August 25, 2025 • 28 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we look at the many changes that the Trump administration has imposed on the Environmental Protection Agency - including some critical infrastructure that allows the agency to combat pollution. Jeremy is joined by Robinson Meyer, founding executive editor of Heatmap. #EPA #pollution #wind #solar #nuclear #energy #CleanAirAct #CleanWaterAct #Trump #environment
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on the
Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. The EPA, the Environmental
Protection Agency, has been around since nineteen seventy. It was
started by an executive order from President Richard Nixon. It
is the government agency responsible for setting national standards and
enforcing environmental laws. But this year, President Trump has been
(00:35):
using his executive authority to reduce the power of the
EPA in the name of boosting energy production and the economy.
He's clawed back billions of dollars in solar power grants,
thrown the American electric vehicle industry into uncertainty, scaled back
on civil suits against major polluters, and is trying to
curb the authority of the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse
(00:57):
gas emissions. That is the top of our one Thing
Trump did this week. And here is former Governor Jay
Insley of Washington, that is a notably progressive state on
climate legislation. He recently spoke with MSNBC's Ali Velshie and
shared his thoughts on what the Trump administration is doing
with the EPA.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You know, we can produce enormous energy and solar and
win in advance batteries. But he's trying to kill those industries. Now,
why is he trying to do that? It's pretty clear
he wants to take care of his friends, his political
friends in the fossil fuel industry, who gave him hundreds
of millions of dollars and he's promised to deliver. So
he's delivered for his buddies to produce more pollution. You
(01:34):
can't overstate the consequences of this move. He really has
turned the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Pollution Agency,
and he's done it to help his cronies in these industries.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Joining me now to unpack all of this is Robinson Meyer,
founding executive editor of heat Map. Rob thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Of course, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So I don't even know where to start here because
there is so much activity as you look at what
has been happening with regards to the EPA since Trump
took office. But let's start with one of the most
recent events, which was a proposal from the EPA under
Republican Lee Zelden to repeal what's called the Endangerment Finding.
Tell us what that is and why they're trying to
(02:17):
repeal it.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, totally. So the engagement finding is a scientific finding
that the EPA reaches that says, basically, I mean, in
some ways exactly what it says on the tin that
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a dangerous air
pollutant and therefore qualify for regulation under the Clean Air Act,
which is the big, long standing law that the US
(02:39):
uses to regulate all kind of dangerous air pllutants. There's
a particular history with the engagement finding. Basically, back during
the second Bush administration, back under George W. Bush, the
EPA really didn't want to regulate CO two, and Massachusetts
and a number of other states sued the EPA and said, no,
you have to regulate CO two or let us regulate
CO two, but you need to make some kind of decision.
(03:00):
The Supreme Court came back. It was a long court case.
The supme Court basically said, look, if the EPA believes
that CO two is a dangerous air pollutant, then it
can regulate it. And then the Weebish administration kind of
kicked the can down the road for its remaining one year,
and then the Obama administration came in. They did scientific
research they looked at, i would say, the very large
(03:20):
body of scientific literature out there that finds CO two
to be a you know, the major determined of climate change,
and said, look, we believe this is a dangerous air pollutant.
It's exactly what is endangerment finding. Right, they reached the
indangerment finding, and that allowed this EPA to regulate CO
two under the Clean Air Act.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And that was only in two thousand and nine, right,
this is relatively three.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Thousand and nine, that's right. And so since then, what
has happened, just to catch people up, is that the
actual court case, this mass v. EPA, Massachusetts v. EPA
court case in two thousand and seven was about tailpipe pollution.
It was about cars and trucks, you know, that are
internal combust with internal combustion engines that burn gasoline in
a diesel and release CO two out the back of
their tailpipes. And the EPA under Obama first moved to
(04:07):
regulate tailpipe pollution and in a very big deal. Basically
the car companies said, well, there's a number of other
ways the government can regulate tailpipe pollution. Another way is
this kind of because it regulates a gas mileage regulates
miles per gallon, and they said, okay, we are going
to accept the EPA's ability to regulate CO two from
(04:28):
tailpipes as long as you know, the CO two rules
from tailpipes and the CO two rules and the gas
mileage rules are kind of roughly the same. And so
in twenty ten, EPA regulated car and truck CO two pollution.
Since then, the EPA has been intermittently trying and not
trying under President Obama, President Trump, President Biden, and now
President Trump again to regulate power plant pollution, because the
(04:52):
second largest source of greenhouse gases in the US economy
is the power sector. This is coal plant, this is
natural gas planks, this is some oil burning plants. And
basically it's never quite figured out a way that it
can sustain long enough politically across administrations and that the
Supreme Court will let it use to regulate CO two
(05:14):
pollutions from power plants. That is largely because the White
House has just ping ponged between parties for the past, right,
you know, twelve years, and so Democrats figure out some
kind of regulation. Trump comes in, he gets rid of it.
Trump proposes something. Democrats think it's way too weak. They
win the next election, they get rid of that, they
propose something new. And now Trump has come in and
(05:35):
knocked out what Biden proposed.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So if you get rid of the endangerment Finding, then
that stops this cycle.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, the idea here among the Trump administration is that
the set of Republicans who control environmental and energy policy
making under the Trump administration, not all Republicans, but the
particular cohort of Republicans who run these things in the
Trump administration basically believes that climate change is they're not real,
or is real but not a big policy problem. And
(06:03):
they're tired of the government telling them and telling companies
what it can and cannot do to deal with this
policy problem. And so their solution is, well, let's just
say that CO two isn't actually a dangerous greenhouse gas.
It actually isn't a dangerous air pollutant at all, and
therefore the government has no ability or no responsibility to
regulate it.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So, as I said when I asked this in the
first place, they're trying to do this. They can't just
do it. What are the steps necessary to actually repeal
the Endangerment Finding? Why can't they just you know, with
the stroke of a pen say we're done with this.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Well, it is easier to get rid of I mean,
this is minutia that I probably shouldn't even be going into.
But just so people understand, it's a lot harder to
get rid of an environmental rule or regulation than it
is actually to get rid of a finding. And so
to some degree, the Trump inonstration has a little bit
more leeway to just be like, whoop, no more of
this finding, but they're still going to face a fight
around it. The Trump demonstration is kind of making two
(06:59):
arguments about why it can get rid of this finding.
The first and the most important one is that it
argues that CO two is different from other air pollutants
that unlike say airborne lead or sulfur dioxide or particulate matter,
which are tiny, tiny microscopic pieces of ash and soot
in the air that come from coal plants, for instance,
(07:20):
CO two has a global effect and not many local effects.
And so they say, yes, you know, if you want
to deal with acid rain or you want to deal
with tiny microscopic particulate matter in the air, you need
to regulate local sources of air pollution. But if you
want to deal with CO two and climate change. You
need to regulate all sources of CO two around the world,
(07:42):
and therefore you can't do that as the EPA. We
can't do that. As the EPA. The US contributes about
thirteen percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and so
therefore we shouldn't even try. I mean, that's basically the argument.
And therefore also they say we shouldn't be treating CO
two as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. I
(08:04):
think this argument, you know, is something I think this
Air import has already thought a lot about in that
two thousand and seven Supreme Court case, where it's basically said,
you know, air pollutants are air pollutants, and then we
use the Clean Air Act to deal with air pollutants.
I will say that I think it also kind of,
you know, climate change is a different kind of environmental
problem because it is this global problem, and because it
(08:26):
flows from tens or hundreds of thousands of machines spread
all across the planet, and not just you know, is
a local coal plant, local environmental problem. And so in
some degree, the kind of first Trump argument here is like, look,
climate change is a really really hard problem, and therefore
we don't think we should regulate it. The second set
(08:47):
of arguments they're making relies on this Department of Energy
report that recently came out is written by twelve folks
who work in around the climate science says, and they
argue basically that climate change is not a major environmental
problem and therefore shouldn't be dealt with. Then I should
add that that report is written by kind of this
I don't know, infamous small group of climate scientists who
(09:09):
say the opposite of what most others, whatever the vast
majority exactly does.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So if they do get rid of the Endangerment Finding,
then what are the consequences of that? And I should
say you write in heat map that California. States like
California can actually write their own standards if they get
rid of this, because they can say, well now we
have to do it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, exactly. So if they get rid of the Endangerment Finding,
first of all, it will throw US climate law into
total chaos. And so it's hard to make exact predictions,
but what it would mean is, first of all, the
EPA could not regulate carbon dioxide period and would not
regulate it. Republicans are simultaneously trying to get rid of
the gas mileage rules and so basically fuel mileage, fuel
(09:53):
efficiency in cars and trucks, all those rules would likely
be out the window, and any kind of attempt to
regulate power plant pollution as well would be out the
window as well. There may be a second order kind
of consequence of this that states could go in and
regulate CO two because generally the law says that if
the federal government can regulate air pollution, then states are
(10:16):
not going to regulate it. On the premise that there
should just be one set of national rules, it would
be very confusing if the federal government has some rules
and each state had its own rules. But if the
federal government says we're out of the game of regulating
CO two, then states could step in potentially and say, okay,
well we're going to pass our own strict standards here.
The other thing that could happen is that because the
(10:37):
federal government regulates climate pollution, you haven't been able to
sue oil company. States or towns or municipalities haven't been
able to sue oil companies for using fossil fuels to
create a nuisance basically via the air pollution and via
the warming in the air. So you know, under kind
of ancient common law, it seems like you should as
(10:59):
a town, if climate change causes the seas to rise
and you lose area in your town two rising seas,
you could be able to sue just under ancient common law,
like the companies that contributed to climate change, because they
caused this nuisance for you of you losing you know,
acreage of your town to sea level rise. You're not
(11:22):
allowed to do that if the EPA is regulating CO two.
But if the EPA says we're out of the game,
then maybe you could. But you know, it's going to
rely on what the Supreme Court says as well.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Right, and it's of course a different Supreme Court now
than it was, you know, twelve, fifteen, twenty years ago.
Who are they doing this for, because it seems like
the automakers are not really begging for weaker standards, They
want certainty.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
No, And in fact, the automakers are very worried. I mean,
what's happening in the international auto industry is that car
makers around the world are switching to evs. And what's
particularly happening is that this new set of Chinese automakers
are making some of the best and cheapest cars in
the world and their evs. I mean, Jim Farley, the
CEO Ford, says he's very, very worried about byd which
(12:09):
is kind of the big giant of Chinese automaking, and
he says they're making things vastly superior. That's a quote,
vastly superior to anything coming out of the West. So
American automakers want a regulatory impetus to help make evs.
At the same time, their most profitable cars and trucks
are big gas burning SUVs. I mean, that's still what
(12:31):
Americans are buying the most of, and so I don't
think they're upset about these changes. I think who particularly
benefits from these changes, frankly is the oil and gas industry,
oil and natural gas. Because the oil industry is looking
at the global market, they're seeing, you know, Chinese oil
demand is plateauing, if not in decline, because of the
rise of the EV industry there. It doesn't seem like
(12:54):
old demands are going to really spike. In India, They're
starting to run out of places to find new growth
in oil markets, and that's causing them to really want
to protect the big oil markets they have like the
United States, and so they don't want to see the
US move to evs or even hybrids because that would
kind of further cannibalize their captive market. And natural gas
(13:15):
is going to benefit if we don't build solar and
wind right all the power grid, because natural gas generates
forty percent of US lectricity.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And we remember that in the campaign, Trump went and
like famously promised to the oil and gas people, if
you give me a billion dollars to for my campaign,
I'll help you out. So maybe that's I mean, we know.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
He had a meeting. He said it, right, He had
a meeting. We have a record evidence of the meeting
where he said if you if you pay for my campaign,
I will give you radiatory relief. And now it's happening.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Okay, So let me just ask you about one more
thing here before we take a quick break, and that
is coal, which obviously would be involved here in terms
of the standards on emissions from power plants. President Trump
issued an executive order in April to revitalize the coal industry.
Coal is considered the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. What
is actually changed beyond the press release. When it comes
(14:02):
to power generation from coal under Trump.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, totally. So it does seem like the Trump' admistration
is moving to keep coal plants that were slated for
retirement open and that will ultimately raise consumers' power bills
in the areas where those coal plants are operating. That
is the biggest change. I think the next biggest change
is that the Trump administration is going to make it
easier and cheaper for coal existing coal plants to run
(14:27):
by rolling back rules on coal mining. I will say
the coal industry is kind of getting a bailout, is
too strong, but they're getting help from the market anyway,
because rising demand from new AI data centers and just
across the economy in general, rising electricity demand is causing
a lot of coal plants that were once slated for
retirement to have to stay open because we just need
(14:50):
more power. The grid kind of needs as much power
as it can.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Get interesting, we'll stay with us because in a moment
we're going to talk about what all this means for you,
the consumer and for the environment. One thing I did
with heat Map founding executive editor Robinson Meyer will be
right back. Welcome back to one thing Trump did exclusively
(15:31):
on the Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode,
we're talking about the Trump administration's moves to declaw the
Environmental Protection Agency. I'm joined by Robinson Meyer, founding executive
editor at heat Map. Rob President Biden signed the biggest
climate legislation in the history of the world, with billions
of dollars in investments and tax credits for clean energy.
(15:52):
How much of that is still intact.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
So the Republican Organcilation Bill basically got rid of a
lot of the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, not
all of them. So you can kind of think of
the policies in the IRA that Big Biden built in
like two categories. There were EV's policies and there were
power sector policies, and that corresponds to like the two
biggest sectors of the US economy for greenhouse gas missions,
which are transportation of power. So in transportation, which is
(16:16):
number one, Basically, the IRA subsidized EV production and it
also helped consumers buy evs, and the subsidies for EV
production basically got US manufacturing cost competitive with Chinese or
European manufacturing. And then the sub subsidies for buyers, for
people who were buying or leasing a new or used
(16:38):
electric vehicle, kind of brought evs to be more cost
competitive with existing gas cars. Republicans went in and they
got rid of all the demand side subsidies, all the
things that helped people buy and afford evs, but they
didn't get rid of these production side subsidies. I think
folks are now worried that basically we're going to have
a very cost competitive manufacturing system for buying evs and
(16:58):
nobody's going to want to buy the cars. In the
power sector side, Republicans got rid of all solar and
win tax credits. So starting in the next few years,
these long standing tax credits support solar and wind production
are going to go away. What I think they did
get rid of, and what I think is the most
interesting here, is that the IRA took a really interesting approach,
(17:19):
which is that for the past thirty years, the US
government has tried to use tax credits to like help
various technologies, and it's called those technologies out by name
in the tax cod it's like solar, win, geothermal, nuclear title.
But if the government wanted to support a new technology
like Congress had to act and had to put that
(17:41):
technology into the tax code. The IRA came in and
they said, we're going to support any kind of zero
carbon electricity technology. So if you produce any kind of
zero tech you know, carbon technology, and you're selling you know,
you're selling it onto the grid, we're going to give
you a tax credit for it. And that evens the
playing field so that all technologies can compete. And it
was a really really big deal for nuclear fission, conventional
(18:04):
nuclear power, nuclear fusion kind of like next generation experimental power,
and geothermal. What I think is laudable. Let me say
what I think the Republicans did that was good. Here
is they didn't get rid of all those other technology
neutral subsidies. They really only carved out wind and solar
from the tax bills, so wind and solar will no
(18:24):
longer get subsidies these tax credits. I think what's maybe
bad there is that solar is the fastest growing part
of the grid. It's the fuel that we can add
the easiest to the grid, and it's also the cheapest
in many places, and so at this moment of rising
electricity bills, they've really kind of hobbled the easiest. They've
hobbled the economics of the easiest type of power generation
(18:47):
to add to the grid, but we're still going to
build a lot of solar.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
You know, it's interesting. We did a show several months
ago on the Middle where we take live calls from
around the country about what people want the future of
American energy to look like, and it was it's very
interesting to hear people say, you know, I'm in favor
of renewables like solar and wind, but I get it,
they're not going to provide everything. We wanted all of
the above approach. I think if you were to like,
(19:11):
actually look at all the calls we got, people said
I wanted all the above approach, it doesn't seem like
that's what the Trump administration is doing though, as you say,
if they take out sole and winning, they really are
going after solar and wind. It's not at all of
the above a broach.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
And what's interesting is that I think this is what
we hear from Americans over and over again. They want
this all of the above. They want cheap energy, and
they are willing to use They don't care where it
comes from. They just want cheap energy, and they do
want to invest in solar and win. But you know,
as it makes sense. What is so interesting to me
about this political moment and what the Trump administration is
(19:46):
doing is that I think they had a real opportunity
after the Biden administration to say, look, Biden did all
these things. You know that he supported all these industries
in different ways. We're going to get you everything, We're
going to get you cheap energy and just let you
live your lives. And that is not what they're doing.
That's clearly, you know, interestingly what Senate, what moderate Senate
Republicans want, because they tried to strike this deal with
(20:09):
the Trump administration in the Reconciliation Bill to sustain some
of the solar and Win tax credits. But it is
not what the Republicans in the Trump administration are doing.
And since that Reconciliation Bill passed, we've seen, as you
were saying, this like real almost regulatory coup against building
any solar and wind kind of anywhere in the country
(20:29):
to the degree that you know, the new Department of
Transportation rules could restrict private developers from building private wind
turbines on private land.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
By the way, if somebody out there is listening and
they want to get solar or an electric car, they
still have a little time to do it before all
these credits go away. Right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
So the EV subsidies, I would say, act very quickly
on the evs because the EV subsidies go away on
September thirtieth, twenty twenty five, so really fast. But that
being said, let me tell you in my Instagram fee
like when I search the web, I'm getting incredible EV
buying and leasing deals because dealers are trying to move
as many evs as they can before those deals go away.
(21:08):
It's like one hundred and fifty nine dollars to Lisa
new Honda EV solar. You have a slightly more time,
you have maybe a year or two. But I would
say act as soon as you can because all those
all that equipment for everyone is facing the same deadlines,
and everyone's trying to get their hands on the same
equipment to build out their particular project before that deadline.
(21:30):
And so the equipment is going to go really fast
to actually meet those tax credit deadlines.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So how are environmentalists that you talk to responding to
all this? They must just be pulling their hair out.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
They are. This is I think is the New York
Times put a generational loss for environmentalists. The idea that
we would use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions has been a tenet of American environmental policy
at least since the mid two thousands, and I think
more broadly than that, what the Trump administration is doing
is not only kind of restricting these more environmentally friendly
(22:07):
forms of electricity generation, but they're also gutting agencies where
a lot of our expertise, and getting universities and pulling
back university funding where a lot of our environmental expertise rests.
And so it's not only like for environmentalists that they're watching, Okay,
well we're gonna build less solar in the next three
years or next four years, and then we're going to
see what happens. It's watching an entire edifice of of
(22:31):
of I think environmental regulation as they had to kind
of envision that it would happen, but also environmental science,
environmental study, environmental conservation get torn away by Trump administration policies.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Let me ask you this one last thing, Rob, because
there was so much, this is called one thing Trump did,
and we're like, okay, EPA one thing Trump did.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
The one thing Trump did, it's actually this enormous Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Right, What did we miss here? What is the story
that you're following in this world of EPA and environment
under Trump that we've missed because there are just so
many different aspects of what they're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
What we've missed is that the administrative state, the Trump
Administration's war on new electricity capacity is hitting at the
exact wrong moment. So we can look forward and we
know that going forward there's going to be a lot
more electricity demand due to ai WE and data centers.
We know there's going to be a lot more electricity
demand due to new factories, due to new evs. Because
(23:25):
people are going to keep buying evs regardless of kind
of what the subsidies are, even if they buy them
slower than we think, they're just gonna be more evs
on the grid. So electricity demand is rising, power bills
are going up. Everyone can see this crisis coming, and
the Trump administration has reacted by slowing down construction of
(23:45):
a lot of new types of electricity supply, slowing down
wind constructions, slowing down solar construction, throwing as many regulatory
obstacles in front of these forms of generation as they can.
And let me cite one example that I think was
really really grating to me because I think it really
represents how the Trump administration is not doing what people
(24:06):
thought they were going to do when they came in,
which is there's this big power line that was going
to get built across the Midwest that was going to
take cheap wind and solar electricity from the middle of
the Midwest and bring it to really congested, expensive power
markets in Illinois and Wisconsin and Indiana. And the federal
government had won it under the bid administration had basically
backed a loan guarantee to build that power line. It
(24:28):
hadn't subsidized it, but had said, look, we're just going
to kind of make it easy for you to get
the financing because we think this kind of electricity megaproject
is really important. You know, by the way, China's doing
dozens of these across the country, and so they said,
we want to support our own version of it. That
project is all lined up, it started to get built.
It was going to bring cheap electricity, cheap new electricity
(24:49):
supply to some of the most congested power markets in
the country. But some soybean farmers really didn't like it.
They thought it abused them in a domain, and they
got Josh their senator, to oppose it. He went to
the President Trump. Trump said, oh, we got to kill
this loan then, and Trump called Energy Secretary Chris Right,
(25:10):
and Chris Right pulled the support for that loan. And
it doesn't necessarily it hasn't necessarily doomed this transition transmission
line yet. But I think it's the case where people
thought President Trump was coming in to help reindustrialize the country.
They thought he was going to you know, it was
time to build. We were going to build all this
big infrastructure. We were going to bring on all the
electrons we could. And here the Trump's administration has acted
(25:33):
in a very punitive way against this project because it
like annoyed some farmers, which is significant, but like as
compared to the benefits that would have been felt across
the economy from this cheap electricity coming into some of
the most expensive areas in the country. I mean to me,
it represents how the Trump administration has not taken a
(25:56):
pro reindustrialization approach, has not taken a kind of pro
all of the above approach and is acting quite i think,
malevolently against certain kinds of energy generation technologies that we
are all going to feel when rates go up.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Well, and when you talk about new power lines, one
of the things I think people don't realize is the
amount of electricity that is lost just in the transmission
from the point yes production to when it gets to us.
So the newer the line, probably the better it is
at conducting that electricity and keeping it all intact or
as much of it intact as possible, so we don't
lose so much of it exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
And we've gotten you know, there's been huge engineering advances
in the past few years to move large amounts of
electricity over long distances. This is something China's figured out,
it's something Brazil's figured out. It's something the US has
not done as much because we just don't build that
many power lines. It's very, very hard to build a
new electricity transmission line in the US, as compared to
(26:52):
say how hard it is to build a new gas
a pipeline or a new oil pipeline. We should you know,
if you think about the history of US economic policy
of what we do in this country, it's that we
build big integrated markets, right, We like allow everyone in
the country across this huge geographic area to trade with
everyone else, and that brings costs down for everyone, and
(27:13):
it allows us to tap it allows businesses to tap
this huge, integrated, big consumer market. We don't have that.
In electricity. We have like three different grids that are themselves.
We have an East Coast grid, we have a West
Coast grid, and we have Texas. And even within the
East and West Coast grid, they're like very patchwork systems.
They only connect, you know, individual regions of those grids
(27:35):
only connect to each other in some places. And so
we should be trying to stitch together a giant national
electricity market where we can trade freely and access the
lowest cost electricity anywhere in the country so that everyone
can get cheaper energy. And that is exactly the opposite
of what the Trump administration has done by killing this
you know, government loan guarantee to this big project.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
That's Robinson Meyer, who is the founding executive editor at
heat Map, a climate news publication. Rob thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Thank you so much for having me. This was fun, and.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Thanks to you for listening to one thing Trump did.
It was produced by Harrison Patino. Our next middle episode
is coming to your podcast feed later this week. We're
going to be asking what you think about the administration's
tactics when it comes to immigration, which are quite different
than what we have seen in the past. If you
liked this podcast, please write it where you ever get
your podcast. Write a review. Our theme music was composed
(28:27):
by Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson and I will talk
to you soon.
Welcome to One Thing Trump Did, available exclusively on the
Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. The EPA, the Environmental
Protection Agency, has been around since nineteen seventy. It was
started by an executive order from President Richard Nixon. It
is the government agency responsible for setting national standards and
enforcing environmental laws. But this year, President Trump has been
(00:35):
using his executive authority to reduce the power of the
EPA in the name of boosting energy production and the economy.
He's clawed back billions of dollars in solar power grants,
thrown the American electric vehicle industry into uncertainty, scaled back
on civil suits against major polluters, and is trying to
curb the authority of the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse
(00:57):
gas emissions. That is the top of our one Thing
Trump did this week. And here is former Governor Jay
Insley of Washington, that is a notably progressive state on
climate legislation. He recently spoke with MSNBC's Ali Velshie and
shared his thoughts on what the Trump administration is doing
with the EPA.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You know, we can produce enormous energy and solar and
win in advance batteries. But he's trying to kill those industries. Now,
why is he trying to do that? It's pretty clear
he wants to take care of his friends, his political
friends in the fossil fuel industry, who gave him hundreds
of millions of dollars and he's promised to deliver. So
he's delivered for his buddies to produce more pollution. You
(01:34):
can't overstate the consequences of this move. He really has
turned the Environmental Protection Agency into the Environmental Pollution Agency,
and he's done it to help his cronies in these industries.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Joining me now to unpack all of this is Robinson Meyer,
founding executive editor of heat Map. Rob thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Of course, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
So I don't even know where to start here because
there is so much activity as you look at what
has been happening with regards to the EPA since Trump
took office. But let's start with one of the most
recent events, which was a proposal from the EPA under
Republican Lee Zelden to repeal what's called the Endangerment Finding.
Tell us what that is and why they're trying to
(02:17):
repeal it.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Yeah, totally. So the engagement finding is a scientific finding
that the EPA reaches that says, basically, I mean, in
some ways exactly what it says on the tin that
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a dangerous air
pollutant and therefore qualify for regulation under the Clean Air Act,
which is the big, long standing law that the US
(02:39):
uses to regulate all kind of dangerous air pllutants. There's
a particular history with the engagement finding. Basically, back during
the second Bush administration, back under George W. Bush, the
EPA really didn't want to regulate CO two, and Massachusetts
and a number of other states sued the EPA and said, no,
you have to regulate CO two or let us regulate
CO two, but you need to make some kind of decision.
(03:00):
The Supreme Court came back. It was a long court case.
The supme Court basically said, look, if the EPA believes
that CO two is a dangerous air pollutant, then it
can regulate it. And then the Weebish administration kind of
kicked the can down the road for its remaining one year,
and then the Obama administration came in. They did scientific
research they looked at, i would say, the very large
(03:20):
body of scientific literature out there that finds CO two
to be a you know, the major determined of climate change,
and said, look, we believe this is a dangerous air pollutant.
It's exactly what is endangerment finding. Right, they reached the
indangerment finding, and that allowed this EPA to regulate CO
two under the Clean Air Act.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And that was only in two thousand and nine, right,
this is relatively three.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Thousand and nine, that's right. And so since then, what
has happened, just to catch people up, is that the
actual court case, this mass v. EPA, Massachusetts v. EPA
court case in two thousand and seven was about tailpipe pollution.
It was about cars and trucks, you know, that are
internal combust with internal combustion engines that burn gasoline in
a diesel and release CO two out the back of
their tailpipes. And the EPA under Obama first moved to
(04:07):
regulate tailpipe pollution and in a very big deal. Basically
the car companies said, well, there's a number of other
ways the government can regulate tailpipe pollution. Another way is
this kind of because it regulates a gas mileage regulates
miles per gallon, and they said, okay, we are going
to accept the EPA's ability to regulate CO two from
(04:28):
tailpipes as long as you know, the CO two rules
from tailpipes and the CO two rules and the gas
mileage rules are kind of roughly the same. And so
in twenty ten, EPA regulated car and truck CO two pollution.
Since then, the EPA has been intermittently trying and not
trying under President Obama, President Trump, President Biden, and now
President Trump again to regulate power plant pollution, because the
(04:52):
second largest source of greenhouse gases in the US economy
is the power sector. This is coal plant, this is
natural gas planks, this is some oil burning plants. And
basically it's never quite figured out a way that it
can sustain long enough politically across administrations and that the
Supreme Court will let it use to regulate CO two
(05:14):
pollutions from power plants. That is largely because the White
House has just ping ponged between parties for the past, right,
you know, twelve years, and so Democrats figure out some
kind of regulation. Trump comes in, he gets rid of it.
Trump proposes something. Democrats think it's way too weak. They
win the next election, they get rid of that, they
propose something new. And now Trump has come in and
(05:35):
knocked out what Biden proposed.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
So if you get rid of the endangerment Finding, then
that stops this cycle.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, the idea here among the Trump administration is that
the set of Republicans who control environmental and energy policy
making under the Trump administration, not all Republicans, but the
particular cohort of Republicans who run these things in the
Trump administration basically believes that climate change is they're not real,
or is real but not a big policy problem. And
(06:03):
they're tired of the government telling them and telling companies
what it can and cannot do to deal with this
policy problem. And so their solution is, well, let's just
say that CO two isn't actually a dangerous greenhouse gas.
It actually isn't a dangerous air pollutant at all, and
therefore the government has no ability or no responsibility to
regulate it.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So, as I said when I asked this in the
first place, they're trying to do this. They can't just
do it. What are the steps necessary to actually repeal
the Endangerment Finding? Why can't they just you know, with
the stroke of a pen say we're done with this.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Well, it is easier to get rid of I mean,
this is minutia that I probably shouldn't even be going into.
But just so people understand, it's a lot harder to
get rid of an environmental rule or regulation than it
is actually to get rid of a finding. And so
to some degree, the Trump inonstration has a little bit
more leeway to just be like, whoop, no more of
this finding, but they're still going to face a fight
around it. The Trump demonstration is kind of making two
(06:59):
arguments about why it can get rid of this finding.
The first and the most important one is that it
argues that CO two is different from other air pollutants
that unlike say airborne lead or sulfur dioxide or particulate matter,
which are tiny, tiny microscopic pieces of ash and soot
in the air that come from coal plants, for instance,
(07:20):
CO two has a global effect and not many local effects.
And so they say, yes, you know, if you want
to deal with acid rain or you want to deal
with tiny microscopic particulate matter in the air, you need
to regulate local sources of air pollution. But if you
want to deal with CO two and climate change. You
need to regulate all sources of CO two around the world,
(07:42):
and therefore you can't do that as the EPA. We
can't do that. As the EPA. The US contributes about
thirteen percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and so
therefore we shouldn't even try. I mean, that's basically the argument.
And therefore also they say we shouldn't be treating CO
two as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. I
(08:04):
think this argument, you know, is something I think this
Air import has already thought a lot about in that
two thousand and seven Supreme Court case, where it's basically said,
you know, air pollutants are air pollutants, and then we
use the Clean Air Act to deal with air pollutants.
I will say that I think it also kind of,
you know, climate change is a different kind of environmental
problem because it is this global problem, and because it
(08:26):
flows from tens or hundreds of thousands of machines spread
all across the planet, and not just you know, is
a local coal plant, local environmental problem. And so in
some degree, the kind of first Trump argument here is like, look,
climate change is a really really hard problem, and therefore
we don't think we should regulate it. The second set
(08:47):
of arguments they're making relies on this Department of Energy
report that recently came out is written by twelve folks
who work in around the climate science says, and they
argue basically that climate change is not a major environmental
problem and therefore shouldn't be dealt with. Then I should
add that that report is written by kind of this
I don't know, infamous small group of climate scientists who
(09:09):
say the opposite of what most others, whatever the vast
majority exactly does.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
So if they do get rid of the Endangerment Finding,
then what are the consequences of that? And I should
say you write in heat map that California. States like
California can actually write their own standards if they get
rid of this, because they can say, well now we
have to do it.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Yeah, exactly. So if they get rid of the Endangerment Finding,
first of all, it will throw US climate law into
total chaos. And so it's hard to make exact predictions,
but what it would mean is, first of all, the
EPA could not regulate carbon dioxide period and would not
regulate it. Republicans are simultaneously trying to get rid of
the gas mileage rules and so basically fuel mileage, fuel
(09:53):
efficiency in cars and trucks, all those rules would likely
be out the window, and any kind of attempt to
regulate power plant pollution as well would be out the
window as well. There may be a second order kind
of consequence of this that states could go in and
regulate CO two because generally the law says that if
the federal government can regulate air pollution, then states are
(10:16):
not going to regulate it. On the premise that there
should just be one set of national rules, it would
be very confusing if the federal government has some rules
and each state had its own rules. But if the
federal government says we're out of the game of regulating
CO two, then states could step in potentially and say, okay,
well we're going to pass our own strict standards here.
The other thing that could happen is that because the
(10:37):
federal government regulates climate pollution, you haven't been able to
sue oil company. States or towns or municipalities haven't been
able to sue oil companies for using fossil fuels to
create a nuisance basically via the air pollution and via
the warming in the air. So you know, under kind
of ancient common law, it seems like you should as
(10:59):
a town, if climate change causes the seas to rise
and you lose area in your town two rising seas,
you could be able to sue just under ancient common law,
like the companies that contributed to climate change, because they
caused this nuisance for you of you losing you know,
acreage of your town to sea level rise. You're not
(11:22):
allowed to do that if the EPA is regulating CO two.
But if the EPA says we're out of the game,
then maybe you could. But you know, it's going to
rely on what the Supreme Court says as well.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Right, and it's of course a different Supreme Court now
than it was, you know, twelve, fifteen, twenty years ago.
Who are they doing this for, because it seems like
the automakers are not really begging for weaker standards, They
want certainty.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
No, And in fact, the automakers are very worried. I mean,
what's happening in the international auto industry is that car
makers around the world are switching to evs. And what's
particularly happening is that this new set of Chinese automakers
are making some of the best and cheapest cars in
the world and their evs. I mean, Jim Farley, the
CEO Ford, says he's very, very worried about byd which
(12:09):
is kind of the big giant of Chinese automaking, and
he says they're making things vastly superior. That's a quote,
vastly superior to anything coming out of the West. So
American automakers want a regulatory impetus to help make evs.
At the same time, their most profitable cars and trucks
are big gas burning SUVs. I mean, that's still what
(12:31):
Americans are buying the most of, and so I don't
think they're upset about these changes. I think who particularly
benefits from these changes, frankly is the oil and gas industry,
oil and natural gas. Because the oil industry is looking
at the global market, they're seeing, you know, Chinese oil
demand is plateauing, if not in decline, because of the
rise of the EV industry there. It doesn't seem like
(12:54):
old demands are going to really spike. In India, They're
starting to run out of places to find new growth
in oil markets, and that's causing them to really want
to protect the big oil markets they have like the
United States, and so they don't want to see the
US move to evs or even hybrids because that would
kind of further cannibalize their captive market. And natural gas
(13:15):
is going to benefit if we don't build solar and
wind right all the power grid, because natural gas generates
forty percent of US lectricity.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
And we remember that in the campaign, Trump went and
like famously promised to the oil and gas people, if
you give me a billion dollars to for my campaign,
I'll help you out. So maybe that's I mean, we know.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
He had a meeting. He said it, right, He had
a meeting. We have a record evidence of the meeting
where he said if you if you pay for my campaign,
I will give you radiatory relief. And now it's happening.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Okay, So let me just ask you about one more
thing here before we take a quick break, and that
is coal, which obviously would be involved here in terms
of the standards on emissions from power plants. President Trump
issued an executive order in April to revitalize the coal industry.
Coal is considered the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. What
is actually changed beyond the press release. When it comes
(14:02):
to power generation from coal under Trump.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, totally. So it does seem like the Trump' admistration
is moving to keep coal plants that were slated for
retirement open and that will ultimately raise consumers' power bills
in the areas where those coal plants are operating. That
is the biggest change. I think the next biggest change
is that the Trump administration is going to make it
easier and cheaper for coal existing coal plants to run
(14:27):
by rolling back rules on coal mining. I will say
the coal industry is kind of getting a bailout, is
too strong, but they're getting help from the market anyway,
because rising demand from new AI data centers and just
across the economy in general, rising electricity demand is causing
a lot of coal plants that were once slated for
retirement to have to stay open because we just need
(14:50):
more power. The grid kind of needs as much power
as it can.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Get interesting, we'll stay with us because in a moment
we're going to talk about what all this means for you,
the consumer and for the environment. One thing I did
with heat Map founding executive editor Robinson Meyer will be
right back. Welcome back to one thing Trump did exclusively
(15:31):
on the Middle Podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode,
we're talking about the Trump administration's moves to declaw the
Environmental Protection Agency. I'm joined by Robinson Meyer, founding executive
editor at heat Map. Rob President Biden signed the biggest
climate legislation in the history of the world, with billions
of dollars in investments and tax credits for clean energy.
(15:52):
How much of that is still intact.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
So the Republican Organcilation Bill basically got rid of a
lot of the policies in the Inflation Reduction Act, not
all of them. So you can kind of think of
the policies in the IRA that Big Biden built in
like two categories. There were EV's policies and there were
power sector policies, and that corresponds to like the two
biggest sectors of the US economy for greenhouse gas missions,
which are transportation of power. So in transportation, which is
(16:16):
number one, Basically, the IRA subsidized EV production and it
also helped consumers buy evs, and the subsidies for EV
production basically got US manufacturing cost competitive with Chinese or
European manufacturing. And then the sub subsidies for buyers, for
people who were buying or leasing a new or used
(16:38):
electric vehicle, kind of brought evs to be more cost
competitive with existing gas cars. Republicans went in and they
got rid of all the demand side subsidies, all the
things that helped people buy and afford evs, but they
didn't get rid of these production side subsidies. I think
folks are now worried that basically we're going to have
a very cost competitive manufacturing system for buying evs and
(16:58):
nobody's going to want to buy the cars. In the
power sector side, Republicans got rid of all solar and
win tax credits. So starting in the next few years,
these long standing tax credits support solar and wind production
are going to go away. What I think they did
get rid of, and what I think is the most
interesting here, is that the IRA took a really interesting approach,
(17:19):
which is that for the past thirty years, the US
government has tried to use tax credits to like help
various technologies, and it's called those technologies out by name
in the tax cod it's like solar, win, geothermal, nuclear title.
But if the government wanted to support a new technology
like Congress had to act and had to put that
(17:41):
technology into the tax code. The IRA came in and
they said, we're going to support any kind of zero
carbon electricity technology. So if you produce any kind of
zero tech you know, carbon technology, and you're selling you know,
you're selling it onto the grid, we're going to give
you a tax credit for it. And that evens the
playing field so that all technologies can compete. And it
was a really really big deal for nuclear fission, conventional
(18:04):
nuclear power, nuclear fusion kind of like next generation experimental power,
and geothermal. What I think is laudable. Let me say
what I think the Republicans did that was good. Here
is they didn't get rid of all those other technology
neutral subsidies. They really only carved out wind and solar
from the tax bills, so wind and solar will no
(18:24):
longer get subsidies these tax credits. I think what's maybe
bad there is that solar is the fastest growing part
of the grid. It's the fuel that we can add
the easiest to the grid, and it's also the cheapest
in many places, and so at this moment of rising
electricity bills, they've really kind of hobbled the easiest. They've
hobbled the economics of the easiest type of power generation
(18:47):
to add to the grid, but we're still going to
build a lot of solar.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
You know, it's interesting. We did a show several months
ago on the Middle where we take live calls from
around the country about what people want the future of
American energy to look like, and it was it's very
interesting to hear people say, you know, I'm in favor
of renewables like solar and wind, but I get it,
they're not going to provide everything. We wanted all of
the above approach. I think if you were to like,
(19:11):
actually look at all the calls we got, people said
I wanted all the above approach, it doesn't seem like
that's what the Trump administration is doing though, as you say,
if they take out sole and winning, they really are
going after solar and wind. It's not at all of
the above a broach.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
And what's interesting is that I think this is what
we hear from Americans over and over again. They want
this all of the above. They want cheap energy, and
they are willing to use They don't care where it
comes from. They just want cheap energy, and they do
want to invest in solar and win. But you know,
as it makes sense. What is so interesting to me
about this political moment and what the Trump administration is
(19:46):
doing is that I think they had a real opportunity
after the Biden administration to say, look, Biden did all
these things. You know that he supported all these industries
in different ways. We're going to get you everything, We're
going to get you cheap energy and just let you
live your lives. And that is not what they're doing.
That's clearly, you know, interestingly what Senate, what moderate Senate
Republicans want, because they tried to strike this deal with
(20:09):
the Trump administration in the Reconciliation Bill to sustain some
of the solar and Win tax credits. But it is
not what the Republicans in the Trump administration are doing.
And since that Reconciliation Bill passed, we've seen, as you
were saying, this like real almost regulatory coup against building
any solar and wind kind of anywhere in the country
(20:29):
to the degree that you know, the new Department of
Transportation rules could restrict private developers from building private wind
turbines on private land.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
By the way, if somebody out there is listening and
they want to get solar or an electric car, they
still have a little time to do it before all
these credits go away. Right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
So the EV subsidies, I would say, act very quickly
on the evs because the EV subsidies go away on
September thirtieth, twenty twenty five, so really fast. But that
being said, let me tell you in my Instagram fee
like when I search the web, I'm getting incredible EV
buying and leasing deals because dealers are trying to move
as many evs as they can before those deals go away.
(21:08):
It's like one hundred and fifty nine dollars to Lisa
new Honda EV solar. You have a slightly more time,
you have maybe a year or two. But I would
say act as soon as you can because all those
all that equipment for everyone is facing the same deadlines,
and everyone's trying to get their hands on the same
equipment to build out their particular project before that deadline.
(21:30):
And so the equipment is going to go really fast
to actually meet those tax credit deadlines.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
So how are environmentalists that you talk to responding to
all this? They must just be pulling their hair out.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
They are. This is I think is the New York
Times put a generational loss for environmentalists. The idea that
we would use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions has been a tenet of American environmental policy
at least since the mid two thousands, and I think
more broadly than that, what the Trump administration is doing
is not only kind of restricting these more environmentally friendly
(22:07):
forms of electricity generation, but they're also gutting agencies where
a lot of our expertise, and getting universities and pulling
back university funding where a lot of our environmental expertise rests.
And so it's not only like for environmentalists that they're watching, Okay,
well we're gonna build less solar in the next three
years or next four years, and then we're going to
see what happens. It's watching an entire edifice of of
(22:31):
of I think environmental regulation as they had to kind
of envision that it would happen, but also environmental science,
environmental study, environmental conservation get torn away by Trump administration policies.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Let me ask you this one last thing, Rob, because
there was so much, this is called one thing Trump did,
and we're like, okay, EPA one thing Trump did.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
The one thing Trump did, it's actually this enormous Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Right, What did we miss here? What is the story
that you're following in this world of EPA and environment
under Trump that we've missed because there are just so
many different aspects of what they're trying to do.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
What we've missed is that the administrative state, the Trump
Administration's war on new electricity capacity is hitting at the
exact wrong moment. So we can look forward and we
know that going forward there's going to be a lot
more electricity demand due to ai WE and data centers.
We know there's going to be a lot more electricity
demand due to new factories, due to new evs. Because
(23:25):
people are going to keep buying evs regardless of kind
of what the subsidies are, even if they buy them
slower than we think, they're just gonna be more evs
on the grid. So electricity demand is rising, power bills
are going up. Everyone can see this crisis coming, and
the Trump administration has reacted by slowing down construction of
(23:45):
a lot of new types of electricity supply, slowing down
wind constructions, slowing down solar construction, throwing as many regulatory
obstacles in front of these forms of generation as they can.
And let me cite one example that I think was
really really grating to me because I think it really
represents how the Trump administration is not doing what people
(24:06):
thought they were going to do when they came in,
which is there's this big power line that was going
to get built across the Midwest that was going to
take cheap wind and solar electricity from the middle of
the Midwest and bring it to really congested, expensive power
markets in Illinois and Wisconsin and Indiana. And the federal
government had won it under the bid administration had basically
backed a loan guarantee to build that power line. It
(24:28):
hadn't subsidized it, but had said, look, we're just going
to kind of make it easy for you to get
the financing because we think this kind of electricity megaproject
is really important. You know, by the way, China's doing
dozens of these across the country, and so they said,
we want to support our own version of it. That
project is all lined up, it started to get built.
It was going to bring cheap electricity, cheap new electricity
(24:49):
supply to some of the most congested power markets in
the country. But some soybean farmers really didn't like it.
They thought it abused them in a domain, and they
got Josh their senator, to oppose it. He went to
the President Trump. Trump said, oh, we got to kill
this loan then, and Trump called Energy Secretary Chris Right,
(25:10):
and Chris Right pulled the support for that loan. And
it doesn't necessarily it hasn't necessarily doomed this transition transmission
line yet. But I think it's the case where people
thought President Trump was coming in to help reindustrialize the country.
They thought he was going to you know, it was
time to build. We were going to build all this
big infrastructure. We were going to bring on all the
electrons we could. And here the Trump's administration has acted
(25:33):
in a very punitive way against this project because it
like annoyed some farmers, which is significant, but like as
compared to the benefits that would have been felt across
the economy from this cheap electricity coming into some of
the most expensive areas in the country. I mean to me,
it represents how the Trump administration has not taken a
(25:56):
pro reindustrialization approach, has not taken a kind of pro
all of the above approach and is acting quite i think,
malevolently against certain kinds of energy generation technologies that we
are all going to feel when rates go up.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Well, and when you talk about new power lines, one
of the things I think people don't realize is the
amount of electricity that is lost just in the transmission
from the point yes production to when it gets to us.
So the newer the line, probably the better it is
at conducting that electricity and keeping it all intact or
as much of it intact as possible, so we don't
lose so much of it exactly.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
And we've gotten you know, there's been huge engineering advances
in the past few years to move large amounts of
electricity over long distances. This is something China's figured out,
it's something Brazil's figured out. It's something the US has
not done as much because we just don't build that
many power lines. It's very, very hard to build a
new electricity transmission line in the US, as compared to
(26:52):
say how hard it is to build a new gas
a pipeline or a new oil pipeline. We should you know,
if you think about the history of US economic policy
of what we do in this country, it's that we
build big integrated markets, right, We like allow everyone in
the country across this huge geographic area to trade with
everyone else, and that brings costs down for everyone, and
(27:13):
it allows us to tap it allows businesses to tap
this huge, integrated, big consumer market. We don't have that.
In electricity. We have like three different grids that are themselves.
We have an East Coast grid, we have a West
Coast grid, and we have Texas. And even within the
East and West Coast grid, they're like very patchwork systems.
They only connect, you know, individual regions of those grids
(27:35):
only connect to each other in some places. And so
we should be trying to stitch together a giant national
electricity market where we can trade freely and access the
lowest cost electricity anywhere in the country so that everyone
can get cheaper energy. And that is exactly the opposite
of what the Trump administration has done by killing this
you know, government loan guarantee to this big project.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
That's Robinson Meyer, who is the founding executive editor at
heat Map, a climate news publication. Rob thank you so
much for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Thank you so much for having me. This was fun, and.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
Thanks to you for listening to one thing Trump did.
It was produced by Harrison Patino. Our next middle episode
is coming to your podcast feed later this week. We're
going to be asking what you think about the administration's
tactics when it comes to immigration, which are quite different
than what we have seen in the past. If you
liked this podcast, please write it where you ever get
your podcast. Write a review. Our theme music was composed
(28:27):
by Noah Haidu. I'm Jeremy Hobson and I will talk
to you soon.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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