Record Trumps Rhetoric

Like Harris', Trump's energy and environmental policy lacks details, but the distinctions between the two candidates are clear.

A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in. - H.L. Mencken

History proves that deep expertise in virtually anything is not a prerequisite to winning the office of President of the United States. Barack Obama proved that. You don’t even have to be able to pronounce words that have major domestic and geopolitical implications. Ask George W. Bush.

Bush II was not the first American president incapable of pronouncing the word “nuclear.”  As Canadian-American cognitive psychologist and psycholinguist Steven Pinker and others have noted, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, and even Bill Clinton have all used the incorrect pronunciation “nucular”. 

Bush’s butchering of the term probably had little to do with ignorance and more to do with his upbringing and regional dialects. On a blog in 2008, Pinker wrote “People generally end up with the accents of their late childhood and early adolescent peers, so Midland and Houston were the formative influences on Bush's accent, rather than Kennebunkport and Andover.” That said, if you found yourself cringing every time Bush uttered the term (which seemed to come out sometimes as nuk-e-ler and others as “nucular”) you were not alone.

Doomberg - our vote for Substack’s best writing – has a maxim, routinely appearing in their writing and in comments on podcasts appearances. Paraphrasing, it is that most people think of energy as a derivative of the economy, whereas we believe this is completely backwards.. that the economy is a derivative of energy.” 

The statement is both simple and powerful. Empirically, we find it difficult to argue the contrary.

It would seem that in the world’s largest economy and (still) its leading superpower, candidates for the office of President of United States of America would understand the economic, social, and geopolitical implications of energy and environmental policy. Ideally, they would be able to convey to the electorate how they intend to address that reality in some level of detail. But if you were hoping that either party’s candidate for President in 2024 would be able to articulate a detailed plan and how they intend to achieve it, unfortunately you’re out of luck this cycle.

The lack of detail is evident on each candidate’s website, as well as their party’s platforms, both of which are chock full of superficial, political consultant-approved buzzwords and platitudes. Readers will not be surprised to find “DRILL BABY DRILL” (all caps) on the Republican platform, and “climate crisis” twice within the single paragraph on VP Harris’ campaign website devoted to energy and environmental policy.

Speaking of VP Harris, a few hours after our last post pointing out the absurdity of having zero policy platform on her campaign website, a newly placed tab titled “Issues” appeared. The timing was a reaction to the drumbeat of similar criticisms and the next day’s scheduled debate between the candidates. The section of VP Harris’s “Issues” tab that relates to energy and environment (climate) is shown in full below.

Do croutons come with? | Source: https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

196 words of sheer pablum. How exactly a Harris administration will “tackle the climate crisis” voters are left to ponder. As we noted in our last post, Mrs. Harris’ record seems a more reliable predictor of her future intentions with regard to energy and environmental policy than the platitude-infused buzzword salad on her campaign website, or her fluid position on fracking. In that regard, her record is clear.

Trump’s 2024 campaign website contains two explicit energy-related objectives among the twenty promises made. (The Trump 2024 campaign website’s platform mirrors the Republican National Committee platform.)

One is a broad stroke:

The other is more surgical:

The RNC’s website provides no detail, only capitalized political buzzwords (both positive and negative) and traditional Republican red meat phrases in all caps. Here is an example, from the RNC’s 2024 Party Platform “Preamble”:

Common Sense tells us clearly that we must unleash American Energy if we want to destroy Inflation and rapidly bring down prices, build the Greatest Economy in History, revive our Defense Industrial Base, fuel Emerging Industries, and establish the United States as the Manufacturing Superpower of the World. We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again. The United States has more liquid gold under our feet than any other Nation, and it’s not even close. The Republican Party will harness that potential to power our future.

The theme of energy policy is infused throughout the Trump/Republican platform in various sections. From the chapter on defeating inflation (emphasis added):

Chapter 1. Unleash American Energy

Under President Trump, the U.S. became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal. Republicans will unleash Energy Production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately slash Inflation and power American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable Energy.

Chapter 3. BUILD THE GREATEST ECONOMY IN HISTORY

4. Reliable and Abundant Low-Cost Energy

Republicans will increase Energy Production across the board, streamline permitting, and end market-distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal. The Republican Party will once again make America Energy Independent, and then Energy Dominant, lowering Energy prices even below the record lows achieved during President Trump’s first term.

CHAPTER 5: PROTECT AMERICAN WORKERS AND FARMERS FROM UNFAIR TRADE

3. Save the American Auto Industry

Republicans will revive the U.S. Auto Industry by reversing harmful Regulations, canceling Biden’s Electric Vehicle and other Mandates, and preventing the importation of Chinese vehicles.

Other examples include bringing “critical Supply Chains back to the U.S. ensuring National Security and Economic Stability, while also creating Jobs and raising Wages for American Workers” (Chapter 4). And “by protecting American Workers from unfair Foreign Competition and unleashing American Energy, Republicans will restore American Manufacturing, creating Jobs, Wealth, and Investment (Chapter 6. Note: capitalization in original).

Voters are left to speculate how Trump and Republicans in the House and Senate would achieve these objectives. But if you can discern any greater precision in how VP Harris would achieve her energy aspirations, congratulations, you have skills we do not.

The good news for President Trump is that the wind is at his back in terms of his promises and objectives. The bad news for VP Harris is that the wind is – clearly – in her face, despite the trillions of taxpayer largesse thrown at the U.S. “energy transition” and the much-ballyhooed growth in wind and solar “capacity” during the Biden/Harris term.

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) makes this easy to visualize.

Domestic crude oil production:

 Natural gas production:

From the graphs above it’s clear that the “unleashing” of American energy began long before Trump even considered running for President in 2016. That said, production of both natural gas and oil soared from 2017 until Covid-19(84) broke the world in 2020.

The record also shows that the Biden/Harris administration has attempted to obstruct hydrocarbon energy production, distribution, and consumption in favor of nonreliable (“renewable”) energy sources. As we noted in our last post, Harris promised to ban fracking while campaigning for President in 2019. She was one of eleven senators who co-sponsored the Green New Deal (and voted “Present” to advance the bill to the floor of the Senate). She was the tie-breaking vote that sent the IRA to President Biden’s desk for signature. The bill was a trillion plus dollar gift to the nonreliables (wind, solar) industry at taxpayer expense, replete with a title to gaslight the electorate in a way that would have made George Orwell blush (inflation “reduction”!).

Trump’s record on energy policy could not be more different. On June 1, 2017, acting on a campaign promise, he publicly stated he would remove the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. He did exactly that, officially, on the very first day parties could withdraw. (Because the Agreement restricted any party from withdrawing in the first three years, and required a one-year notice provision, Trump notified the UN on the earliest possible day – November 4, 2019. Ironically, the official date of U.S. withdrawal was November 4, 2020, the day after Biden won the 2020 election.)

Under Trump, EPA proceeded to weaken or reverse Obama administration rules on CO2 emissions from power plants and motor vehicles, the controversial “Waters of the U.S.” rule under the Clean Water Act, revoked California’s ability to set stricter tailpipe emissions standards than the federal government, and attacked cost/benefit analyses based on the “Social Cost of Carbon”.

Trump’s Interior Department took action to open up more federal land for oil and gas leasing, including opening more than 18 million acres of land for drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The Department of Energy loosened energy efficiency standards for a variety of products.

Trump issued a flurry of Executive Orders in pursuit of his environmental and energy policies. These ranged from directing federal agencies to stop using an Obama-era calculation of the “Social Cost of Carbon” to revoking an Obama executive order that set a goal of cutting the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent over 10 years.

When it comes to energy and environmental policy, we believe both candidates’ records are more predictive of their future actions than their vacuous campaign rhetoric. The same is true with regard to their party’s platforms, which are mostly red meat for the party base, devoid of the detail voters outside that base might consider as part of their decision.

Practically speaking, those bases account for ~60% of the voting age electorate, and we already know which way they will vote. Those voters do not need details about the “how,” the cost, or any other aspect of their candidate’s energy or environmental policies.

That leaves something on the order of 40% of the electorate who will decide the election. How might those voters cut through the superficial rhetoric on both sides to decipher how each candidate is likely to govern on energy and environmental matters?

It may sound crazy, and certainly non-traditional, but one way might be to actually embrace and use the bias directed at both by their opponents. Information that would piss off each party’s base put forth by sources they both distrust turns out to be somewhat useful to open-minded voters in this regard. The approach only requires a minute leap of faith that VP Harris’ policies on energy and environmental matters will be directionally similar to those pursued by the Biden/Harris administration.

The Institute for Energy Research (IER) is a think tank with a clear conservative bent on energy and environmental policy. IER’s August 2024 article titled “250 Ways the Biden-Harris Administration, and their Allies, Have Made it Harder to Produce Oil & Gas” provides a running chronological list of actions taken by the administration to thwart hydrocarbon energy production and consumption. 

IER’s list contains a few actions initiated by various Democrat state governors, lawmakers, or agencies not the Biden/Harris administration. But a close examination of the details shows the breadth of the administration’s efforts and gives a broad view into the Democrat’s energy and environmental policies.

What about the opposing view? The New York Times is a reliable mouthpiece for Democrats on virtually any policy. In a January 2021 article titled “The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules”, it compiled a list of 112 energy and/or environmental rules that were officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back by President Trump (98 completed, 14 in progress at the time of publication).  Like the IER list of 250 ways in which the Biden/Harris administration has thwarted hydrocarbon energy development, the Time’s list takes some license. But it, too provides voters with a much deeper window what to expect from a second Trump term than the superficial platitudes on his campaign website.

Between the two articles, the ~40% of U.S. voters who will decide the 2024 Presidential election can see the granular actions taken by Trump during his first term and by the Biden/Harris administration over the last four years. With each source’s bias out in the open, those who are not ideologically wed to the Red or Blue teams might ponder the list of each candidate’s actions and how it aligns (or doesn’t) with your own objectives and values.

Had EPA gone too far declaring virtually any standing water on property “Waters of the U.S.” under the Clean Water Act? Was opening federal lands specifically designated by Congress decades ago for hydrocarbon development such an awful thing? How about pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement? Was attempting to shut down reliable base-load electricity generation and force people into electric vehicles by making CO2 emissions reduction rules so strict they couldn’t be met the smartest policy? If nothing else, a list of 350 actions by both candidates provides far more granular detail for consideration than the pablum on either’s campaign websites.

In the geopolitical realm, the two candidates’ positions on energy and environmental policy are equally distinct and juxtaposed. Consider the past six years.

At a UN General Assembly meeting in September 2018, in relation to the construction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline, the German delegation visibly laughed when President Trump warned that “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course”.  Less than four years later, gambling that very reliance would temper Europe’s (and America’s) response, Putin invaded Ukraine. The same German delegation that had wet themselves laughing in 2018 had to change their undies again, except this time it was for the very reason Trump had predicted.

Seven months later, three of the four Nordstream 1 & 2 pipelines were damaged in an act of sabotage. Evidence points to western interests. If so, it would be hard to envision the Biden/Harris administration having zero foreknowledge (if not directly approving the action).

The Biden/Harris administration and European nations imposed a variety of oil and related finance sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions have failed, and merely proved the Biden administration and European “leaders” do not understand commodity markets (price inelasticity of oil) or the geopolitics of energy. That the opposite approach - flooding the global market with crude and natural gas and driving down the price - never seemed to enter their minds is highly instructive.

We close by acknowledging that we are energy and environmental policy ideologues, but these issues will not be the deciding factor for most voters, at least not directly. Most polls list the economy as voters’ top priority.

But there is no escaping the reality that all advanced economies are a derivative of the energy they consume. Or, in the alternative, choose to forego. U.S. voters would be wise to learn the hard lessons from Germany’s energy and environmental policy mistakes and consider how similar choices will impact their own standard of living.

If you believe that the greatest threat facing humanity is “climate change”, that nonreliables like wind and solar are the solution, that modern industrial economies can simply switch out hydrocarbon fuel sources for wind/solar at cost parity and without sacrificing living standards, and that such policies have only positive and no negative consequences, your choice for President is clear. VP Harris’ policies align with your views. If you believe the contrary, and that living standards and the economy are derivatives of affordable, reliable, abundant, on-demand energy, your choice is equally clear.

In the final analysis, we believe one candidate has a far greater likelihood of understanding the domestic, geopolitical, social, and economic consequences of U.S. energy and environmental policies than the other. And like him or hate him, that candidate is as obvious as the nose on your face. Or the frosted orange on his head.

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