Last week, MasterResource summarized the energy- and climate-related highlights of the Trump presidency. The Trump Administration itself just released its highlight list, which is presented today for energy and tomorrow for regulation in general.

Some listed accomplishments below, however, are woke:

• Renewable energy production and consumption both reached record highs in 2019.
• Enacted policies that helped double the amount of electricity generated by solar and helped increase the amount of wind generation by 32 percent from 2016 through 2019.

Perfection can be the enemy of the good, and energy was no exception for Trump. In tomorrow’s list, for example, is this step back:

• Placed a moratorium on offshore drilling off the coasts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
• Authorized ethanol producers to sell E15 year-round and allowed higher-ethanol gasoline to be distributed from existing pumps at filling stations.

It began early. In a candidate questionnaire in March 2016, Trump answered two key questions presented by the free-market American Energy Alliance:

“8). Do you support a carbon tax? Do you support the Obama administration’s use of the social cost of carbon in rulemakings?

A. No and No.

 9). Do you think federal agencies have abused the cost-benefit process to suit their political agenda? Would your administration end the process of underestimating costs and inflating benefits of agency regulations?

A. Yes and Yes.”

And in his first energy speech in May 2016, Trump stated:

“And if Crooked Hillary can shut down the mines, she can shut down your business too.”

“These actions have denied millions of Americans access to the energy wealth sitting under our feet. This is your treasure, and you – the American People – are entitled to share in the riches.”

” … although Trump was not a libertarian, was his philosophy in energy, environment, and regulation reasonably free market? Were the President’s motivations laudatory? Consumer-, entrepreneur-, and taxpayer-driven? I believe they were, outside of foreign trade policy with certain countries.”

I recently had this exchange with a ideological and personal friend, Richard Ebeling, BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, about the civil war within the libertarian movement in regard to the Donald Trump presidency. Always there, the divide boiled over last week with Trump’s last stand. I was part of it.

After reviewing our exchange, I revisited many Trump-related posts here at MasterResource regarding energy, climate, and the environment. (Wednesday’s post will list approximately 30.) The question is: although Trump was not a libertarian, was his philosophy in this area reasonably free market, outside of foreign trade policy with certain countries?…

“Donald Trump has been to climate regulation as General Sherman was to Atlanta,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School, referring to the Union general who razed the city during the Civil War. “Hopefully it won’t take as long to rebuild.”

“We’ve lost very important time on climate change, which we can ill afford,” said Richard Newell, president of Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan energy and environment-focused research organization in Washington. “There is severe damage. To ignore climate for four years, you can’t put a price on that. It’s a huge issue that needs to be confronted with long-term momentum and extreme dedication, and we have lost that.”

Quoted in Coral Davenport, “What Will Trump’s Most Profound Legacy Be?