Trump's low-energy vision

Politix

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.politix.fm

Brian’s European Vacation continues as Matt is joined by special guest Jane Flegal of the Blue Horizon Foundation to break down the energy provisions of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.

The energy cuts have attracted less attention than the health care provisions in part because they were made much more severe at the last minute. Jane breaks down how the Inflation Reduction Act changed America’s approach to clean energy subsidies — making them more durable, more flexible, and more inclusive of the full range of technologies including nuclear, geothermal, and carbon capture — and how it connects to larger industrial policy questions related to supply chains and battery production. Repealing these measures will leave America worse off than it was pre-Biden in terms of clean energy production, which is going to lead to higher levels of air pollution and higher energy bills as Americans face a generational increase in electricity demand from AI and data centers.

After the break, Matt and Jane analyze the broader philosophy of investment-led climate policy — what’s the right lesson to learn from the failure of Obama-era carbon pricing and what can we do about the flood of extremely dirty Chinese steel on world markets?

All that, plus the full Politix archive are available to paid subscribers—just upgrade your subscription and pipe full episodes directly to your favorite podcast app via your own private feed.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is just not true that like the only market failure or the only externality associated with the energy transition is CO2 as a pollutant per se.
0:08.7	The point is just carbon pricing on its own without huge investments and innovation is unlikely to yield the change that we actually need.
0:16.0	It's mostly relevant to the pace conversation.
0:18.8	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Inventing good electric cars rather than fiddling with the price of gasoline is like
0:25.8	what generates like the long-term energy transition.
0:33.6	Hi, folks.
0:34.7	You are listening to a free preview of the politics podcast. Brian continues to be on
0:39.4	vacation for one more week. So I am joined this week by Jane Flagle from Blue Horizons Foundation.
0:45.2	We are going to talk about the energy provisions of this kind of horrific reconciliation bill
0:51.9	that is winning its way through Congress. And then for paid members,
0:55.4	we're going to talk a little bit about the kind of underlying philosophy behind some of these
1:00.3	clean energy programs and where we may be able to go from here. So I hope you guys enjoy.
1:10.0	Hi, welcome to the politics podcast.
1:12.6	Brian continues to be on vacation in Europe, Living It Up.
1:16.4	So I'm here, slaving away, joined this week by Jane Flagell from the Blue Horizons Foundation.
1:23.4	Hi, welcome.
1:25.4	Hi, Matt.
1:26.2	Wow, that's quite the entry point, juxtaposing, hanging out with me to like hanging out in Europe.
1:31.9	Yes, exactly. This is a Portugal of the mind. No, but this is an important time. There is a reconciliation bill working its way through Congress. It has passed the House. It is now on the
1:45.7	decks in the Senate. I've talked a lot on slow boring. We've talked a lot on this show about
1:52.7	the health care and tax cutting provisions of this bill. I have not talked that much about
1:59.5	the energy side, in part because I don't
	...

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