What Would Climate Policy Look Like Under One-Party Conservative Rule?
You only need to look at Texas or Florida for the answer: a complete erasure of climate action.
We haven’t seen at the national level what climate policy would look like under a government completely controlled by today’s hard-right — one possible outcome of the 2024 election. Trump did have a Republican Congress at one point, but more moderate conservatives still held the balance of power there. Today’s hard-right Republican Party has left more conventional conservatives like Mitch McConnell in the dust. So what would a GOP trifecta look like today?
We can get a better sense of how climate policy would fare nationally by looking at states under unchallenged Republican control. Given their populations and economies, Texas and Florida are probably better comparison cases than places like Mississippi and Arkansas. In both states, the executive branch leadership has dominated the legislature, leaving few constraints on their actions. And both states have fought climate initiatives tooth and claw.
In Florida, the legislature has eliminated consideration of climate change in energy policy. The same legislation banned offshore wind turbines, repealed state funding for renewables, and eliminated clean energy requirements on state government. The Governor applauded the legislation for keeping “windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and China out of our state.” He went on to say, “We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots.” Previously, the Governor rejected $346 million in federal funds to make homes more energy efficient. I guess wasting energy is the MAGA thing to do.
A week after Biden took office, Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave a major speech in the Texas oil patch. “I am in Midland,” he proclaimed, “to make clear that Texas is going to protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack from Washington, D.C. ” Falsely blaming renewable energy for winter blackouts — most of the failed generators used fossil fuels — he called the Green New Deal “a deadly deal” for the U.S. He also issued an executive order directing every state agency “to use all lawful powers and tools to challenge any federal action that threatens the Texas energy sector” (meaning oil and gas) in Texas.
Texas has had a thriving renewable energy sector, driven by free-market policies dating back to George Bush’s time as governor. Bush, of course, is a RINO by today’s standards. Fearful of the cost advantages of renewable energy and its alleged contribution to past blackouts, Texas Republicans pushed through a referendum giving new natural gas plants sweetheart loans from the state. So much for the free market.
This is not to say that unified control of the federal government by the hard right would entirely halt the progress of clean energy. Just that they would do their best to make that happen and to maximize use of what Trump has called the “liquid gold” under our feet.
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About Dan
Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…
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It is important to learn from all experiences and shed the ideological screens. As you mention, Texas has been remarkably successful in wind development having blown miles past California. Having completed a major west to east transmission line, they are now putting California in the rear view mirror on solar development. All that under a very regressive administration following previous Republican administrations. California still waits for the South-North transmission line. Encouragement of on-shore wind seems a lost cause, so, as is often the case, California goes for the most expensive option, off-shore wind in record deep water. California’s single governance politics, just as in Florida and Texas, seems to have its own problems.
Hi Robert. I agree that California could learn some things from Texas (or at least pre-MAGA Texas) about expanding renewable energy. On the other hand, Texas remains by far the state with the most carbon emissions, while California has been steadily ratcheting its emissions downward. So Texas might well learn something from California as well!
It occurred to me as I was browsing EIA CO2 data that Trump could appoint a new EIA director with the intent of repressing such data. After all, what is the EIA but a part of the “deep state”?
This would be in line with Gov. DeSantis’s prohibiting Florida agencies from using the term “climate change,” but way more powerful and insidious.
Such a scorched-earth move would make it very hard to maintain continuity in GHG policy to resume in a more moderate future administration. That debilitation would be consistent with his pledge to the Christian right that, if they elect him, they “won’t have to vote anymore.” SCOTUS enabled that possibility with its immunity decision.
If Trump gains power, his henchmen are organized to parlay it into permanent rule as quickly as possible. He’s disavowed Project 2025, you say? That’s convenient for purposes of getting elected and that’s all.
Texas like other states has seen electricity prices triple and quadruple due to subsidies for wind and solar (with no resulting benefits). Texas has now embarked on an aggressive program to build new natural gas cogeneration plants which will emit CO2 and H2O directly into the atmosphere but have no measurable impact on climate whatsoever.
Texas leads our nation in rejecting and repudiating stupid climate lies and hysteria.