Trump energy plan will avoid Europe’s energy disaster
President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would declare a national energy emergency on his first day in office, ending President Joe Biden’s restrictions on energy production, doing away with the electric vehicle mandate, ending incentives for renewable energy, and canceling Biden’s natural gas export ban.
This is welcome news. America faces a national energy emergency because the Biden administration has created a serious and dangerous energy situation so damaging to ordinary people and our country that it requires immediate action.
Trump can ensure that America does not walk down the same yellow brick road of Europe’s energy and climate policies.
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The danger of climate change measures is already hurting Europe. Europe’s manufacturing sector is closing down due to climate change regulations. Germany used to be renowned for its industry, but German industry expects a 3% fall in production in 2024, the third year of decline, with no uptick in 2025.
German workers are losing their jobs because of climate regulations, with auto industry layoffs due to inexpensive Chinese EV imports.
Biden’s climate change rules need to be changed to commonsense measures to prevent strengthening Chinese workers at the expense of Americans.
His regulations have caused prices of electricity and transportation to rise, raising inflation. Higher electricity prices drive up inflation, disproportionately hurting poor people, small businesses and farmers.
The worst is that these poorly considered climate regulations impoverish Americans and make China rich without lowering global emissions or temperatures. Four more years of Democrat green energy policies will indebt the nation through subsidies and high energy costs while only reducing global temperatures by a fraction of a degree by 2100.
Trump’s energy emergency will help reverse the damage that Biden has caused.
Final Environmental Protection Agency regulations require 70% of new cars sold in 2032 to be battery-powered electric or plug-in hybrid, up from 8% today, or face fines and mandatory purchases of credits. These cars are more expensive than gasoline-powered vehicles. The popular Chevy Silverado is $96,000 for an electric, $42,300 for a regular truck.
Auto companies also have to deal with California auto regulations, and California’s Advanced Clean Car II Rules require all new vehicles sold in the Golden State to be plug-in hybrid or pure battery powered by 2035. This month EPA granted California a waiver for its rule because the Clean Air Act does not allow states to set more rigorous vehicle emission standards than the federal government.
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Another 13 states have signed up for California’s Advanced Clean Car II Rules. With the waiver, California and Biden can push car manufacturers to stop producing gasoline-powered vehicles. Trump seems likely to reverse the California waiver, which allows California to set standards in automobiles for the rest of the country.
In order to get electric vehicles to sell, auto companies must price them lower and gasoline-powered vehicles higher. That means ordinary people face higher prices on the pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans that they want to buy. Higher new car prices translate into higher used car prices too, driving up transportation prices and contributing to inflation.
The residential cost of electricity has risen by 32% since January 2021. With 50 states, each with their own ways of producing electricity, it’s clear that the required use of renewables leads to higher prices. This is because intermittent energy is more complicated to produce than continuous energy. The wind blows for free, and the sun shines for free, but integrating their energy into the electricity grid is more complicated and costly than running a natural gas generator continuously.
The average U.S. residential electricity price is 17 cents per kilowatt-hour, and rates range from 11 cents per kilowatt-hour in Utah and Louisiana to 33 cents in California. (Hawaii, in the Pacific, has a higher rate.) Of the 10 states with the highest electricity prices, all but one has required use of renewables. Of the 10 states with the lowest electricity prices, all but one have no requirements for renewables.
Trump can do away with incentives for wind and solar, which reduce production of electricity from natural gas, coal and nuclear power, and send electricity bills higher. He can also end the ban on new natural gas exports, which hurts our allies.
Trump’s urgency is eminently sensible, because Biden’s solutions to climate change, which he calls "an existential threat," are making people poor. An emergency is a threat to ordinary people, and Americans are facing higher car prices, higher electricity prices, and job loss to China. This is a national energy emergency.