Guess What? The Next 2 Weeks Are “National Energy Dominance Month”

October 17-31 has now been proclaimed to be an entire month, courtesy of Trump.

“National Energy Dominance Month.”  So typical of Trump: a bungled exercise in foolish bravado. The “bungled” part is that he forgot to designate October as a special month until it was halfway over.  The “bravado” saturates almost every sentence, combined with the fact that the blustering has no practical effect. And the “foolish” part is about bad energy policy and bad economics.

Here’s Trump, explaining what this Very Special Two-Week Month is all about:  “This National Energy Dominance Month, my Administration proudly recommits to harnessing the liquid gold and minerals under our feet and bountiful resources in our waters, forests, and fields, achieving American energy dominance, and forging a future defined by three simple words:  ‘Drill, baby, drill.’”  His energy policy, he says, is defined by “maximum production, maximum prosperity, and maximum power.”   I’m surprised he hasn’t awarded himself the Medal of Freedom for these heroic achievements.

As to why this is bad energy policy for the United States, the answer is almost too obvious to bother with.  The U.S. is about to face a huge surge in demand for electricity due to data centers and AI. Yet Trump wants to eliminate renewable energy, the fastest growing source of energy and the one that can be most quickly deployed.  And he wants to prop up decrepit, wildly uneconomical coal generators which even the owners want to shut down. That’s not even to mention the environmental toll of his favored sources of energy in the forms of air pollution, water pollution, and climate change.

It’s also stupid economic policy.  Global demand for oil is barely rising, so the U.S. will need to bring prices down a lot if it wants to undercut its competitors. But lower prices mean less incentive for oil companies to drill.  Also, it’s not clear where other countries will get the dollars to pay for the oil, given Trump’s tariffs and other policies. Natural gas demand is rising globally. That does create an opening for U.S. sales — but increased exports would increase domestic prices.  Trump doesn’t want that.

Investors know all this, which is why it’s Big Tech rather than Big Oil that’s driving up the stock market. And on top of this foolishness, Trump is also gifting the rapidly growing clean energy market to China.

That’s what Trump wants all of us to celebrate throughout the month of Late October. Like I said at the beginning of this post: “a bungled exercise in foolish bravado.”

air pollution, ANWR, electricity markets, energy law, energy markets, offshore drilling, oil and gas, Trump Administration