Proponents of modern, high-density energy sources of electricity, fuel, and other products saw a major win in January, when President Trump resumed office and began taking the nest of snakes that was "Autopen Joe" Biden's energy policy and laying them all out straight - and then tossing out the snakes that proved venomous. A lot of those snakes were birthed by the Democrats' inappropriately named "Inflation Reduction Act," which is one of the most ridiculous pieces of legislation produced by Washington in decades.
Mind you, that's really saying something.
A lot of the environmentalist shouters, most of whom have barely a nodding acquaintance with the actual environment, and the climate scolds, are realizing that right now they can't make any headway in Washington. So they are taking their side of the energy policy to the states, and in some places, finding some success. In a recent piece at RealClearEnergy, Gary Abernathy, a former Washington Post reporter/columnist and now contributor to The Empowerment Alliance, made some interesting observations about just this.
In just over seven months, President Trump has achieved numerous historic accomplishments while leading what is nothing less than a revolution. Few achievements have been more impressive than the speed at which he and Republicans in Congress rolled back much of the energy-crippling “Inflation Reduction Act” of 2022.
It's pretty amazing what President Trump and his team have accomplished in the eight months since the inauguration, and energy policy is only a part of it. Here in Alaska, prospects for new development are exciting. The same holds for plenty of other places, from the Permian Basin to the Gulf of America. The federal government's executive branch under Trump is solidly in favor of American domestic energy development, and the GOP-led Congress isn't about to toss any roadblocks in the administration's way.
But those in opposition to American energy aren't giving up. They are taking their arguments to the state level.
Trump and the Republicans in Congress have clawed back as much of Biden’s reckless spending as possible, and various departments in the Trump administration continue to identify and cancel funding wasted on climate cult programs – sometimes after battles with over-reaching courts.
But the radical left isn’t giving up without a fight. In fact, it has established new front lines across the country. The strategy was detailed recently in a New York Times interview with Gene Karpinski, the just-retired leader of the League of Conservation Voters, who declared that while the fight at the federal level might be stalled, “We can continue to be on offense in state after state after state.”
After Trump took office the first time in 2017 and stood up against the climate cult, “We went back to the states, elected a lot of new governors, a lot of state legislators,” Karpinski explained. “Literally less than 1% of the public lived in a state with a policy that said we need 100% clean energy back in 2017. Now over 40% of the country lives in a state with 100% clean-energy policy, and the programs will continue in most states.”
This is something the Republicans at the state level need to be aware of.
Read More: Energy Secretary Chris Wright Predicts Practical Fusion Power in Near Future
EPA Officially Announces It's Ending Regulations Forcing Businesses to Report Climate 'Emissions'
Here's the thing: In some states (California, I'm looking at you), the state legislatures are very receptive to the League of Conservation Voters' "green" energy agenda. But we need to note a few things:
First, no state has a 100 percent clean-energy policy. Some states have a goal, at some point in the future, to run on 100 percent clean energy. But they haven't achieved it yet; their "green" efforts still have to be backed up by good old coal, oil, and natural gas. Until those states have fully changed their electrical grid to solar, wind, and so forth, this is all just woo. And, even then, none of that will eliminate the need for fossil fuels for transportation; they will still need gasoline, they will still need diesel for trucks and trains, and they will still be dependent on all of the byproducts that come from the petroleum refining process.
Second, physics still is what it is. At no time in the history of humanity has any major technological advance been achieved through a reduction in the energy density of a primary fuel source. We have, right now, an energy source for electrical generation that has higher energy density than oil and gas. That's nuclear fission, but the environmentalist shouters won't accept nuclear power, either. All of these "green" sources have low energy density. None of them can provide, fully, the energy needs of the high-tech lifestyle of the American people. And those needs, with the advent of energy-hungry AI servers and data centers, are only going to increase, possibly by several orders of magnitude.
The Trump administration would be well-advised to watch the states. The blue states will try to interfere with the revamping of American energy independence. They'll try to block, they'll try to evade, and they'll try to evade federal deregulation by attempting regulations of their own. But on energy policy, being that this is a national issue and, we must not forget, a national security issue, well, Washington holds better cards.
To once more trot out one of my favorite sayings, we solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology. But solar and wind power, while useful in niche applications, cannot supply our ever-more-energy-hungry society with reliable grid-scale energy. These are not tomorrow's technologies; they have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
Editor's Note: This article was updated post-publication for clarity.
