Donald Trump broke the seals on three important issues in a speech about energy May 26 in Bismarck, ND. The Republican aspirant to the US presidency sensibly sees the subject as a way to differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton, the probable Democratic candidate. To succeed, however, he'll have to develop his themes to depth uncharacteristic of his campaign.
Trump's first speech dedicated to energy contained the grand promises and bald contradictions his supporters and detractors have come to expect. The US, he said, will become "totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests." But it will work with Persian Gulf allies toward a "positive energy relationship as part of our antiterrorism strategy." When he promised to use "revenues from energy production" to rebuild schools and transportation infrastructure, was he making a rhetorical point or revealing unwholesome craving for oil-industry cash?
Much more usefully, Trump emphasized the wealth-generating potential of resource development, even citing estimates from a study by the Institute for Energy Research on economic benefits of federal oil, gas, and coal leasing. If he exaggerated in places-nothing new there-he nevertheless made the important point that resource development boosts the economy, employs people, and enriches governments. A corollary, that shunning development imposes painful sacrifice, receives scant notice in liberal circles seduced by notions of "unburnable carbon." The real estate tycoon performed a service by drawing attention to it.
Trump also challenged sacred icons of climate politics. He promised to rescind the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan (which he called the Climate Action Plan), cancel the Paris climate agreement, stop US payments for United Nations global-warming programs, and ask TransCanada to renew its application for the Keystone XL pipeline border crossing. All these proposals have merit. They'd all provoke angry protest from environmental extremists. And they wouldn't go far enough.
Responding to climate change has become a transcendent cause of political liberalism and a priority of energy policy-making. The movement asserts implausible certainty, foments fear, stigmatizes opposition, distorts facts, and manipulates legal systems. And it's succeeding. The Obama administration's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline border crossing and storm of regulations impeding fossil-energy work testify to its potency.
But repealing laws and revoking executive orders won't stop climate obstructionism. The movement's strategic assertions and statist prescriptions need scrutiny not forthcoming from the political left or media. Having seized extraordinary attention, Trump can deliver overdue challenges if he really understands the subject.
Responding to his newly articulated heresy, defenders of climate faith will demand to know why Trump denies that human activity causes most observed warming, rejects the disastrous predictions of settled science, fails to see that the costs of overhauling energy economies fall below those of inaction, and frets about compromises to market freedom and human liberty. These questions all have compelling answers seldom granted a hearing. Trump should provide them if he can. He should attack not only the climate movement's administrative triumphs but also its strained arguments and hidden agendas. Rescinding the Clean Power Plan would only energize well-organized, well-funded, and persistent advocacy groups. Discrediting them would be better.
Whether by calculation or instinct, Trump introduced a related line of argument in the third breakthrough of his Bismarck speech. "In a Trump administration," he said, "political activists with extreme agendas will no longer write the rules." He referred, of course, to the Environmental Protection Agency, which during the Obama administration has been extraordinarily cozy with pressure groups and dangerously eager to regulate. Trump's comment shines needed light on the subtle tyrannies that develop when activism, which democracy needs in measured doses, migrates from frontiers of change into centers of power.
Trump deserves credit for opening discussion of energy problems too long ignored. But can he move the conversation beyond truculent bluster? The answer will determine whether his "America first energy plan" lives up to its name.