Coral Davenport
Appearances
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So the big thing that the administration can do, and I'm certain they will do, is this big regulation that compels automakers to reduce the emissions associated with cars sold. That was done through the Environmental Protection Agency, and I fully expect the Trump EPA to initiate a regulatory rollback of that. That will take a lot of time, though.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
forcefully throughout his campaign of an American economy driven and centered on unleashing new forces of fossil fuels. More energy, more gas, more coal, more drilling, more mining, more use of those fossil fuels. That is the core driver of the American economy and of revenue and of what he sees as American dominance.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
In the first Trump administration, they similarly tried to roll back a clean car rule. That took all four years. They didn't finish that until 2020. It was one of the last things that they did. So it's difficult. It takes time. But ultimately, they can do it without Congress. They have the legal authority. I would fully expect them to see a rollback of that regulation.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
You know, automakers don't like regulation, but what they hate even more is this uncertainty. They really hate this back, forth, back, forth, back, forth. One reason for this is that automakers have to plan what cars are going to be in showrooms like five or six years from now.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
If all these laws and rules go away, then it's really difficult for them to have invested all this money into cars that there may be no demand for. So this is a challenge for automakers. Here's another really big challenge for automakers. The global market is already moving towards EVs. In China, more than half the new cars sold are now EVs.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And American automakers really want to get in that market and compete. They want to be selling their EVs to China. And so, interestingly, as much as they really don't like tough regulations, the automakers have been going to Trump and saying, look, please don't do this. Don't ratchet this all the way back. The market is already transitioning. Like, the horse is out of the barn.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Probably not the best metaphor, but like, I don't know, the electric car is out of the garage, whatever, like it's happening. And the U.S. auto industry needs the government to help push it along in the same direction as the rest of the global market, because if it doesn't, it's not going to be able to compete.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Well, in terms of the policies that he would follow, this is one where he really does have a ton of executive authority. The executive branch can open up a lot of federal land and waters for more drilling. They can streamline and ease a lot of the regulatory requirements. And to be clear, the oil companies are delighted with this. They love it. They want to have all that access.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Here's what they don't necessarily want to do. They don't necessarily want to do a whole bunch of new drilling now. Why is that? Yeah, so that's like sort of the thing that Trump has been calling for. Unleash, unleash, drill, baby, drill, etc. With a lot more production online, prices go down. That's not really what the companies want. They would like to keep prices in a nice medium range.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And here's the other thing is like Trump can't direct publicly traded companies what to do in this space. They are going to respond to the market. There is not a button or a lever that Trump can press to cause more drilling to take place. The United States is not a petro state. They're not Russia or Saudi that can sort of flick a switch at the government level. Exactly.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
But Petro State can do that. The United States can't. And so what we hear from companies is love all this, but like, are we going to start drilling a whole bunch more right now? No.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Well, there is one policy lever that the executive branch has that really is seen as effective in lowering prices, and that is aggressively reducing consumption. But the policies that reduce oil consumption are... switching to EVs and, you know, switching to energy-efficient appliances. Like, the less demand there is, the more supply there is, the lower prices.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So you heard him on Monday during his inaugural speech saying that we will... Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
But that is the exact opposite of what he is doing. And so getting back to these day one orders, it's not just about, like, putting the brakes on EVs. Like, they specifically mention rolling back appliance efficiency standards for things like washers and dryers and gas stoves and light bulbs. Like, all... these measures that were actually put in place in the 70s so that the U.S.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
would consume less fossil fuel and be less reliant on fossil fuel and prices would go down.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Well, there's two pieces to that. If the question is kind of what's at stake, you know, what all of these policies are about fundamentally is how much fossil fuel emissions will be produced by the world's largest economy. That's really important because scientists have told us that the world's major economies have until 2030 declined.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
to cut emissions in half from 2005 levels in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change in our lifetime. If some of these policies are rolled back, it will slow down the U.S. enough such that there's no way it will hit that target and essentially will bake in these catastrophic climate impacts.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Absolutely. I mean, we're facing essentially a five-year window and we're facing a four-year term in which we will see this clean energy transition substantially slowed within the United States. And there is one other piece of this. Sabrina, which is that this is happening around the world. We see these investments in EVs, in wind, in solar.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
We see major corporations and industries around the world in a global race to be the ones to own these technologies, to license them, to profit from them. And if the U.S. is basically... going in the opposite direction, you know, that does reduce U.S. competitiveness. It takes the United States economy instead of racing forward, it's looking backwards.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
I think Trump's vision, particularly on energy, is very proudly rooted in the middle of the 20th century. It is a vision that is built on oil, that is built around the combustion engine, as the rest of the world is trying to kind of race to achieve these competitive 21st century goals.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And I think Trump would proudly own that, which I think really illustrates that so much of this is not about economics. It's not about fundamentals. It's about his individual vision and ideology and perspective and where he comes from and what shapes him and how that is coming out in these profoundly important policies. Coral, thank you. Thank you so much, Sabrina.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And very aggressively slamming the brakes on clean energy.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
You know, this has been his vision for a long time. But more than that, it's about wanting to be seen as doing an aggressive U-turn on the Biden administration. President Biden, in his inauguration address and on his first day, made clear that he wanted climate change to be central to his legacy. And it really was.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So for President Trump to come in on his first day and make clear that he's going to tear that apart is a specific, clear, and personal message to his predecessor that I think he wants to send.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
He does. He talks about energy prices being too high because of regulation. He suggests that there is some kind of energy shortage that is hampering the U.S. economy. And so he essentially declares what he calls an energy emergency.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And when a president does that, it gives them the executive authority to basically hop over a bunch of rules and laws and things that get in the way of getting things done.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Exactly. And so he's saying we have energy shortages, prices are too high under an energy emergency. You know, I don't have to follow permitting or regulation or basically obey a lot of rules that are there in order to make sure that we get these supplies of energy to American consumers and businesses.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
actually in an energy emergency? By no measure is the United States in an energy emergency. Right now, the United States is the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. It's currently producing more oil and gas than any country has at any time in history. The price of oil right now globally is at about $76 a barrel globally.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
That's about the average that it's been for the last 20 years adjusted for inflation. Price of gasoline is near a three-year low. So supplies are abundant. Prices are moderate. I cannot find anyone who can sort of understand what the fundamentals are for making this argument.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So he's casting a really broad net here, but at the 30,000-foot level, I think it comes down to three basic categories. One is pushing for more oil production. Two is limiting EVs, kind of stopping the use of electric vehicles and the support for electric vehicles, and limiting renewable energy, but particularly limiting wind power.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So, yeah, Trump loves to talk about unleashing American oil. But how does one unleash American oil, particularly since we are in the largest oil boom of any country at any time in history? How do you unleash even more than that? So this is what he says he wants to do. He wants to open up more federal lands to drilling.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And then he also wants to basically eliminate or speed up all the rules and permitting and regulations that oil companies have to comply with in order to get access to this land, both to drill and also, by the way, to move oil, the pipelines, the ports, the terminals, all of that. We're going to make that really easy for you. Check a box and get right at it.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Trump talks about how, you know, if the price of oil goes down, if the price of gasoline goes down, you know, the pitches like this makes life easier for everyday Americans. And, you know, Trump's nominee for treasury secretary said during his confirmation hearing that a core part of his plan is lowering inflation and says that lowering gas prices is a central part of that effort.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Sure. And this is a huge piece of Trump's plan, just in the same way that it was a huge part of Biden's legacy. Burning gasoline and oil from vehicles are the number one contributor to climate change. And of course, vehicles are the main consumer of oil. Right.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So in these day one executive orders, Trump is focused on two of the biggest policies that Biden rolled out to advance electric vehicle adaptation in the U.S. The first is a giant law that was passed in 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act. That included billions of dollars of tax credits and tax incentives for EVs. This is consumer tax credit.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So individual purchasers of EVs could get $7,500 tax credits. Meaning people buying cars. People buying cars. If you want to buy an electric vehicle, you can get up to $7,500 written off on your taxes, courtesy of Biden's law. It also guided billions of dollars directly to automakers so they can get a lot of tax credits for building and selling cleaner cars.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And then on the other end, he put in place this regulation on the car companies that compels them to... Lower the fossil fuel emissions associated with their auto sales such that by 2032, more than half the new cars sold in the United States would pretty much have to be all EVs. Right now, about 10 percent of new cars sold in the United States are electric vehicles.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
This would get us to over 50 percent. Wow. And Trump hated this. He went after it so hard. And there were a couple of reasons for this. One, he went after it because the oil producers, the oil companies hated it because it's really taking away a gigantic market for their product.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
But Trump, in a very savvy way, kind of tapped into this idea that this is the government telling you what you can drive. Hmm. And that really resonated. He would say the Biden administration is going to take away your choice for what you're going to drive. And this really was a very potent political argument. And I think it resonated deeply with his base and beyond.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And so that's the biggest piece that we saw Trump talking about rolling back.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And it's so fascinating because also like Tesla could get the tax credits. Tesla has been a big beneficiary of all of these programs. However, Tesla is a really interesting company because unlike the rest of the U.S. auto industry, of course, all it makes is EVs and it's doing really well. A lot of these programs are really designed to help boost efficiency.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
the legacy auto companies to make that transition, which is very expensive. They have to invest in new R&D. They still have these old product lines. How do they balance it and build new things? And so none of that really applies to Tesla. And so what Musk has said on earnings calls to his shareholders, essentially, if all that stuff goes away, it will ding Tesla.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
But it will hurt the competition so much more because that Tesla will come out much further ahead. Interesting. And so, in fact, Musk has made plain that he is just fine with rolling all that stuff back because, you know, if the competitors are not getting all that government help, they're really going to struggle with this transition and consumers will be forced to go to Tesla.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
This also has to do with this being sort of a signature move of the Biden administration. The Biden administration really tried to push the development of wind on public lands. They opened up all these public lands and they permitted these giant wind projects. And they sort of said, this is a good use of public land and we want to very proactively, aggressively push this expansion.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So Trump is saying, no, we will be withdrawing those permits. We will shut down this effort to do this.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So within hours of inauguration, Trump signed this flurry of executive orders touching all kinds of pieces of policy. There were about six executive orders specifically related to energy. But within them, some of those orders had more than a dozen different policies. And if you look at all of these added up together, they very clearly realize Trump's vision, which he has expressed repeatedly.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
Honestly, being anti-wind has been sort of a core Trumpism for a long time. He has long railed about wind. He talks about how wind turbines kill birds and cause cancer. That's not true. They don't cause cancer. I remember that. There was the wind farm that was like,
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
obstructing the view i think from the trump resort in scotland and i think also like if you think about a giant wind turbine like it is such a symbol of clean energy of this broader movement and set of policy and ideological ideas that trump is just in aggressive opposition to like it's the perfect symbol right is the perfect clean energy symbol to oppose
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
It is. I think a lot of energy economists and historians will say what Trump is trying to do here is to realize a vision of the past. But the reality is he can't just will that into existence. I think that a lot of this vision that he has laid out quite clearly in these executive orders will be a lot harder to realize in law and policy.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So some of this he absolutely can do with executive authority. But a lot of it really is not the purview of the executive branch. It will only happen depending on what Congress does. And in some cases, it's really not up to the government at all. It's up to markets. But I think the thing that they really can carry out pretty soon is the withdrawing and ending of permits for wind energy.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
That is fully the purview of the executive branch. That was something that the Biden administration was able to do early and very aggressively. The Trump administration can take that away. And I think it will have a significant impact as well.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
I do think that will really slow down the growth of an industry that's really kind of just getting off its feet and starting to be close to go on its own and kind of getting kneecapped at this moment. I think it will not kill it. You know, there is growing demand. The price of wind power is low, in some cases, a third as cheap as coal power.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
But if the permitting is taken away, it will slow down its growth quite significantly.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
So EVs are more complicated. We talked about the Biden EV tax credits, the consumer tax credits for buyers of electric vehicles, all the money for the companies that are making it. All of that is authorized by Congress. All that is already in the law. The president cannot make that money go away immediately. the federal government is obligated to continue to give that money.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And the only way it can really stop it is if Congress enacts a new law that ends a lot of those tax policies. And even though we are in a Republican-majority Congress, it's far from clear that all Republicans really want that. Why? Because a lot of those EV tax credits for manufacturing are going to red congressional districts.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
There are a lot of congressional districts with Republican representatives where all this money is flowing in and creating new EV battery plants, new manufacturing along the EV supply chain that has created jobs.
The Daily
Trump Plans to Abandon Clean Energy. Can He Do It?
And so there's a number of Republicans who are raising their hands and saying, OK, you know, maybe we want to repeal some things that Biden did, but not this EV manufacturing tax credit, not that one. And so I don't think they'll be able to wipe those all off the books.