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When President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency” hours after being sworn into office, something conspicuous was missing from his definition of energy. It consisted of a list of petroleum products, with nods to nuclear, biofuels, geothermal heat, and hydropower. There was no mention of wind or solar power, the fastest-growing sources of energy in the United States.

The omission begins to make sense when you consider Trump’s pitch to “Make America Great Again.” In his inaugural address on January 20, Trump was full of nostalgia for a bygone era, one in which solar panels and wind turbines didn’t yet exist. “America will be a manufacturing nation once again,” he said. “We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”

Trump’s speech tapped into a vein that runs as deep in American culture as the coal mines that fueled the country’s industrial rise. And it’s probably not a coincidence that the way he talks about energy, with another executive order on Inauguration Day aimed ... Read more

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