Trump Isn’t Budging on Market-Friendly Energy Plans

Washington Examiner discusses Trump’s business-friendly internet policies with Myron Ebell.

President Trump hasn’t always stuck to his campaign script since taking office, but on energy and environmental issues, his positions have so far been non-negotiable.

…

Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said Trump’s dedication to his energy agenda likely stems from its deep connection to job creation and economic growth.

“I think it’s that he sees the environmental and energy deregulatory agenda as a key part of rebuilding the economy,” Ebell said.

Trump has often cited growth and “jobs, jobs, jobs” as the priorities driving his decisions in all policy areas. For example, when pressed in April over why Trump’s campaign-era “tough talk” had given way to a number of policy reversals, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president’s overarching goal “was to get results for the American people,” which included placing a premium on the efforts “to get more jobs here” and “to grow manufacturing.”

Ebell, who led the transition team for Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, said Trump’s campaign proposals on energy policy were all so closely interconnected that he could not have easily stuck to one while scrapping another. That could explain why Trump has not modified his campaign energy agenda despite selectively shifting on other issues, he noted.

“The way those promises were made starting in the May 26 speech last year in Bismarck, it’s a very coherent agenda, I think,” Ebell said of a policy address Trump delivered last year on environmental policy. “It’s hard to take out one piece, you really have to — on the production side you have to do it all and on the use side… you have to do it all.”

Ebell also pointed to the unified support Trump has gotten from conservatives when it comes to energy policy compared to the intraparty divisions on Obamacare, tax reform and trade.

“I’d say the larger [conservative] movement…we’ve been pretty good at supporting that agenda,” Ebell said. “We provided a lot of support for him to keep his promise on Paris, for example, even though he was under a lot of pressure to give in.”

“I’m not sure on a lot of these other issues, how well the conservative movement has articulated its support for other parts of his agenda,” Ebell added.

Read the full article at Washington Examiner.