WEBVTT - To understand Trump's climate moves in his second term, look to the Reagan years 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.640 Welcome to zero. I am Akshatrati. This week, back to 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:22.120 the future. Trump is back in the White House. What 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.239 will the next four years hold when it comes to 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.479 energy and climate policy. There are many ways to answer 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:30.680 that question. One is to look at recent history for 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.000 some clues. Trump began his first term by pulling the 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.280 US out of the Paris Agreement. He's done that again, 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.720 and as he did in his first term, he's once 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:45.440 again taken aim at environmental regulations, but this time he 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.880 is going further, declaring a national Energy Emergency and promising 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.559 that the US will double down on domestic fossil fuel production. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:59.600 Certainly feel deja vu. We have heard this, but the 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:01.280 circum stances they're very different. 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.720 This week, as we've been thinking about the Biden to 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.560 Trump transition, we thought about traveling further back in time 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.960 to replay what took place at the White House more 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.640 than forty years ago, when Jimmy Carter's term ended and 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:20.280 the new administration, led by Ronald Reagan promised to remake America. 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.880 They were absolutely committed to the idea that the US 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.880 needed to increase its production of oil, gas, and coal, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:34.279 and that that was indispensable for national security and for 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:39.440 the economy, and any set of policies that got in 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:42.679 the way of doing that seemed like they were designed 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:43.880 to weaken America. 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.480 That's Jonathan Lash. He was an environmental lawyer in the 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.280 eighties and wrote a book about Reagan's environmental policies called 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:54.880 Season of Spoils. He spoke with Zero's producer might Lely 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.840 Raw about how Reagan right away set about reversing the 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:03.640 Carter administration's positions, particularly on energy and the environment. 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:08.680 He wanted smaller government, less regulation. He wanted to encourage industry. 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.760 He thought the environmental problems have been greatly exaggerated. The 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:18.440 people he brought in were ideological about their opposition to 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:25.360 government intervention, and they began to weed out scientists in 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:29.600 advisory committees who they thought were too environmentally inclined and 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.840 bring in industry scientists instead. They wanted to get the 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.880 answers that satisfied their political objectives. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.680 It all sounds a bit familiar, right, but whether it's 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.520 Reagan then or Trump now, Lash says that there are 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:46.480 limits to a president's power. 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.399 When we hold an election, we change the people who 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:53.640 are charged with carrying out the laws, but the laws 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.280 don't change, and there was this sense then which I 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.160 see now as well, that somehow, having won the election, 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.920 the decks are cleared. Everything is subject to change to 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.480 reflect the new policies. If they are able to pass 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.320 legislation that changes the law, that's the way it works. 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.600 If the public supports that the law can be changed. 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:22.360 That isn't what happened in his first termament office, and 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.760 it isn't what happened when Reagan was elected president. 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.360 And so with a new Trump era upon us, I 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.240 wanted to hear more about what lessons presidential history might 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.520 hold for the next four years. Someone who has studied 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.240 these parallels in depth is Paul Saban. He's a professor 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.960 of history at Yale an author of several books about oil, environmentalism, 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.840 and the Reagan Ears. We talked about whether Bidenomics will 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:51.200 have staying power, what we can learn from the US's 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:55.600 long running commitment to fossil fuels, and how Trump might 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:17.599 be able to go further than Reagan did. Paul, Welcome 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:18.080 to the show. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:20.159 Thank you so much for having me. 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:24.760 Now, in conversations I've had with policy experts and thinkers 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.120 in the last few months, it seems like there are 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.600 two strands of thinking that have emerged. There's one camp 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:33.120 of people who say, when it comes to the direction 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:38.000 of travel on things like decarbonization, it doesn't matter all 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.599 that much who is in the White House. If the 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.720 economy is moving in that direction, the momentum will continue. 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:46.960 And then there's another camp of people who say it 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.800 matters a lot who's in the White House because the 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.320 executive branch can put in a lot of rules in 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.560 place and set the tone for what happens. When you 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.919 look at the transition that took place this week from 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:03.320 a Biden and minister to a Trumpet administration, how momentous 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.480 is it from the perspective of energy and climate policy. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.240 Well, again, thanks so much for having me on and 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:13.839 give me a chance to give some historical perspective on 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.960 these energy and climate transitions. I think that you have 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.479 to see it, as you know, truly momentous. And I'm 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.240 one of those who sees the energy and climate space 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:26.000 as being a political and economic one and not just 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.120 one that has economic forces sort of unrolling without being 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.240 guided by institutional structures. And I think that you know, 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.600 we're likely to see a dramatic reversal of many federal 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:38.440 policies that have been put in place in the last 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.919 four years that have been trying to accelerate an energy transition. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:44.720 So certainly there are underlying trends, you know, and the 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.240 dropping cost of solar power, wind power, things like that. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:52.400 New technologies and batteries have been really remarkable advances. But 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.240 those are taking place in the context as well of 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.839 a political and legal structure that I think has a 0:05:57.839 --> 0:05:59.800 lot of impact on their development. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:03.279 So is it true then that Bidenomics, which is this 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.640 idea that you're going to try and put in place 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:11.359 things like the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure build 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:17.360 that will bring meaningful jobs back into the country. Do 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.120 you think Bidenomics just becomes a footnote because of what 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:21.240 Trump's likely to do. 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.159 You know, that's just going to be a fascinating issue 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:25.919 to follow as we go forward. I mean, one of 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.840 the really distinctive aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act has 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:33.200 been the location of where these investments have gone, and 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.760 many of them have really gone into Republican districts in 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.960 the South, and I think it's still unknown, you know, 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:42.159 what's going to happen with that in terms of the 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:46.440 narrow majorities in the House of Representatives in particular as 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.800 to whether you know, Republican representatives from those districts are 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:55.480 going to prioritize defending these new factories, these new jobs 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.080 in their districts, or whether there will be sort of 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.719 strong armed into prioritizing shifting money into you know, tax cuts, 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.440 and that's going to be most likely, you know, one 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.320 of the major debates of the coming year. And so 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.480 it's really an experiment in political economy to see whether, 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.920 you know, the power of local jobs and industries can 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.640 outweigh this national climate that's pushing for sort of a 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.360 national policy newly focused on tax cuts. 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.960 So let's take a historical lens to see if we 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:32.400 can learn anything about what's coming under this Trump administration. Obviously, 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.480 recently there's been a lot written about President Jimmy Carter's 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.880 life and legacy. He recently passed away, but also he 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:44.320 sort of foreshadows a little bit of what Biden Trump 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:44.760 looks like. 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:45.080 Now. 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.800 One thing that gets repeated is Jimmy Carter installed solar 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:52.840 panels on the rooftop and then Reagan removed them. There's 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.480 also the fact that Carter to some extent got booted 0:07:56.520 --> 0:08:01.280 out because of inflation issues, just like Biden, also in 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.680 anticipation of what his successes might do. Carter issued more 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:08.000 than one seventy what are called Midnight regulations just before 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.800 Reagan took office, and Biden has done I don't know 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.600 if it's one seventy but quite a bit. Are there 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:20.200 lessons from the transition from Carter to Reagan that can 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.520 give us some insight into what we're going to see 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:24.360 now from a Biden to a Trump. 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.120 Great question, and I think it's really fascinating to look 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.200 back at the car to Reagan transition, and it's think 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.319 it's important to put in an even larger, broader context 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.800 of sort of a back and forth that's been going 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.800 on in American politics really for more than a century 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.800 between a more developmentalist oriented governance of the Department of 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.640 the Interior and other agencies that might have strong ties 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.719 to Western political leaders and Western states, and a more 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.880 Eastern centered managerial approach. And this goes back all the way, 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.880 you know, to Teddy Roosevelt in the progressive era, people 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.600 like Albert Fall and the teapot Dome scandal in in 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.240 the United States. So I guess the point that I'm 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:05.400 emphasizing there is that part of what we're going to 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.360 see is a continuation of this back and forth in 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:14.160 approach to public lands and public resources and regulation. And 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.880 that happened in the early Reagan years with the appointment 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:18.960 of someone like James Watt, who is kind of coming 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.160 out of the West wanting to return greater access to 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.840 resources to companies into states, as opposed to Carter's more 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.640 restriction oriented approach. And so we'll certainly see that with 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.160 the Trump appointees to Interior and other agencies in their 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.760 efforts to open up public lands and to oil and 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.440 gas drilling especially. There are other things that are maybe 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.319 more distinctive to the Carter Reagan shift that we'll see, 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.559 which is, you know, the appointment to agencies like EPA, 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.920 where you have people coming in who really have some 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.200 a questionable commitment to the mission of the agency. You know. 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:57.679 An Gorsich was the person appointed in the early Reagan years. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.760 She had come out of the Colorado State legislature and 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.640 being a lobbyist in Colorado and had been a pretty 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.720 vocal opponent of clean air regulations and then was put 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.960 in charge of the EPA and one of her responsibilities 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.160 was to try to cut back on the EPA budget 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.679 and pull back on the new super fun law. So 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:17.199 I think we're going to see definitely going to see 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.640 those kinds of things happening in the new administration. You 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:23.640 can tell just by the people who are being appointed 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.560 that they are have really, you know, ambivalent relationship to 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.280 the mission of the bureaucracies that they're going to be running, 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.120 and so it's a question about how much they're going 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:38.400 to try to really sort of undermine from within and 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.880 how much they're going to try to pursue some of 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:42.920 the objectives of those agencies. 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.840 So in your book Public Citizens, you write about how 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:51.520 citizen advocacy movements of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.479 well they remade America but then also perhaps had unintended 0:10:56.559 --> 0:11:00.680 consequences and paving the way for our Reagan era conservative 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:06.400 movement that was aimed at slashing regulations. There is also 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:11.079 a parallel there to now, because Elon Musk is supposed 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:15.720 to run this Department of Government Efficiency that is aimed 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:20.640 at doing exactly that, shrinking the size of government. Are 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:25.280 you experiencing deja vu that is very strong? And what 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.520 consequences might this have for the kind of success these 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.200 agencies are these new efficiency movements can have. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:36.920 I mean, that's a great question, and certainly, yeah, there 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:38.600 is a lot of deja vu looking at the early 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.480 Reagan years, and so just to put the broader context 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:43.599 on the public citizens and kind of the idea of 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:47.280 the CITs and activists, the argument there was that the 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:49.960 attack on the new Deal administrative state in the nineteen 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.760 seventies comes not just from the right, but also from 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.760 the left and people like consumer activist Ralph Nader and 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.760 others who come to see government agencies as being a 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.280 big part of the environmental problem and they start, you know, 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.760 suing them and attacking them and criticizing their close alliance 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.960 with companies and seeing that, you know, again that they're 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:12.200 part of the problem. But one of the key distinctions 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.359 between the liberal attack on the agencies and the conservative 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.240 attack on the agencies, and this gets back to what 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:19.000 I was just saying, is that the liberals, you still 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.760 believed in the federal government, They still believed in regulation. 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.839 They just wanted it to serve what they saw as 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.520 the public interest. But the difference was that when the 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:32.360 Reagan you know, regulators came in, they had a much 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:35.120 more as I said, much more ambivalent relationship to the 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.720 agencies and to whether they really supported their missions. In 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:41.640 many cases, they were coming in in the early nineteen 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.480 eighties with what they saw as a mandate or a 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:48.400 mission of rolling back the social and environmental regulation of 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.840 the nineteen seventies, and that includes clean air regulation, water regulation. 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.600 Occupational safety and health was also a big area that 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.599 they were quite hostile to. And so, you know, what 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.840 what was happening under Carter was, in my view, an 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:06.720 effort to try to balance some of the reforms of 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:11.440 the federal bureaucracy with the continued implementation of regulation to 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:13.720 protect the air and the water. Carter was trying to 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:16.200 juggle these two things and see how you could build 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.960 trust in government by making government be more efficient and 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:24.959 more effective. But he still believed very strongly in environmental regulation. Now, 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.160 the difference with Reagan, and I also think the parallel 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:32.120 with Trump, is that you have these folks like Musk 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.360 who are coming in, you know, really hostile to the 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:39.200 bureaucracy as a whole, questioning legitimacy and its mission. And 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.719 that's kind of what happened with Reagan as they came in, 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:43.400 you know, with the idea that they were going to 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:49.120 slash regulations, they were gonna dismantle different programs. What interestingly, 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:51.480 had worked in the federal government before he came into 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.840 the Interior Department, and he was a bit of a 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:56.760 bureaucratic warrior and really wanted to kind of reform the 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:01.080 agency from within, and saw h self as having, you know, 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.920 six months a year to do all of the dramatic 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:05.880 changes that he could during this short period of time. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.280 So it was a very aggressive effort to try to 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.120 transform their bureaucracy. And what happened as a result is 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.800 that there was a massive backlash to the Reagan efforts. 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.920 There was very little consensus building or coalition building around 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:24.200 regulatory reform, and there were hearings in Congress, and there 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:29.160 was litigation and the irony of the Reagan efforts at deregulation. 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.360 So they actually accomplished very little. And part of the 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.760 reason why they accomplished so little is because they didn't 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:36.840 do what Carter was trying to do, which is trying 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.480 to balance the legitimacy of government with deregulation. So, I mean, 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.280 I think we can all agree on the idea that 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:45.720 government should be more efficient. It should be more effective. 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.320 But we also maybe you know, can still agree we 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.560 want clean air, we want clean water. What Reagan did 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:52.600 was sort of separate those two things, and that made 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.800 it actually quite difficult for the Reagan administration to accomplish 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:56.400 its goals. 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.960 Now, taking a look at foreign policy, Bergram, who is 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:06.360 Trump's pick for Interior Department, as the ability to open 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.760 up federal lance to oil and gas drillings and has 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.320 said that he would like to use American energy as 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:18.480 a tool for quote unquote world peace. Have you heard 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.320 that before? And how exactly can fossil fuels be used 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:21.920 for world peace? 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.280 Well, I mean, I think this is a very interesting 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.680 area to you know, to explore and thinking about. You know, 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:31.680 energy independence, you know, was a big theme of the 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:35.080 nineteen seventies, and and Carter was strongly behind that. And 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:37.840 you know, Carter's remembered as a big environmentalist for his 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.000 renewable energy initiatives, but he also was quite in favor 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:44.640 of domestic drilling and coal development and synthetic fuels. And 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.400 so this is part of the sort of complicated legacy 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.320 of the nineteen seventies and also part of why we 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.200 didn't get off fossil fuels earlier, which is that there 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.040 was a kind of competing objectives of national security, low 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.840 prices for consumers as well as reducer consumption. So I 0:16:02.280 --> 0:16:05.920 think I think there's a there are some legitimate strategic 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:09.000 conversations that could be had about the role of reducing 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.320 oil prices and energy abundance in sort of the grand 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.120 strategies around the globe and what that's meant for the 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:20.200 Arab States or for the Russian Russian expansionism. Low energy 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.800 prices I think have been really challenging for Russia, So 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.160 I do think we'll see a continued effort at that. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.920 I think what's so complicated about our current moment. People 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.120 want to think about us as being in an energy transition, 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.800 but we have this complex situation where we're both producing 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.080 more fossil fuels than ever before in history and also 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.800 you know, accelerating the energy transition with renewables. Whether that 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.080 is actually a path to where we want to go 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.320 as a society, I think is a real open question. 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.520 Well, China as a threat did not exist in the 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.560 Reagan Ears at least, if anything, those desire to want 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.640 to engage with China. But if you look at the 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:01.840 current moment With recent foreign policy priority for the US 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:06.320 under Biden has been to try and not lose their 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.240 foothold in the market for electric vehicles or for green technologies, 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.440 where China is excelling. And the way Trump talks about 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:20.440 China now it sounds like he is interested in competing, 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.200 he wants America to win. But then he also calls 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.680 the energy transition investments as the green new scam. And 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.800 so does this mean under Trump the US loses the 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.639 opportunity to catch up with China, if it ever was 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:36.960 going to catch up with China and green technologies. 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.560 First, I guess I would just highlight the complexity of 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.760 the US China relationship and what it means for the 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:45.840 energy transition as having some similarities to what I was 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.679 describing in the nineteen seventies, which is just that the 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:50.760 US has been in this position of both trying to 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.280 reduce emissions by accelerating the adoption of solar energy and 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.040 wind technologies and batteries and all these things, but at 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.200 the same time trying to do a kind of energy 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.679 and dependence through domestic manufacturing, which has meant that we've 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.959 been putting tariffs on solar imports from China and trying 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.920 to protect renewable energy industries, which is in turn sort 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:13.040 of slowing the energy transition. So it's again the sort 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.000 of complicated two step or multi dimensional aspect of this 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.199 energy transition in terms of what happens going forward. So 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:23.000 I think what's fascinating about the Trump situation is that 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.600 is this tension between his rivalry with China and his 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:31.719 hostility towards renewable energy businesses. But I think the bigger 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.240 challenge here is that the economic opportunities that are happening 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.520 in renewable energy are increasingly happening around the world and 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:41.440 not necessarily centered in the United States or or necessarily 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.560 even in China, and so we're kind of competing for 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:45.800 exports to other places around the world. And I think 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.120 it will be challenging for the United States to catch 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.600 up as a manufacturer of these different technologies. The United 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.320 States has not been dominating manufacturing in recent decades. So 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.159 the idea that even with tariffs and other kinds of 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.119 protections and subsidies, that we're going to become a leader 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:05.080 in these technologies, it's a little dice as to whether 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.840 the United States can actually pull that off, because there 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.040 are so many pressures that have already exerted themselves, and 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:15.600 so many synergies around manufacturing in China where they're able 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:21.000 to connect the batteries, the cars, the panels, all sorts 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.320 of synergies around manufacturing. It's going to be difficult. And 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.440 I think that's not so much around Trump's hostility even 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.160 but really about the long much longer term trend around 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:32.040 industrial manufacturing in the United States that make it quite challenging. 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:35.880 But you made this point that historically there has been 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:39.680 you know, on the one side, affordability of energy, which 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.280 has ended up in pursuing more fossil fuel policies versus 0:19:43.359 --> 0:19:46.240 trying to reduce emissions, which has led to some amount 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.760 of renewable deployment as things we can compare. But really, 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:55.640 if you look at the history of US energy consumption, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.360 US has kind of made its choice for decades because 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.520 every president in the last many decades and let's just 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.000 look at this century, from Bush to Obama to Trump 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:13.879 to Biden, has increased the extraction of fossil fuels. And again, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:18.080 of course Trump wants to continue the trend. This is 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:21.800 something that you've looked at. You're an expert in this area. 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.520 Am I reading it wrong that the US really just 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:30.080 wants and is very happy with its abundant fossil fuels 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.240 and you know, the renewable energy transition, Well, that's something 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.479 we have to do because we have to show the 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:38.440 world that this is I think the US is. 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.119 Very is very committed to cheap energy, and the politics 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.040 of energy prices are very harsh in the US. You know, 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:48.480 high gas prices lead to discontent, and that's not just 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:50.760 in the United States. It's really around the world that 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.679 you see examples of that. I mean, I think it 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.199 is important to put fast increased fossil fuel production in 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:03.399 the context of significantly rising renable energy development, because renewable 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.000 energy is shaving off growth in fossil fuels, and you 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.320 do see the shuddering of some coal fire power plants, 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:11.840 and that a lot of the growth in power production 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:17.159 has been with solar and wind production, and international energy 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:22.720 agencies predictions have repeatedly underestimated the rapid growth of renewables 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.040 and also the cost declines in renewables. So I think 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:28.879 the bet that some people are making, and this is 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:31.560 really a bet about what's going to happen, is that 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:35.640 these cost declines are eventually going to push fossil fuels 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:37.720 out of use in a variety of scenarios, and that 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.280 what we should be doing in the short term is 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.720 having energy abundance for prosperity and growth and technological development, 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.159 but that we are inexorably headed towards a renewable future 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.119 because solar energy is going to basically just outcompete the 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.960 fossil fuels eventually. Now I'm a little less optimistic about 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:56.960 that and think that it's much more likely that without 0:21:56.960 --> 0:21:59.720 policy intervention, that we will continue to have a robust 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.560 fall fuel sector paired with a growth of renewables, and 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:07.240 the growth of renewables will have a significant impact on 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.679 our climate future, and you know, we'll shave off the 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.520 growth of fossil fuels perhaps, but I do tend to 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.359 believe that without policy intervention we won't be able to 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.120 get to net zero or anything remotely close to it. 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.960 After the break, more of my conversation with Yale historian 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:34.720 Paul Stateman. And if you've been enjoying this episode, please 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:36.879 take a moment to rate and review the show on 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:47.800 Spotify or Apple. It helps other listeners find the show. Well, 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:51.800 I'll maybe ask you now to suspend some of your 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.720 beliefs and wear a Marga hat and think about what 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:59.560 Trump's going to do in the next four years where 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.360 we know with certainty that there will be more extreme 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:07.280 weather impacts driven by worsening climate change. Now, if you 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.320 were asked with your Marca hat on to give advice 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.800 to the Trump administration on how to deal with the 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.800 next four years, whether they want to call it climate 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:20.119 change or not, or whether they want to call it 0:23:20.240 --> 0:23:23.720 energy transition or not, what advice would you give them? 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:26.560 Well, I guess there are the advices then the predictions. 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.360 You know. I think it's important to note that, you know, Texas, 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.919 for example, is the leader in you know, renewables, solar 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:35.840 and wind, and Elon Musk is very involved in the 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:39.080 renewable energy economy in a variety of ways. And so 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.760