As the Trump administration struggles to define its energy policy in a way that doesn’t make it obvious that the government is now filled with fossil fuel lobbyists, they’ve apparently hit on a new phrase sure to appeal to his chest-thumping, alt-right base: Energy Dominance.
E&E takes a look at the rise of the new term. Per E&E, Perry and Zinke have been the most recent to adopt the “dominance” vocabulary, which was first introduced by Trump in his big energy speech in May of last year. While the oil industry doesn’t seem keen to use the term (though it no doubt appreciates the sentiment), environmental economist Maximilian Auffhammer straight up laughs at it when talking to E&E, “because [the phrase] doesn’t make any sense.” He also calls out the connotations of the word “dominance,” which “is not generally used in a good context, and it always means there’s a big person on the playground shoving around a smaller person.”
Which sounds exactly like Montenegro-PM-pushing, insult-tweeting Trump, doesn’t it?
So with all due respect to Auffhammer, “energy dominance” does mean something--at least to Trump’s sycophantic followers. And we can already see what this means in practice: gutting the public health protections that inconvenience dirty energy.
But will it be successful? Only if Trump somehow convinces utilities to start investing in coal plants that will cost more than renewables. A new BNEF report makes it clear once again that because of falling prices, the future is in clean power.
So while Trump puffs out his chest and calls for energy dominance, the dirty energy dominos are already falling.
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