How Clinton and Trump Stack Up

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article was published by the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association and is reprinted with permission.

Now that the Democratic and Republican conventions are complete, here is a capsule look at the candidates’ energy policies as expressed in their platform documents.

Donald Trump, Republican
Trump is highly critical of the Obama administration’s anti-petroleum policies, which use, among others, the regulatory powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to squash a variety of projects, including coal projects and the Keystone Pipeline. Trump ties in his energy plan to his overall campaign theme, calling it an America First Energy Plan, which favors energy independence, reduced regulations and further exploration. Here are excerpts from his plan on energy. It is designed to increase supply, reduce energy prices and create jobs in the sector.

• We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions, including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
• We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by Hillary Clinton’s extremist agenda.
• I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.
• We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas.
• We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.
• We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.
• Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interest will be scrapped. We will also eliminate duplication, provide regulatory certainty, and trust local officials and local residents.
• Any future regulation will go through a simple test: Is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, the rule will not be approved.

Hillary Clinton, Democrat
Clinton’s focus is on global warming and a clean energy policy that will solve this problem. On her website she says, “Climate change is an urgent threat and a defining challenge of our time. It threatens our economy, our national security, and our children’s health and futures. We can tackle it by making America the world’s clean energy superpower and creating millions of good-paying jobs, taking bold steps to slash carbon pollution at home and around the world, and ensuring no Americans are left out or left behind as we rapidly build a clean energy economy.” Her plan of action includes the following steps.

• Generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Clinton’s first term.
•  Cut energy waste in American homes, schools, hospitals and offices by a third and make American manufacturing the cleanest and most efficient in the world.
• Reduce American oil consumption by a third through cleaner fuels and more efficient cars, boilers, ships, and trucks.
• Defend, implement, and extend smart pollution and efficiency standards, including the Clean Power Plan and standards for cars, trucks, and appliances that are already helping clean our air, save families money, and fight climate change.
• Launch a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge to partner with states, cities, and rural communities to cut carbon pollution and expand clean energy, including for low-income families.
• Invest in clean energy infrastructure, innovation, manufacturing and workforce development to make the U.S. economy more competitive and create good-paying jobs and careers.
• Ensure safe and responsible energy production. As we transition to a clean energy economy, we must ensure that the fossil fuel production taking place today is safe and responsible and that areas too sensitive for energy production are taken off the table.
• Reform leasing and expand clean energy production on public lands and waters tenfold within a decade.
• Cut the billions of wasteful tax subsidies oil and gas companies have enjoyed for too long and invest in clean energy.
•  Cut methane emissions across the economy and put in place strong standards for reducing leaks from both new and existing sources.
• Revitalize coal communities by supporting locally driven priorities and make them an engine of U.S. economic growth in the 21st century, as they have been for generations.
• Make environmental justice and climate justice central priorities by setting bold national goals to eliminate lead poisoning within five years, clean up the more than 450,000 toxic brownfield sites across the country, expand solar and energy efficiency solutions in low-income communities, and create an Environmental and Climate Justice Task Force.
• Promote conservation and collaborative stewardship. Clinton will keep public lands public, strengthen protections for our natural and cultural resources, increase access to parks and public lands for all Americans, as well as harness the immense economic potential they offer through expanded renewable energy production, a high quality of life, and a thriving outdoor economy.

“Hillary’s plan will deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference—without relying on climate deniers in Congress to pass new legislation. She will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent in 2025 relative to 2005 levels and put the country on a path to cut emissions more than 80 percent by 2050,” the platform states.

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