Trump’s All-Out War on Renewables

Every time the White House changes hands from one party to another, some policies toggle back to what they were before, a reset meant to restore the status quo ante. The best-known example may be the Mexico City policy, which forbids U.S. foreign aid funds from going to any organization that performs or even gives information about abortions; since it was first instituted under Ronald Reagan, every Democratic president has revoked it and every Republican president has reestablished it. The change is as predictable as the sunrise.

But presidents also hope that even if their party loses the next election, they will have created more durable policy change. If the outgoing president has been clever enough at creating smart design, administrative momentum, and political reality, even a hostile new president may find it difficult to roll back everything their predecessor did. That was certainly the Biden administration’s goal when it came to climate policy. Some even hoped that President Trump would just be too preoccupied with the things he cares more about — especially deporting immigrants and imposing tariffs — to devote too much time and effort to undoing the progress that has been made on climate.

In other words, Trump could have taken much the same approach as Biden, except with the favored industries reversed. Biden worked hard to boost renewable energy, but apart from a few high-profile moves like the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline and a temporary suspension of approvals for new liquified natural gas export facilities, he mostly left the fossil fuel industry alone. The result was a boom time for oil and gas, with record production and almost limitless profits. Turn it upside down, and you’d have an administration that gives fossil fuel companies what they want — relaxed regulations, speeded-up permits, the opening of federal lands for more drilling — without a frontal assault on renewables.

Unfortunately, Trump has not chosen that mirror-image course. Instead, he seems determined to undermine, roll back, and impair the transition to clean energy in almost every way his administration can think of. As it has in one area after another, the Trump government is acting with a head-spinning speed and ambition, as though it will count itself as successful only if the entire renewables industry lies in ruins by the end of its term.

This is a strange approach to take if Trump actually believes there is an “energy emergency” that demands a mobilization to produce dramatically more power, as he declared in an executive order he signed on his first day in office. But that order made clear the administration’s belief that wind and solar are literally not energy; it states that “The term ‘energy’ or ‘energy resources’ means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals.”

Trump didn’t write the order himself, but it certainly reflects the sweeping policy moves his administration has made against renewable energy and environmental enforcement, including the following:

• Cutting off funding to community solar projects already under contract through the Solar for All program established by the Inflation Reduction Act;
• Halting offshore wind leases and suspending the issuance of new permits for all wind projects both offshore and onshore;
• Suspending “renewable energy authorization, including but not limited to a lease, amendment to a lease, right of way, amendment to a right of way, contract, or any other agreement required to allow for renewable energy development” on public land;
• Announcing its intention to eliminate “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies;”
• Effectively killing (at least for now) the program under which the federal government gives states money to build out a national electric vehicle charging network;
• Announcing a plan to shutter the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and place its 168 employees on administrative leave;
• Closing the Justice Department’s Office of Environmental Justice, which was created under the Biden administration to enforce environmental laws whose violation affected underserved communities;
• And most recently, ordering the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to search its grants for climate-related keywords, leading to suspicion that those grants will be targeted for cutbacks or revocation.

All that is in addition to the expected policy reversals, such as withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, which Trump abandoned in his first term and Biden rejoined. Even including those, it’s still not a comprehensive list.

For years, Republicans (including Trump) have described their approach to energy as “all of the above,” i.e. that every kind of energy, including fossil fuels, should be developed as much as possible. That phrase is clearly no longer operative, as the administration is showing an unmitigated hostility to solar and wind power. The administration also seems determined to arrest the growth of the electric vehicle industry, which raises the question of how one particular interested party — Elon Musk — may be reacting to these moves.

Whether or not you think this question has already been settled depends on how much you trust Musk as a reliable exponent of his own true beliefs. On the campaign trail, he boasted that killing the $7,500 EV tax credits would only help Tesla by damaging its competition. After the election, when asked about the tax credit during a visit to Capitol Hill, Musk told reporters, “I think we should get rid of all credits.” But there are other EV-related policies Trump has trained his crosshairs on, including California’s ability to set more stringent fuel efficiency standards than the federal government, granted under a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. The law allows companies to buy and sell credits in order to meet the required mix, and as a maker of entirely zero-emission vehicles, Tesla has plenty of credits to sell. As of last November, selling those credits accounted for more than 40% of Tesla’s net income for the year to date.

So far, Musk hasn’t commented on the subject, but it isn’t hard to imagine that if he tried to convince Trump to reverse some of these decisions and pursue a true “all of the above” strategy, Trump would be highly persuadable. But Musk is no longer an ally of the renewables industry, and his interest in the electrification of the nation’s auto fleet begins and ends with his own company.

Part of the theory underlying Biden’s limited moves against the fossil fuel industry was that the energy transition has so much momentum that it can’t be stopped — that, while every day we continue burning oil and gas makes climate change worse, the eventual arrival of a net-zero-emissions future is inevitable. That reality hasn’t changed, but the Trump administration is determined to delay it as long as possible. And in order to do so, it’s bringing the same commitment to rapid, aggressive, destructive policy change it’s deploying across the entire federal government.