plan itself survives, momentum may be on renewables’ side. As we’ve noted before, several states and many companies are already traveling down the path to cutting carbon emissions, and plan to continue regardless of the outcome of the litigation.
The same is true of U.S. commitments under the Paris agreement. While the Trump administration could not withdraw from the agreement – at least not until 2020 – administration action (or inaction) could weaken it. Meeting global emissions reduction goals from the agreement depends heavily on participation from China and the U.S.
According to an article in Science, the administration could simply fail to deliver on the U.S. commitment. It could also decline to fund the $800 million promise the U.S. made to help less developed countries with their climate goals, although that final decision falls to Congress.
The high-profile climate debates certainly aren’t the only issues that could affect the direction of energy production in the U.S. over the next few years. For example, while Trump has not called for repealing the production and investment tax credits for wind and solar – and attempting to do so could encounter resistance from Congress – the future of any tax incentives geared to renewables is uncertain if Trump and the Republican Congress undertake some sort of tax reform.
The industry is just beginning to sort out what a Trump presidency means for energy in the U.S., but we’ll certainly be watching these areas and more in the coming months.
