In the United States, greenhouse gas emissions are plummeting.
And the credit, surprisingly, goes to the Trump administration.
Of course, environmentalists would have you believe this White House is accelerating climate change and hurling us toward planetary disaster. But just the opposite is the case: Since 2016, emissions have dropped almost 3 percent, marking the ninth time this century that the United States has led the world in annual CO2 reductions.
This is the product of deregulation, not heavy-handed government interventions. Energy companies have been freed up to expand and vigorously compete to provide the cheapest, most high-quality products, and the result has been huge environmental -- and economic -- gains.
The story starts with Executive Order 13771, a controversial measure imposed early in the Trump administration requiring "two-for-one" for all new regulations; in order to propose a rule, agencies had to first identify two existing regulations to repeal.
At the time, EO 13771 was widely criticized as a gimmick, a hollow gesture to please the GOP base. A year later, it's arguably the most consequential action of the Trump presidency. The Department of the Interior calculates that the order has prompted 20 major deregulatory actions and the withdrawal of 150 proposed rules, cutting the regulatory burden on private businesses by over two billion dollars.
The energy industry in particular has received immense regulatory relief, including the rollback of excessive rules governing oil rig safety -- freeing up oil and gas producers to expand, create jobs, and innovate.
During President Trump's tenure, American oil production has jumped dramatically, from 8.8 million to over 11 million barrels a day. And domestic gas production has hit almost 74 billion cubic feet per day, making us the biggest producer in the world.
The oil and gas sector has become a cornerstone of the American economy, supporting over 10 million jobs and adding over a trillion dollars to America's GDP.
But here's the interesting twist: Environmentalist dogma dictates that this energy growth must have come at the expense of the natural world. It hasn't.
Over the exact same period that the American energy industry has soared to new heights, our annual carbon dioxide emissions have fallen to a 25-year low.
This remarkable achievement is primarily attributable to the rapid expansion of domestic gas production. Gas is a cheap substitute for coal in electricity production. As the local supply has expanded, power plants have switched over en masse.
Gas also burns much cleaner than coal, releasing about half as many emissions. So this migration has caused electricity-related emissions to plummet nearly 20 percent since 2011.
Deregulation has cut carbon emissions.
That statement might be incomprehensible to the average green activist, but it's the truth. Energy prosperity and environmental preservation are not in conflict: America has achieved both under the Trump administration.
And there's more to be done. The energy industry is still laboring under plenty of other excessive and unnecessary regulations.
New work from the consulting firm WoodMackenzie calculates that scaling back these and other artificial barriers to domestic energy growth by 2035 would boost oil and gas production by 8 million barrels of oil per day, create over 2 million new jobs, and add another $400 billion to the economy per year.
The free market works. Deregulation has allowed energy companies to grow and innovate, producing huge economic rewards for average working Americans while also driving down carbon emissions to historic lows.
Drew Johnson is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research. This piece originally ran in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
