“Revolutionizing America’s Energy: The MAGA Movement Embraces Clean and Sustainable Solutions” 

Climate change is an issue of global concern but not a MAGA priority. Clean energy, on the other hand, should be. Conflating the two is a big mistake. Increasing American manufacturing, extraction, and consumption of clean energy—particularly in solar and battery storage—serves vital national interests and should be a primary focus of the Trump 2.0 energy agenda, second only to reversing Biden’s policies hindering U.S. fossil fuel extraction, generation, and consumption.The Biden administration’s attack on the fossil fuel industry has been bad for America and bad for the environment. Fossil fuels produced and consumed in the United States reduce CO2 emissions merely by shortening the distance oil cargo ships need to travel to reach their destination. Moreover, the U.S. fossil fuel industry is among the world’s most energy-efficient and rapidly improving, with members of the U.S. Oil & Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) having reduced carbon intensity by over 21 percent since 2017 on a per barrel of oil equivalent basis. Trump 2.0 will rebalance policy priorities by eliminating Biden-era executive orders that stifled American energy production, securing affordable energy for American families and businesses. After taking this critical first step, Trump 2.0 must also recognize the strategic importance of clean energy to America’s future. Keeping most of the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy tax incentives makes sense, not only because of their impact on reducing CO2 emissions but also because of their benefits to the American economy. Here are four compelling reasons for preserving the bulk of Inflation Reduction Act clean energy tax incentives. First, the United States urgently needs substantially more electric generation capacity to meet the swelling demands of a growing economy. Electricity demand is growing rapidly across multiple sectors of the economy, including data centers, Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, 5G, cloud computing, cryptocurrency mining, a resurgent domestic manufacturing sector, and transportation electrification, among others. The United States will need not only much more generation capacity but also more transmission and distribution capacity. Failure to meet this challenge successfully will trigger electricity price inflation and drive away companies frustrated with the lack of easy access to competitively priced electricity. It is not unreasonable to expect that the United States will have to significantly increase its generation capacity over the next two decades. Achieving this will require an “all of the above” energy policy. Opening the floodgates to every available generation source will mitigate inflationary pressures and ensure that the United States remains the most attractive place to site this incremental capacity. Solar and battery storage are uniquely suited to this challenge. Coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, hydro, and geothermal energy can only be generated