Obviously, I am appalled by the Trump Administration’s deceitful statement. There are so many gross distortions and falsehoods here that it is difficult to know how to comment.
The article says they are for “energy policies. . . freeing us from dependence on foreign oil”. But we’ve already done so and are producing a surfeit of oil which may be why President Trump is so keen on building new pipelines to make it easier to export more oil.
The unsubstantiated claim that eliminating some anti pollution regulations will increase wages of American workers $30 billion over the next 7 years is as believable as the President’s assertion that 3 million illegal votes were cast for Mrs. Clinton.
In recent years, American job growth has been spectacular in solar and wind energy and will probably continue to be even with little help from the Trump administration. Expanding the production of fossil fuel is a recipe for planetary disaster. I suspect even the Trump administration knows this but it doesn’t square with their opportunistic attitudes. America’s coal industry has declined because of technology, not excessive regulation. Underground mining has been replaced by giant earthmoving machines that require only a fraction of the workers formerly employed underground. “Clean Coal” is a ridiculous oxymoron that would be laughable were it not accepted by so many people who should know better. Capturing and compressing CO2 effluent from power plant smokestacks and pumping it underground, even if somehow made financially feasible, is a terrible idea; there’s nowhere near enough room in the ground and most places it might be pumped ground water pollution (from carbonic acid and worse) will likely result and probably serious earthquakes as well.
While “An America First Energy Plan” makes a pro forma endorsement of “. . . responsible stewardship of the environment”, everything the new administration has done indicates that this will not be the case. Their collective plans for managing our environment will result in a strong case for future prosecution of the President and many of his subordinates at the World Court for crimes against humanity.
G. Mackenzie Gordon, A.I.A.