Starkly different visions for how conservatives view energy were on display at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) The Future of Energy Summit in New York City lastย week.
Right-wing speakers seemed pulled in opposite directions by the twin realities of a changing climate, which is beginning to hit gas companies’ bottom lines, juxtaposed against the raw political power of a Trump administration packed with climate change deniers of differentย stripes.
Some on the right are calling for supporting a transition to a decentralized power grid, fueled by wind and solar energy, but not for the usualย reasons.
โThere is nothing more vulnerable to a terrorist attack than our centralized power grid,โ Debbie Dooley, founder of Conservatives for Energy Freedom, told the crowd of energy industry financiers and top executives. โDecentralized energy like rooftop solar helps keep usย safe.โ
โI believe that we need to remove the barriers that prohibit alternative energy or renewable energy from competing on a level playing field,โ Dooley, who also serves as chair of the Atlanta Tea Party and was a two-time Republican National Convention delegate,ย added.
โIndividual freedom and liberty, clean air, clean water โ we need to leave future generations of America with a clean world,โ she said. โWe need to protect them. We have an obligation to protectย them.โ
Oilย Dependency
In contrast, Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Instituteย (CEI), supported a greater reliance on fossil fuels, which would require a very different set ofย policies.
โCEI as a free market group opposes all mandates and subsidies and we have opposed CAFE going back to the 1980s, because CAFE kills people.โ Ebell said, referring to federal rules that the Trump administration aims to repeal that would require U.S. automakers to build cars and trucks that burn less gasoline perย mile.
Some have argued CAFE could โkillโ because they worry automakers will build lighter cars that could be more at risk in auto crashes. While smaller cars fare less well in crashes, the data shows that regardless of size, newer and more fuel-efficient vehicles are less likely to crash than older ones,ย according to Edmunds.com, which found that, for example, a small car from 2015 is safer than even a mid-size SUV built inย 2005.
Keeping CAFE standards would not only cut climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, they’d save drivers money at the pump and reduce America’s demand forย oil.
Dooley argued that no matter what one thinks about climate change, burning more oil puts national security at risk. โWe need to reduce the dependence on foreign oil,โ she said. โI have an eight year old grandson, and the reason I’m so passionate about this is, I’m thinking about hisย future.โ
Infighting Among Trump’sย Allies
When it comes to world politics, Ebell, who was in charge of the Trump administration’s transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, lashed out not at foreign oil companies, but against Trump’s newly appointed Secretary of State, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson.
โThe fact is that the people who voted for President Trump are not the CEOs of ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, and Conoco Phillips,โ Ebell said at The Future of Energy summit. โThe people who voted for Trump and elected him think that those CEOs are part ofย theย problem.โ
Ebell previously attackedย Tillerson over his support for the Paris accord, the international agreement meant to curb climate change, arguing that Tillerson’s refusal to reject Paris meant that the Trump administration still included โswampย creatures.โ
Fossil Fuels Hitting Real-Worldย Barriers
Another Trump cabinet member, Rick Perry, recently appointed Secretary of Energy by Trump, praised the prospects for so-called โclean coal,โ where coal-fired power plants would capture their carbon dioxide-laden exhaust and use it to help pump more oil out of theย ground.
Perry described his recent visit to the Petra Nova plant in Houston, Texas. โIt’s taking a field โ an oilfield 80 miles away that was making 300 barrels a day and the projection is it will make 15,000 barrels aย day.โ
โNow I will tell you, I happen to think that is a good thing,โ Perry said. โAnd obviously it willย work.โ
Others on the right weren’t so sure that โclean coal,โ which relies on a process known as โcarbon capture,โ can deliver on thoseย projections.
โCarbon capture is total bullshit,โ said billionaire Mike Bloomberg, who formerly served as New York City’s Republican mayor but is now registered as an independent. โThis is a figmentย ofย imagination.โ
At the summit, Ebell also called evidence that the climate is warming โeither exaggerated or made upโ and said he thought climate change was โfairlyย mild.โ
But another energy CEO, Tom Ward, founder of Mach Resources, cited warming temperatures as part of the reason that low demand for gas to heat homes has driven many American drillers intoย bankruptcy.
โThree of the last five years have been the warmest winters since 1950,โ Ward said. That โdemand destructionโ was a large part of the reason he said that gas prices need to go up roughly 30 percent from their current levels to make drilling in many parts of the U.S.ย viable.
Energyย Choices
Amid all of the clashes, some on the right still tried to call for unity. โUnfortunately, special interests have poured tons of money into different groups to put out information that is not true and they’re trying โ they don’t want us to come together,โ saidย Dooley.
โI don’t care why someone wants to advance renewables as long as they want to advance renewables,โ Dooley told the crowd at the BNEFย summit.
โEnergy freedom, energy choice,โ she said, โthat is a message that resonates across politicalย boundaries.โ
Main image: Donald Trump speaking at a drilling industry conference. Credit:ย ยฉย 2016ย Lauraย Evangelisto
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