U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has an opportunity to chart a better path for action on energy and climate change than the one followed by the Barack Obama administration, the American Council for Capital Formation said in a report Monday. “[I]mproving the production and use of all sources of domestic energy is a better alternative to the fundamental shift in energy and economic policy pursued by the Obama administration,” the report says.
Obama’s climate and energy initiatives were largely driven by regulation, which is not ideal and should not be replicated by the Trump administration, the organization said: “The new administration should instead focus on encouraging innovation and technological advancements so that we may continue to benefit as a nation from our vast wealth of traditional energy resources, while continuing to steadily reduce the impact on the environment from their production and use.”
The report points to the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, carbon emissions standards for existing coal-fired power plants, and the international Paris Agreement on climate change as examples of the administration’s inability to work with Congress as both initiatives were pursued using executive authorities and did not have the support of the GOP Congress. “[T]he Trump administration should work with Congress to develop viable solutions to environmental concerns through strategies that do not threaten the nation’s economic prosperity and competitiveness,” the report says.