You Make a Difference! Our mission and operations are funded entirely by Patriots like you! Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign now.

April 4, 2017

Trump’s Executive Order Is an Energy Boost

Undoing the Clean Power Plan is a great move.

President Donald Trump recently fulfilled another campaign promise when he signed an Executive Order repealing Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. This EO is a win for America’s energy sector and is another step in the right direction to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources. Trump’s EO will also result in more jobs for the coal industry and is a good start in tackling government regulations that harm America’s economy.

Some conservative critics aren’t completely happy with Trump’s EO, claiming he didn’t go far enough. For example, the EO doesn’t remove the United States from the Paris Agreement concerning climate, and it doesn’t remove the EPA’s endangerment finding that greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare.

While these two facets of Obama’s Clean Power Plan should be undone, Trump was smart in not taking them on just yet. The Paris Agreement on climate is non-binding and the EPA’s endangerment finding was given legal justification by the courts. Trump surely didn’t want to get bogged down with another court battle, so he left it alone — at least for now.

As for the Paris Agreement, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested in his remarks last week that the U.S. will ignore the sections that seek to limit carbon output by wealthier nations. Pruitt noted, “The free-market-driven fracking boom and clean coal technologies have put the U.S. at the forefront of reducing its carbon output. The U.S. didn’t need the job-killing Paris deal to cut carbon emissions; it did it all by itself, without the aid or interference of capitalism-loathing climate change bureaucrats.”

Democrats and ecofascists are of course furious over Trump’s EO, essentially claiming that humans will suffer and die as a result. (Are we missing something? Some of those eco-nuts worry about overpopulation…) This despite the fact that the previous administration’s own Department of Energy acknowledged that the Clean Power Plan would have “no discernible impact in global carbon dioxide emissions for the next three decades.”

But Obama’s plan did have an impact on jobs, specifically the coal industry. That plan was a regulatory power grab with the intent of preventing temperatures from rising a paltry 0.01 degrees Celsius. Trump’s EO changes the climate of government regulation on the coal industry.

In fact, the day after Trump’s order, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order allowing coal mining leases on federal lands. This is great news for the coal mining industry, as federal land accounts for 40% of the nation’s coal production and about one-third of its reserves. On this policy change, Zinke commented, “Rather than doing the social cost of carbon, you have to look at the social cost of not having a job too. … All of us want clean air and clean water. And we’re going to make sure we ensure that.”

Coal miners are certainly glad to see Trump follow through on what he said he would do. He said he would reverse the regulations that were harming the energy sector and that coal miners would be put back to work. The energy sector needed a boost and Trump delivered on his promise to do so. However, the impact that coal miners suffered during the Obama years may not end completely.

Over the years, fracking and natural gas production have probably impacted the coal industry more than the regulations on coal did. The technological innovations with fracking and natural gas production have allowed the energy sector to produce reliable sources of energy with minimal impact on the environment. Of the sources of energy, coal is still the dirtiest.

In the end, Trump’s decision to end the previous administration’s so-called Clean Power Plan will help to re-energize our economy. With the free market open for business under this administration, we look forward to a new energy revolution.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.