“I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs,” says President-elect Donald Trump. For his part, his nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has argued that growth and regulation are fundamentally at odds. “The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations,” he said.
The assumption they are making is that economic growth depends upon increasing carbon emissions. Trump and Pruitt seem to believe that because energy is essential for economic development, increasing its production by any means will boost the economy, and that limiting it in any way—as through emission controls—will hurt it.
The two are wrong on both counts.
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