Zero-Sum Climate and Energy Politics Under the Trump Administration
| Date | 01 September 2019 |
| Author |
49 ELR 10870 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 9-2019
Zero-Sum
Climate and
Energy Politics
Under the Trump
Administration
by Melissa Powers
Melissa Powers is a Jerey Bain Faculty Scholar and
Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School, where
she is also the founder and director of the Green
Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School.
Summary
e concept of “zero-sum” derives from economics and
game theory, but its political meaning is less technical
and objective. In political parlance, zero-sum has come
to stand for the idea that there will be winners and
losers in every transaction. e Trump Administration
has continually espoused zero-sum ideas about energy
and the climate, although its zero-sum framing focuse s
more generally on pitting fossil fuels (winners) against
clean energy (losers). is Article, adapted from Chapter
10 of Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism (ELI Press
2019), explores whether the Administration’s zero-
sum politics will pose long-term damage to the United
States by undermining competitive energy markets,
locking in fossil fuel infrastructure, and further
polarizing climate and energy politics in the United
States. e Article concludes with potential strategies
that states, local governments, and private actors can
pursue to ensure that decarbonization will provide the
greatest good for the greatest numbers, while ensuring
that fossil fuels lose in the end.
I. Introduction
On June 1, 2018, President Donald Trump ordered the
Secretary of Energy to create a rule that would require
grid operators to purchase power from coal-red and
nuclear power plants that are no longer competitive in
energy m arkets.1 President Trump’s eort to save a handful
of power plants was the second attempt in less than one
year to save nuclear and coal plants from ma rket forces.2
If enacted, the order would require electricity consumers
to buy power they do not want or need, at the expense of
power supplies that are more ecient, more cost-eective,
and less environmentally ha rmful.3 e order could also
disrupt whole sale electricity market s, underm ine more
eective strategies to support nuclear power plants,
and usurp traditional st ate authority to regulate retail
elect ricity procu rement.4 A ny benets to coal producers
and coal-dependent communities would likely be short-
lived at best.5 So, why pursue it? Simply stated, the Trump
Administration views the energy transition as a zero-sum
political “war on coal”6 and other fossil f uels, and it wants
fossil fuels to win.
1. Eric Wolf, Trump Calls for Coal, Nuclear Bailouts, P, June 1, 2018,
www.politico.com/story/2018/06/01/donald-trump-rick-perry-coal-
plants-617112; Press Release, e White House, Statement From the Press
Secretary on Fuel-Secure Power Facilities (June 1, 2018), www.whitehouse.gov/
briengs-statements/statement-press-secretary-fuel-secure-power-facilities/;
and Draft Addendum to Justify Action to Support Fuel-Secure Power Facilities
(May 29, 2018) [hereinafter Fuel-Secure Justication Memo], available at
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4491203/Grid-Memo.pdf (last
visited July 10, 2018).
2. Although the order states that it would support both nuclear and coal-red
power plants, coal plants would be the primary beneciaries. Jennifer A.
Dlouhy, Trump Prepares Lifeline for Money-Losing Coal Plants, B,
May 31, 2018, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-01/trump-
said-to-grant-lifeline-to-money-losing-coal-power-plants-jhv94ghl (noting
that 16,200 megawatts (MW) of coal-red power and 550 MW of nuclear
power are expected to retire in 2018).
3. See Daniel Shawhan & Paul Picciano, Costs and Benets of Saving
Unprotable Generators: A Simulation Case Study for U.S. Coal and
Nuclear Power Plants (2017), available at www.r.org/les/document/le/
RFF-WP-17-22.pdf?stream=top-stories (last visited July 9, 2018) (evaluating
impacts of the rst attempt to save coal and nuclear plants); Press Release,
American Petroleum Indus., Broad Energy Coalition Condemns Action
to Subsidize Failing Coal, Nuclear Plants (June 1, 2018), www.api.org/
news-policy-and-issues/news/2018/06/01/oil-wind-solar-condemn-action-
to-subsidize-failing-coal-nuclear-plants.
4. Brad Plumer & Nadia Popovich, Trump Wants to Bail Out Coal and Nuclear
Plants. Here’s Why at Will Be Hard, N.Y. T, June 13, 2018, www.
nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/13/climate/coal-nuclear-bailout.html;
Federal Power Act §201(b), 16 U.S.C. §824(b) (2018) (probiting federal
regulation of retail electricity sales), Federal Energy Reg. Comm’n v. Electric
Power Supply Ass’n, 136 S. Ct. 760, 766 (2016).
5. Plumer & Popovich, supra note 4.
6. See Umair Irfan, Trump’s Perennial “War on Coal” Claim, Fact-Checked,
V., Jan. 21, 2018, www.vox.com/2018/1/30/16953292/trump-
war-on-coal-claim-fact-checked; Michael Grunwald, Trump’s Love Aair
With Coal, P M., Oct. 15, 2017, www.politico.com/magazine/
story/2017/10/15/trumps-love-aair-with-coal-215710.
Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.
9-2019 NEWS & ANALYSIS 49 ELR 10871
e concept of “zero-sum” derives from economics and
game theory, but its political meaning is less technical and
objective. e zero-sum game theory refers to a contest
in which one player wins at the expense of another player
losing.7 Zero-sum ga me theory assumes t hat the stakes of
a game are xed and that win-win solutions do not exist.8
In a zero-sum scenario, compromise and cooperation have
no value, and winner-take-all scena rios are the inevitable,
perhaps even desired, outcome.9 Economic theory suggests
that zero-sum states may ex ist at the end of successful
negotiations, but, unlike some game theorists, ec onomists
reject the idea that real life presents many situations that
are truly zero-sum at t he outset.10
Economists typica lly believe that parties will negotiate
win-win outcomes until they reach a zero-su m, or Pareto-
optimal, state.11 In concept, this should promote eective
bargaining a nd yield an outcome that ensures that all of
the bargaining partners receive a benet and none ends
up an absolute “loser” at another’s expense.12 In political
parlance, however, zero-sum has come to stand for the
idea that there will be winners and losers in every trans-
action.13 Whi le President Trump may consider himself
a great negotiator (who presumably understands zero-
sum game theory), his decisions as president embody the
political concept of zero-sum, in which winner-loser sce-
narios are the desired ends, so long as Trump is on the
winning side.14
His Administration has continually espoused zero-sum
ideas about energy and the climate, a lthough its zero-
sum framing focuses more generally on pitting fossil fuels
(winners) against clean energy (losers). is framing is
exhibited in the White House’s strategy of U.S. “Energy
Dom i na nc e,”15 the president and his cabinet members’
7. Michael Bacharach, Zero-Sum Games, in T N P G T
253, 253 (John Eatwell et al. eds., 1989); see also Jessica Owley, Successful
Land Conservation: Neither Zero-Sum Nor Win-Win, in S B
., Z-S E (ELI 2018).
8. Bacharach, supra note 7, at 254-55.
9. Id. For example, in a zero-sum game like chess, two competitors compete
until one player wins.
10. See, e.g., Tim Harford, Trump, Bannon, and the Lure of Zero-Sum inking,
E, Aug. 25, 2017; Owley, supra note 7.
11. Shalanda Baker et al., Beyond Zero-Sum Environmentalism, 47 ELR 10328,
10330-31 (Apr. 2017) (essay written by J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman).
12. Id.
13. Id. at 10329 (essay written by Jessica Owley, demonstrating that zero-
sum rhetoric is increasingly common).
14. See Dylan Matthews, Zero-Sum Trump, V., Jan. 19, 2017, www.vox.
com/a/donald-trump-books.
15. T W H, N S S U S
A 22-23 (2017), available at www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/
uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf (last visited July 9,
2018) [hereinafter W H N S S]; Leo
Kabouche, Assessing the Trump Doctrine of “Energy Dominance,” G
R I, Apr. 13, 2018, https://globalriskinsights.com/2018/04/
trump-doctrine-energy-dominance/.
refusal to accept the legitimacy of climate science,16 and
steadfast support for fossil fuels at t he expense of upholding
other conservative va lues, such as federa lism.17 Where
fossil fuels are pitted aga inst carbon-free resources, fossil
fuels are the Trump Administrat ion’s chosen victors.18
is Ar ticle explores whether the Adm inistration’s
zero-sum politics will pose long-term damage to the
United States by delaying energy transition and climate
mitigation eorts. As of mid-2018, the Trump Admin-
istration’s eorts had little impact. From January 2017,
when the Administration took oce, through June 2018,
energy markets continued to favor renewable resources and
natural gas,19 and U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
remained relatively stable.20 Early market signals, how-
ever, may not adequately reect the threats posed by the
Trump Administration’s climate and energy policies. If
the Administrat ion successfu lly interrupts energy markets,
fossil fuel plants will stay online longer than expected, at
16. See Carol J. Miller, For a Lump of Coal and a Drop of Oil: An Environmentalist’s
Critique of the Trump Administration’s First Year of Energy Policies, 36 V. E.
L.J. 185, 194 (2018); Alana Abramson, No, Trump Still Hasn’t Changed His
Mind About Climate Change After Hurricane Irma and Harvey, T M.,
Sept. 11, 2017, http://time.com/4936507/donald-trump-climate-change-
hurricane-irma-hurricane-harvey/; Scott Waldman, Judge Orders EPA to
Produce Science Behind Pruitt’s Warming Claims, E&E N, June 5, 2018,
www.scienticamerican.com/article/judge-orders-epa-to-produce-science-
behind-pruitts-warming-claims/ (noting that Scott Pruitt has rejected the
science of climate change); Scott Martelle, Interior Secretary Zinke Reportedly
Dressed Down Joshua Tree Superintendent Over Climate Change Tweets, L.A.
T, Dec. 15, 2017, www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-zinke-
twitter-joshua-tree-climate-change-20171215-story.html.
17. For example, EPA Administrator Pruitt stated he would seek to overturn
California’s vehicle emissions for GHGs and argued that cooperative federalism
did not justify the state standards. Timothy Cama & Miranda Green,
California to Fight Trump’s “Politically Motivated” Car Standards Plan, T
H, Apr. 2, 2018, http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/381323-
calif-to-ght-trumps-politically-motivated-car-standards-plan. See also Scott
Galupo, Beware Idealogues in Federalists’ Clothing, U.S. N, Mar. 10, 2017,
www.usnews.com/opinion/thomas-jeerson-street/articles/2017-03-10/epa-
head-scott-pruitt-hides-his-climate-change-opposition-behind-federalism.
But see Kenny Stein, Limiting California’s Waiver Authority Is Not a Federalism
Issue, I E R (Mar. 27, 2018) (arguing that
the Trump Administration’s eorts to override California’s greenhouse gas
emissions (GHG) regulations do not implicate federalism, because California’s
regulations play an outsized role in aecting national vehicle design trends).
18. See Kabouche, supra note 15.
19. See E I. A., S-T E O S:
E F R E C G
1-3 (July 2017) [hereinafter EIA 2017 R S]
(demonstrating increases in solar capacity from 2014 through mid-2017 and
forecasting new capacity additions through 2018); E I. A.,
S-T E O: R C D
E (July 10, 2018) [hereinafter EIA 2018 R CO2
F], www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/renew_co2.php (projecting
the share of non-hydro renewable generation to increase from 9.6% in 2017
to 10.8% in 2019).
20. EIA 2018 R CO2 F, supra note 19 (noting that
CO2 emissions declined by 0.9% in 2017 and were expected to increase by
1.8% in 2018 and drop by 0.5% in 2019, for a net increase of 0.4% from
2017-2019).
Copyright © 2019 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.
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