If you watch this week’s Energy Realities podcast which I posted here today, you will see me talking about the reality that US climate and energy policies inevitably impact global climate and energy policies. That’s not a brag, it is just geopolitical reality.
For the last 4 years, the Biden/Harris administration has set the US on course to simply copy all the economically ruinous policies invoked in former industrial powerhouse nations like Germany and the UK. Anyone who thinks Trump does not intend to reverse that course during his second term in office is kidding themselves.
Yes, a full repeal of the IRA and all its debt-funded tax breaks, incentives, mandates, and subsidies will likely be politically impossible given the notorious unreliability of the GOP caucuses in the House and Senate. So, radical change via legislation is probably not in the cards, though we will see the GOP likely repeal the methane tax in the IRA and some of the more onerous regulatory actions taken by Biden’s EPA, DOI, and DOE.
But the other reality everyone needs to take fully into account is that Biden achieved a vast portion of his radical agenda via more than 100 energy/climate-related executive orders and other executive actions. Make no mistake about it, Trump will reverse literally every one of those myriad actions as soon as he takes office. Doing that alone will set the US on a fairly radically different course than it has taken over the last four years.
No one should doubt Trump’s seriousness of purpose here, or his firm belief that the whole climate change agenda is a massive hoax. As if to demonstrate that, Trump addressed the topic in a speech a few days ago, and we here at the Energy Transition Absurdities Substack have the receipts.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Energy Transition Absurdities to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.