What You Should Know About Climate Change Under Trump!
He can't undo everything!
Here’s a data point to keep in mind as we prepare for another Donald Trump assault on efforts to fight climate change: Across the USA, Election Day 2024 saw millions of Americans voting in record heat. New high temperatures for November were hit in Rochester, New York (81 degrees F); Pittsburgh (also 81 — and the city hasn’t had rain since October 6); Columbus, Ohio (78); and Hartford, Connecticut (78 again, tying a 2022 record). That list, from the indispensable Heatmap News, goes on and on, even noting that in New Orleans, the overnight low temperature for Election Day “was 75 degrees, a full degree warmer than the average high this time of the year.”
So that’s a thing to remember about the day America sent Donald Trump back to the White House. Trump pledged to give the oil industry everything it wants, and industry lobbyists even helped out by writing up a bunch of executive orders he can use to sweep away many of the climate regulations Joe Biden put in place — just in case Trump forgets his promise while he’s arguing about the size of his Inauguration Day crowd.
There’s no two ways about it: Donald Trump will be returning to office at a crucial moment for America’s — and the world’s — long-delayed commitment to reducing the greenhouse emissions that cause climate change, and he will be able to set back those efforts as long as he’s in office. We’re finally taking our first steps toward a full-scale energy transition, and Trump wants to strangle that progress.
Fortunately, the energy transition is going ahead in spite of Trump. He can slow it — dangerously so, let’s not kid ourselves — but he can only set it back, not eliminate it. I’m going to make use of our new longform orientation to explain why, today and tomorrow.
Worst. Timing. Possible.
The timing really couldn’t be worse, honestly: Joe Biden’s climate policies have been the most significant of any American president, and not only because he has almost no competition. His signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), was praised by the head of the UN’s International Energy Agency as the most important climate agreement since the Paris Agreement — which, of course, Trump wants to pull the USA out of, again.
Unfortunately, while the IRA and other bills have already racked up significant wins, like an explosion in clean-energy manufacturing thanks to the generous tax incentives for industry, the energy transition is still in its early stages. Both the IRA and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) are 10-year programs, and many of their provisions are only now starting to have an effect on clean energy and manufacturing.
Just one example: This spring, media and Republican sources (same, almost) mocked the fact that the BIL’s $7.5 billion program to build public EV fast-charging stations didn’t instantly make charging stations sprout up all over the country. A notorious March 2024 Washington Post headline whined that the program “has only produced 7 stations in two years.” Of course, you needed to actually read the article to learn that was actually right on schedule for the 10-year program, and that far more stations would be coming online at an increasing pace. Federal money spent now is expected to result in states actually reaching peak deployment — hundreds of new charging stations annually — between 2026 and 2028. (As of October, 19 stations are up and running, with many more on the way.) And those are only the stations directly funded by the program; hundreds more are also being built by private companies using other incentive programs, and will continue to be.
Trump, of course, lied about the program; at the Republican National Convention in July, he exaggerated the budget and the slow progress, saying “They spent $9 billion on eight chargers, three of which didn’t work,” which is bullshit, and implied that the full program cost over 10 years went into just those stations.
We Aren’t Dead Yet
Now, some maybe-good news: This is where a hell of a lot is riding on control of the House of Representatives, which is still not decided (25 uncalled seats as of this morning). If Democrats hold the House, Trump won’t be able to repeal any of Biden’s climate legislation outright, although Trump can still significantly embugger IRA programs by having regulatory agencies change how they work. The IRA is fairly specific about providing tax credits for consumers who buy EVs, but presumably Trump’s Treasury Department could write such stringent rules to qualify for the credit that they’d be practically useless.
Things obviously get far worse if Republicans take both houses, but even if that happens, the Biden bills may not be entirely doomed. BIL, or at least its transportation spending, is likely to survive, albeit with cuts, which would probably include most of the charging stations. But as the Washington Post notes (gift link), Republicans aren’t against climate programs that bring home the bacon to their districts. University of Texas at Austin oil and energy boffin Ben Cahill noted that
[The IRA’s] tax credits for consumers, including those for EVs, rooftop solar panels and heat pumps “will definitely be on the chopping block” but “the investment incentives for wind, solar and battery storage have proven to be quite popular with big business.”
Plus, since many of the IRA’s manufacturing incentives have boosted jobs and growth in red states, members of Congress from those states may decide that fine, OK, we can keep a lot of those benefits in place, especially since they’ll be hearing from the clean energy companies and their super PACs.
That was one of the smart things about the IRA: While it never actually mandated where green tech would be deployed, its benefits were definitely designed to go all over the country and win constituents that way, much like the Pentagon always seems to make sure key congressional districts get a financial bite of any big new weapons system.
Needless to say, there are a lot of ifs in all of this, and none of it will prevent Trump from setting back climate progress in ways that will be dangerous for keeping the planet habitable. But as I’ll explore further this week, bad as it is, there are still good reasons to temper our dread about how much Trump will be able to fuck up the planet.
Tomorrow: Biden’s tricksy plan to “Trump-proof” climate rules, and more!
[Politico / E&E News / WaPo (gift link) / Heatmap News]
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It's bitter irony (or some other literary device, I'm sure) that the oil companies are going to get pretty much everything they want, and all without having to have bribed the orange sphincter after he publicly demanded extortion. That's some winning right there. Not for us, though.
If nothing else, our environment, including non-human animals and decent human beings, are worth fighting for even now.
Thanks, Dok.