Trump and Harris have not put forward clean energy plans yet. It’s beyond their control anyway

Although Vice President Kamala Harris is championing clean energy and Donald Trump is making misleading statements and false claims about it, neither candidate has developed a comprehensive energy plan. Even if they do, a closed Congress will not be able to pass it.

Instead, the next president’s biggest impact on clean energy will come from his administration of the rules and regulations put in place starting in 2021 under the Biden-Harris administration. As an environmental engineer who studies energy and climate change, I expect that Harris, who has strongly supported these policies, will pursue them, while Trump’s record as president suggests that he will try to reverse them. Trade policies toward China, a leading producer of clean energy technology, will also be key.

Law and regulations

The three bills passed by Congress under Biden and Harris – the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Anti-Inflation Act and the CHIPS and Science Act – changed US energy policy. These three bills allocate hundreds of billions of dollars to build infrastructure, provide incentives for the production and purchase of clean energy, and finance clean energy research.

None of these measures can be completely reversed, as each one funds many projects in red states. But the implementation of the next administration will determine how they promote the growth of clean energy.

For example, the Treasury and Energy departments will decide which projects can receive subsidies and loans. Other agencies, such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, known as ARPA-E, will allocate money for clean energy research.

The Environmental Protection Agency will also play an important role. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the EPA issued the toughest regulations ever to control emissions from the fossil fuel and automobile industries. Those rules could accelerate the transition to clean electricity and electric vehicles.

However, the Trump-led EPA could reverse course, just as it repealed Obama-era rules designed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants in 2019 and weakened auto emissions rules in 2020. reduce pollution.

The role of market power

Whatever policies the next president puts in place, domestic energy trends will depend heavily on market forces. Both Trump and Biden are eyeing increased domestic oil and gas production. At the same time, as the cost of wind turbines, solar panels and utility-scale batteries have come down, these technologies have dominated the new generation of electricity.

Currently, the US has a backlog of approximately 2,600 gigawatts of projects waiting to be added to the nation’s electric grid. That’s about eight times the amount of wind and solar power generation on the US grid today.

However, Congress has been deadlocked over competing proposals to loosen the permit rules. State and local governments and regional grid operators also play an important role and are not easily swayed by federal action.

However, the next president can influence policy through his selection of commissioners on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the transfer of oil, gas and electricity between states. Presidents can also pressure Congress to pass reform laws.

Trade policy

As U.S. clean energy production and exports have grown rapidly under the Biden-Harris administration, that increase has been offset by China’s emissions. Chinese companies make three-quarters of the world’s solar cells and modules, most of the world’s wind turbines and a third of the advanced batteries needed to store electricity and electric vehicles. China also sells more electric cars than the rest of the world combined.

Like it or not, America’s ability to quickly supply clean energy and electric vehicles will require importing at least some supplies from China. After falling behind for decades, there is simply no way to increase US production fast enough to meet national climate goals. Even if solar panels, batteries or electric cars are assembled here, they will depend on precious minerals that are highly refined in China.

As president, Trump fought a trade war with China. He swore and asserted that he will increase the existing prices on other products from China if he is elected for a second term.

Biden and Harris also tried to tilt the field in favor of American companies. The administration is offering loans and subsidies to domestic manufacturing, and has imposed a 100% tariff on electric cars and a 50% tariff on solar cells from China.

Such policies may temporarily shelter domestic manufacturers, but they are unlikely to make them competitive in global markets focused on electric vehicles and solar power.

The US’s position under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, a legally binding agreement that sets goals to curb climate change, will also be key. Countries around the world have pledged to switch to clean energy to reduce pollution. The European Union is establishing a carbon border price that will penalize imports from the most productive producers.

If Trump were to pull the US out of the Paris agreement again, as he did in 2017, and roll back emissions regulations, American manufacturers could face new barriers to shipping their products overseas. On the other hand, Harris supported the Paris agreement and criticized Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from it.

There is no turning back the change

Markets around the world are rapidly shifting to renewable energy and electric vehicles, which are cheaper, cleaner and more attractive than fossil fuels. Popular clean energy subsidies can be difficult to reverse. China’s dominance of clean energy technology will not waver anytime soon, regardless of what trade policies are adopted by the next administration.

Based on their track record, Harris can be expected to build on the laws and regulations passed under the current administration, while Trump is likely to roll back some but not all of his progress. Neither candidate is proposing policies as transformative as those established in the past few years. Whoever is elected will govern within a clean energy environment that has been reshaped by those policies, and by market forces beyond the control of every president.

Daniel Cohan is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the first article.