There was a time not so long ago when the GOP response to the blue team’s clean energy initiatives was to support energy of all kinds in the name of growth and economic independence. Today, based on the votes for the BBB, the mainstream Republican position is that clean energy is positively harmful to America. Since the reality of climate change is evident every day, clean energy provides lots of jobs, and Trump’s espoused objective is energy dominance, this sounds insane. What is going on here?
Several things. First of all, the party considers itself bound by Trump’s idiosyncratic prejudices about the evils of wind power and the need for jobs for big burly men. Second, peddling nostalgia about coal mining jobs helps the GOP win elections in several states. Third, clean energy is inextricably entwined with the issue of climate change, and the right understands there is no free market solution to the climate problem, so it makes sense at an ideological level for the GOP to deny the problem and reject the solution. Fourth, Republican politicians get lots of campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry. That isn’t the decisive factor, but it matters. Finally, there is a school of thought to the effect that we are hopelessly behind the Chinese in the clean energy field, so it is better to focus on the dirty kind, where we currently have a cost advantage.
What will we lose as a result? We will be diplomatically and economically isolated. We will have more deaths and property damage from extreme weather events. We will lose countless clean energy jobs in the short run and cheap and plentiful energy sources in the longer run. From a policy perspective, this is a disaster.