How to STOP the US administration destroying the energy rulebook.

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The great wise sage, and in no way mental ideological lunatic, Steve Bannon, once said the best way to bamboozle the press and general public is to flood the zone with s***. I think it's fair to say that mission has been fairly comprehensively accomplished in the United States over the course of the last couple of years, so it's just possible you may have missed something really quite extraordinary that happened in Washington DC on the 12th of February, 2026. [00:00:24] Lee Zeldin: By effective, immediately we are repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating all additional green emission standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models and engines between 2012 and 2027 and beyond. [00:00:39] Speaker 1: That might not sound particularly dramatic, but that rather obscure sounding legal document had formed part of the foundation of American climate regulation for 17 years. It established that greenhouse gas emissions threatened public health and welfare and empowered the EPA to regulate those emissions from vehicles under America's Clean Air Act. And in February, the Trump administration removed the whole shebang. Another very wise man and in not in any country, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described the decision as the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America. He might actually be right because since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the United States has undergone one of the most dramatic reversals of environmental and energy policy anywhere in the world. Vehicle emission standards have disappeared, power station carbon regulations have been repealed, clean energy tax incentives have been cut, clean energy tax incentives have been cut, wind projects have been blocked or delayed, environmental protections covering millions of acres of public land have been removed, climate research has been cut, and America has withdrawn from international climate cooperation. So with the United States approaching its midterm elections, I thought it might be useful to forget the political rhetoric for a few minutes and have a little think about the consequences of all those changes. Hello, and welcome to Just Have a Think. Probably the best place to begin is that endangerment finding. It originated partly from a 2007 Supreme Court decision called Massachusetts versus EPA, which established that greenhouse gases could qualify as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Two years later, following a extensive scientific assessment, the EPA formally concluded that six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane threatened the health and welfare of Americans. That became known as the endangerment finding, and it provided the legal prerequisite for federal green greenhouse gas standards covering new cars and trucks. The Trump administration now argues that this interpretation of the Clean Air Act was wrong. So in February, it rescinded the finding and simultaneously eliminated federal greenhouse gas standards for light, medium and heavy road vehicles. According to the EPA, manufacturers no longer have any future federal obligation under those rules to measure, control or report greenhouse gas emissions from highway vehicles. The legislation claims that removing those requirements will save Americans will save Americans more than $1.3 trillion in vehicle related costs. Opponents argue that the EPA has effectively attempted to remove one of the central legal foundations of American climate policy. Now all of that's currently being contested in the courts, so some of what I'm describing here may ultimately be overturned, but for now, the regulation has gone. And vehicle emissions have been hit from another direction as well, because just at the end of September, the Department of Transportation finalized dramatically weaker fuel economy standards. Under the previous rules, America's passenger cars and light trucks were expected to reach a fleet-wide average of 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031. The new target is 34.9. The administration has tried to justify that by suggesting it will reduce the average cost of a new vehicle by around $1,300. But even its own analysis shows that the reduced MPG means the car owner will actually spend more on fuel over the vehicle's lifetime. And Reuters reports that total US fuel consumption could consequently increase by around 4.6% by mid-century. On top of that madness, Congress has now also terminated federal tax credits for new and used electric vehicles. So the change isn't simply that the government's stopped encouraging EV adoption, it's simultaneously weakening the efficiency and greenhouse gas requirements applied to the gas guzzling alternative. So what about electricity itself then? Well, in September, the EPA repealed most of the Biden administration's 2024 carbon standards for fossil fuel power stations. Those regulations would have required substantial emissions reductions from coal plants and some new gas generation, with carbon capture forming an important part of the compliance pathway. The Trump administration argues that those requirements threaten grid reliability and that they would have imposed enormous costs on electricity generators and ultimately consumers. The EPA claims its repeal will save about $310 billion. And alongside that repeal, the agency has now proposed eliminating the remaining federal greenhouse gas standards for power stations as well. That proposal isn't yet final. And in fact, the coalition of states and cities has launched a legal challenge against it. So again, very much a live legal battle. But there's an important distinction here. The administration isn't simply saying that carbon capture is too expensive or that the previous regulation was badly designed. It's questioning how far or even whether the federal government should regulate power sector greenhouse gases in the first place. At the same time, Washington's treatment of different energy technologies has become increasingly unbalanced in every sense of the word. I'm sure most people know that Donald Trump stopped new offshore wind leasing on his very first day back in office and ordered a review of federal wind permitting. Then later in 2025, his administration instructed agencies to rapidly eliminate federal support for wind and solar, describing them as expensive and unreliable. Congress then substantially shortened or removed a series of clean energy tax incentives originally contained in the Inflation Reduction Act. And the consequences are now becoming visible. An analysis by Wood Mackenzie this summer estimated that delays in federal permitting were putting around 92 gigawatts of proposed wind, solar and battery storage projects at risk. Potential investment associated with those projects was worth about $121 billion. That doesn't mean all those projects will be cancelled though, thank goodness, and it certainly doesn't mean America's renewable energy industry has stopped growing. According to the Rhodium Group, 2025 was America's biggest ever year for grid scale battery deployment, and its second largest year for utility scale solar. And the Rhodium analysts expect solar and battery installations to set new records again in 2026 and 2027. Now some of that boom is actually happening because developers are rushing to complete projects before tax credits disappear, a bit like what happened in China in the last couple of years. But it does suggest the American energy transition hasn't suddenly stopped just because of one administration's antipathy towards renewable technologies. The federal government may have changed direction, but the underlying technology and fundamental economics remain essentially just as compelling now as they did before 2025. And that distinction becomes even clearer when you look at fossil fuels. The administration declared a national energy emergency immediately after taking office and explicitly adopted a policy of what it calls American energy dominance. What that means in practice is that federal restrictions on oil and gas development have been reduced. Liquefied natural gas approvals have been accelerated. Areas previously excluded from oil and gas development have been reopened. Coal generation has received political and regulatory support and regulations controlling methane emissions from oil and gas production are being reconsidered or weakened. Trump's argument is pretty straightforward. America possesses enormous domestic fossil energy resources and developing those resources means cheaper energy, greater national security, manufacturing jobs and less dependence on foreign supply chains. Particularly Chinese clean technology supply chains. Those are perfectly legitimate assertions for policy makers to consider. The question though is whether promoting fossil fuels while placing additional barriers in front of competing renewable technologies will actually produce cheaper energy. Looking at the current global situation and the price you good folks in the USA are currently paying for gas and diesel. It's increasingly difficult to see how that argument stacks up. And then there's public land. The Bureau of Land Management controls about 245 million acres of federal land. Mostly across the western United States and Alaska. In 2024 the Biden administration introduced something called the Public Lands Rule. Essentially it put conservation and restoration on a more equal footing with activities like grazing, mining and energy development when federal land management decisions were being made. The Trump administration rescinded that rule in May 2026. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argues that the change restores what he calls multiple use management. Allowing more local decision making and greater access for energy development, ranching, timber production and recreation. Conservation groups see the situation very differently of course. But whichever interpretation you prefer, the direction of federal land management policy has unquestionably changed. And last but very definitely not least, there's the science of the climate, atmosphere and ecosystems around the world, which the USA has been a global leader in for decades now. Well not so much anymore if the Trump administration has its way. Let's look at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, which is responsible for a huge range of services including weather forecasting, ocean monitoring, hurricane research, atmospheric measurements, climate modelling and much more. The Trump administration has reduced spending on NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research by almost $100 million compared with the amount approved by Congress for 2025. According to analysis by Columbia University's Sabin Center, that includes a 25% reduction in climate research funding, along with cuts to research grants, laboratories and cooperative institutes. And as we've discussed on this channel before, some American ocean observation programs have also faced serious uncertainty. NOAA is not being dismantled completely though, at least not yet anyway. It's still forecasting weather, operating satellites and investing in some new observational capabilities. But America's federal climate science infrastructure is operating in a very different political environment from the one it inhabited just two years ago. The other well-publicized action Trump took on his first day in office was to withdraw the United States yet again from the Paris Climate Agreement. But in January 2026, the administration went even further and announced America's withdrawal from the underlying United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the international treaty established back in 1992 to provide the basic framework for global climate negotiations. So Trump hasn't just chosen not to meet internationally agreed emissions targets. He's held the middle finger up to the entire global architecture created to coordinate climate policy. Which brings us to the question I posed at the start of the video. What does all this actually mean for American emissions? Well, thankfully and perhaps surprisingly, it doesn't actually mean that US emissions are suddenly shooting upwards. Rhodian Group's 2026 assessment still expects American greenhouse gas emissions in 2040 to be somewhere between 27 and 41% below 2005 levels. Why? Well, because governments, however ideologically deranged they may be, can't completely control technological change. Markets tend to do that, especially in ultra-capitalist environments like the USA. Coal's been losing competitiveness against gas and renewables for years. Solar panels keep getting cheaper, battery storage costs are plummeting, and grid storage is expanding rapidly. Plus the US Climate Alliance, which comprises 23 states plus Guam, and which represents roughly 55% of the US population, has publicly committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement, including collective emissions reductions of 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030, 61% to 66% by 2035, and net zero no later than 2050. And enormous amounts of private capital have already been invested in clean energy manufacturing and infrastructure. Nevertheless, Rhodium's higher emissions scenario sees America's long-term decline in emissions slowing during the early 2030s and eventually reversing. And a separate piece of work by industry analysts Energy Innovation estimates that the federal policies we've looked at today could cumulatively add more than 9 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. It also estimates higher household energy costs and tens of thousands of additional premature deaths from increased air pollution. Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration strongly disputes that interpretation and argues its policies will instead produce cheaper energy, cheaper vehicles, greater reliability, and stronger American industry. But they would say that, wouldn't they? So why have I chosen to start mithering on about all this right before the US midterm elections? Is it some thinly disguised attempt to sway your vote if you're an independent or undecided US citizen? Well, yeah, of course it is. The prognosis for this planet's ability to sustain human civilisation as we understand it is far too grave to beat around the bush. The rest of the world seems to have got the memo, although no nation is moving anything like quickly enough. But global investment in clean energy technologies remains enormous and the United States is fast becoming an outlier on policy and risks becoming a technological pariah if the people currently in power are allowed to continue wreaking havoc wherever they go. If you're a red-blooded American, you might be yelling at me right now to mind my own goddamn limey business. But I'm afraid it is my business. Your president has made it all our business. Current US policies affect every human being. And by the way, every other species currently living on the only planet we know of that's capable of sustaining life. And the consequences of the current US experiment, not just on climate action but on just about every other area of policy imaginable, are clearly not stopping at America's borders, are they? Do I think the alternatives in US politics are paragons of virtue? No, I do not. But they're the only alternative you've got right now, so if you are eligible to vote in the US midterms, could you do us all a favour and vote to give back control of Congress to some grown-ups who might be able to keep this guy in check for the next couple of years? Much appreciated. In the meantime, if you vehemently disagree with the sentiments coming from a pasty-faced YouTuber on the British side of the pond, then do feel free to vent your spleen in the comments section below. I might even read one or two of your suggestions, you never know. Anyway, that's it for this week. I must say a massive thank you to the folks who support me on a monthly basis via the Patreon platform. That support means I can make videos like this without fear of censorship from nervous sponsors and without having to worry about whether YouTube might demonetise this content because thanks to those generous individuals on Patreon, I've never monetised any of my videos on YouTube anyway. You can join in with those folks by clicking on the QR code down there or by visiting patreon.com/justhaveathink. Don't forget to like and subscribe if you found this video useful. That's just a simple click that doesn't cost you a penny, but which really does make a big difference to our ability to operate effectively here on YouTube. Most important of all though, thanks very much for watching. Have a great week and remember to just have a think. See you next week. [00:16:22] Speaker ?: We'll see you next week. We'll see you next week. Bye.