Donald Trump’s election may raise prospects for United States oil & coal sector

Declare American energy dominance a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States. I will strongly oppose any attempts to dismantle the crucial environmental protections already in place, and I will continue to fight for meaningful climate action at the local, state, federal, and even global level. But there are some indications on his campaign website that indicate the likely direction of policy.

Under the plans, companies will compete for the first £290 million ($360 million) worth of contracts for renewable electricity projects in the next Contracts of Difference (CFD) auction, Kallanish Energy learns. He has mocked the idea of a carbon price, vowed to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate deal and pull down clean energy policies, and promised to “save” the coal industry and allow a free-for-all for oil and gas drillers.

In a letter to supporters Thursday, the head of the New York League of Conservation Voters said environmental leaders in New York have to “step up more than ever next year”.

“It is a repudiation of the administration of Barack Obama and his appointed bureaucrats, and the Silicon Valley pay-to-play billionaires who are on the dole from America’s taxpayers, and the liberal elitists on Wall Street and in Hollywood, radical environmentalists and some industries, such as the makers of costly windmills and solar panels”, said Robert E. Murray, who serves as chairman, president and CEO of Murray Energy Corp.

Trump is said to have lined up USA shale boom pioneer Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources, for the post of Secretary of Energy. After two terms, Trump’s policies, which include “saving” the coal industry, lifting regulations on gas extraction and opening up drilling in the Arctic, would leave emissions 16 per cent higher than Clinton’s, it found.

Trump is a highly erratic figure, so predicting his actions can be problematic.

Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), which describes itself as a “national association of businesses that are making the energy we use secure, clean and affordable”, says it plans to send to the transition team for President-Elect Trump a memo outlining ways to “usher in a new era of secure, clean affordable energy”.

Trump has repeatedly vowed to scrap the Obama administration’s proposed Clean Power Plan, which would lay out a program for utilities to reduce carbon emissions.

It’s a choice that will dramatically reshape USA policy on a host of issues from immigration to trade to foreign policy. That law prohibits Washington from giving any money to “any affiliated organization of the United Nations” which grants Palestinians membership as a state.

“The figure combined an estimate of what the Obama administration had spent on climate-related programs, the amount of US contributions to an global climate fund that Trump would cancel, and a calculation of what Trump believes would be savings to the economy if Obama’s and Clinton’s climate policies were reversed”.

“On a practical point”, Adow points out, “now that the Paris Agreement has come into force, no country can easily withdraw for at least three years”.

Activists have warned that the policies will accelerate climate change and endanger the environment. The world may be having a similar sensation as it tries to make sense of a Trump presidency and anticipate what happens next.

But as some commentators have pointed out, renewables such as wind power, can enjoy support across party lines.

Trump also had promised to rescind the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Rule, which had been seen by the oil industry as an attempt to regulate fracking. The Republican Party Platform 2016 states: “We propose to shift responsibility for environmental regulation to the states and to transform the EPA into an independent bipartisan commission, similar to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with structural safeguards against politicized science”.