Advanced BioFuels USA

by Dino Grandoni (The Washington Post)  In the Trump administration, “energy dominance” has replaced “energy independence” as the go-to phrase for describing the federal government’s broad energy goals — in President Trump’s case, to promote as much oil, gas and coal development as possible.

…

But more recently, the slogan has lost its cache among voters. Gas prices were relatively low throughout the presidential campaign, and the United States is now far less dependent on oil from abroad over the past decade as a result of the shale-gas fracking boom.

…

This week, for example, when announcing the new head of a offshore drilling safety office, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the pick helps “set our path toward energy dominance.” In April, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told onlookers at the opening of a carbon-capture project in Texas that Trump “has made it very clear to me that he doesn’t just want America to be energy-independent; he wants America to be energy-dominant.”

Where does “energy dominance” come from? The Cabinet officials are taking cues from the president himself. Trump dropped the phrase in his first major speech on energy policy delivered last May in North Dakota, in the heart of U.S. oil and gas country, and made it an underlined cornerstone of his energy policy as a presidential candidate. “American energy dominance will be declared a strategic, economic, and foreign policy goal of the United States,” he said. “It’s about time!”

…

What does the phrase mean? During the campaign, Trump said he wanted the U.S. to become a net energy exporter — a goal that, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the country is on track to reach by 2026. By leaving few fossil-fuels resources in the United States unexploited, the thinking goes, the country can fund infrastructure and bolster national security.

“There is a difference in energy independence, and there is a difference in energy dominance,” Zinke told attendees of an offshore technology conference in May. “We’re in a position to be dominant. And if we, as a country, want to have national security, and an economy that we all desperately need, then dominance is what America needs.” (Proponents of “energy independence” also made the national security argument.)

One thing left unsaid is that becoming an oil and gas exporter may conflict with one of Trump’s other goals — improved relations with Russia, which fuels much of Europe.

What does it miss? So far, Trump’s critics, including the many who attended the science and climate marches in April, have framed the series of executive orders unwinding President Obama’s climate policy as ignorant of a need to take steps toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for the effects of climate change.  READ MORE