“We have ended the war on American energy,” President Trump boasted in his State of the Union address, “and we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. We are now, very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world.”
Those two sentences were about all Mr. Trump devoted to his energy policy in his message. Brief as they were, they encapsulated nearly everything that is shallow, dishonest and just plain wrong with that policy, as well as his approach to environmental issues generally.
Here’s what’s deceptive: There has been no war on energy. American oil, gas and renewables like wind and solar flourished under President Obama. Coal was the exception, but Mr. Obama was not its enemy; the market was. “Beautiful, clean coal,” meanwhile, remains a mirage, at least for now; the affordable technology isn’t there. And the United States has always exported energy. In recent years — the Obama years — the amount of energy the country has sent abroad has begun to catch up with the energy it brings in.
Mr. Trump’s false narrative on coal is particularly cruel, since it offers empty promises to Appalachian coal miners who are suffering grievous job losses and myriad health and economic ills. It’s true that the last two Democratic presidents — Bill Clinton and Mr. Obama — cracked down on power plant emissions like soot and mercury with rules that imposed real costs on producers; and Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan, aimed at cutting the carbon emissions that fuel global warming, would have pressured the industry more.
But these regulations did not kill coal-fired plants, and rolling them back, as Mr. Trump is doing, will not stop the unforgiving forces of the market, chiefly the switch to cheaper natural gas, and renewables’ increasing competitiveness. These are the forces that have been largely responsible for the decline in mining jobs and the closing, or conversion to natural gas, of hundreds of coal-fired plants.
