Inc.: "Trump’s First 100 Days Have Thrown Energy and Environmental Policy Into Chaos"
by Chloe Aiello
“There is a lot of uncertainty attached to every one of these moves, because it seems to be erratic movement in one direction one day, and then the erratic overcompensation in the other direction the next,” says Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School.
“As the executive branch of the U.S. government, you can’t unilaterally just not enforce these laws anymore. It turns out that’s illegal. Somebody’s going to sue,” says Wagner. “The pendulum is going to swing back hard as a result. Businesses that thought that they could get away with certain things turn out not to be able to get away with those things.”
The same goes for project cancellations. Trump has made no secret of his distaste for offshore wind. In fact, his administration has already targeted New York State’s Empire Wind, an in-progress project that has been told to cease construction, pending review. Equinor and BP terminated their proposed Empire 2 project last year. Whether the specific project ultimately resumes or not, Wagner says the broader damage wrought by uncertainty is already done.
