We at Grist List know more or less how your State of the Union experience went last night: You intended to watch it, but oooooh, you forgot there was a new Downton Abbey episode you hadn’t watched yet. You started watching the speech, but booooooring! You changed the channel/zoned out/got distracted by YouTube. Or you watched the speech but your drinking game involved a word that no one thought would come up. But then it did! Like a million times! Ugh, now you are hungover.
To help y’all out, we have condensed here the most important energy-related bits of the speech:
- Hydrofracking is in: the president said his administration “will take every possible action to safely develop” the country’s natural gas resources. But companies drilling on public land will have to disclose what chemicals they use — a concession probably meant to help appease fracking opponents.
- Clean energy is in, despite Congress: The executive branch will open up enough public land to clean energy development to power 3 million homes. The Department of Defense is also going to re-commit to clean energy.
- But Congress could help! They could pass clean energy tax credits, which are expiring for the wind industry. They could also pass a bill to incentivize efficiency in factories and commercial buildings.
Hey, more natural gas, more clean energy; who’s even gonna notice that you barely mentioned climate change? (Pro tip: Make “climate change” your drinking game word next year.)
