Trump leads the US toward energy abundance with a slew of executive orders

On Monday, Donald Trump jolted America out of decades of bad energy policy with the stroke of his pen.“Climate extremism has exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulation,” he declared in one of his myriad executive orders.“To commence the policies that will make our Nation united, fair, safe, and prosperous again .

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the United States [will] restore common sense to the Federal Government and unleash the potential of the American citizen.” The age of climate extremism is over; the age of energy realism is upon us. To that end, Trump has officially declared an “energy emergency.” Democrats may point to America’s record energy output and scratch their heads.But as I write, the New England grid is burning oil — some 30% of its power generation at present — to keep the lights on during this lethal spell of single-digit cold.We waste oil on electricity production.

It’s inefficient, filthy and expensive.Unless it’s necessary.

And it is necessary because the American power grid is weak; over half of the country faces dangerous energy shortfalls over the next decade.According to the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the United States looks to lose 60 Hoover Dams’ worth of power generation in the coming years thanks to power-plant closures, just when power demand is starting to rise.That’s the crisis. If it weren’t functionally illegal to build natural-gas pipelines or nuclear power plants in this country, New England might experience some relief.

That’s the kind of problem Trump’s executive orders are meant to solve.Permitting tangles infrastructure projects in red tape with dubious impacts on climate or the environment.The fires in California are a perfect example: The Golden State’s allergy to forest management stems from the dense thicket of regulations that ensnarl common-sense policies.Wiser approaches to mitigating wildfires die of exposure in the regulatory wilderness.This dark fact has even regist...