Don’t Leave America’s Post-Pandemic Energy Policy to Chance

Don’t Leave America’s Post-Pandemic Energy Policy to Chance

For the most recent example of U.S. energy innovation, the shale boom, the conventional image of entrepreneurs spurred on by $100 oil is real enough, but incomplete.. For a useful recent example of what addled energy policy looks like, consider "energy dominance" - a buzzword that Trump elevated into "a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States" in the spring of 2016.. The energy sector will play a vital part in meeting the economic imperative of getting locked-down Americans back to work.. Either we will invest to electrify more of our energy needs, particularly transportation, or we will pay the costs of climate change in lives, money and security.. We already have abundant supplies of oil and gas, along with their carbon emissions, and the industry also happens to have just notched up a decade of awful returns.. The best thing that could happen to the industry would be for it to rationalize and consolidate into a handful of companies better able to manage the risks of energy transition.. When it comes to oil, gas and coal the immediate objective for energy policy should be alleviating the hardship on laid-off workers.. Talk of anything like an industrial