Did I read that right? Trump has cracked down hard—yet U.S. solar power has逆势 surpassed coal power?

Old Farmer couldn’t believe the figure when he saw it—but data from the global energy think tank Ember and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) clearly show: In May 2026, U.S. solar generation exceeded coal-fired generation for the first time on a monthly basis. Solar accounted for 12.8% of total electricity generation—45.5 terawatt-hours—surpassing coal’s 12.2% share and 43.4 terawatt-hours, marking a historic turning point for the United States. This result is utterly astonishing! Anyone familiar with environmental circles knows full well: Which U.S. president has taken the hardest line—and delivered the most thorough crackdown—on climate action and environmental protection? None other than Trump. Yet Old Farmer remains utterly baffled: How could photovoltaics surge ahead of coal power even as the federal government mounts a comprehensive assault on the green transition? What hidden dynamics lie behind this striking paradox? Looking back, the Trump administration’s suppression and damage to U.S. environmental and climate-transition efforts were truly systemic and all-encompassing. At the legislative and executive levels, he signed the ‘Big and Beautiful Tax Act,’ which phases out the 30% tax credit for residential, utility-scale solar, and wind power—and terminates both the wind production tax credit and storage-related subsidies, effectively severing the core incentive mechanism under the Biden administration’s clean-energy expansion. On his very first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order initiating the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement—a clear signal of his uncompromising stance. He also scrapped the Biden-era clean-energy policy framework, revoked the Clean Power Plan, and eliminated mandatory carbon-emission limits for coal plants—legally abandoning constraints on fossil-fuel power emissions. Executive orders piled up further. The administration suspended all new offshore wind leasing approvals, used federal funds to repurchase offshore wind lease areas along both coasts, and halted flagship projects; tightened permitting for wind and solar projects on federal land while simultaneously expanding oil-and-gas and coal-mining permits—establishing an unmistakable ‘suppress green, promote gray’ permitting bias. Regulatory rollbacks were equally sweeping. The Trump administration dramatically loosened environmental constraints: it rescinded the EPA’s 2009 ‘Endangerment Finding’ on greenhouse gases—stripping the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of its legal basis for regulating carbon emissions; relaxed mercury, arsenic, and other heavy-metal emission limits for coal plants; scrapped methane-leak controls for the oil-and-gas sector; and severely weakened wetland protections under the Clean Water Act—allowing industrial projects to freely fill ecologically sensitive areas. If management regressed so sharply, research funding and scientific support were inevitably hit even harder. Federal climate science suffered a near-amputation: the White House’s FY2026 budget proposal slashed the EPA’s climate-specific R&D budget by nearly half, cut the EPA’s overall budget by almost 30%, and eliminated the annual Climate Change Special Fund altogether. NOAA shut down its core greenhouse-gas monitoring laboratory; NASA postponed its climate satellite launch schedule; and the Department of Energy froze billions of dollars in unallocated clean-energy grants—recalling funding earmarked for grid modernization, green hydrogen R&D, and renewable manufacturing support. Hundreds of climate-scientist positions were eliminated, and long-term climate-monitoring programs were abruptly terminated. Given such aggressively counterproductive federal policies, why did solar power still surpass coal? A closer examination reveals the answer lies not with Trump himself—but rather in multiple underlying objective factors.

Will the successive moves now underway by Trump and Musk change the United States?

Over the past month since the Trump administration resumed operations, it has launched a coordinated multi-pronged campaign—summarized in twelve characters by this author: ‘Loosen regulation, lower tariffs, cut budgets, offload responsibilities.’ 1. Loosening regulation is the centerpiece—not only restricting antitrust investigations and interventions against tech and internet firms, but also limiting the Department of Labor’s authority over minimum wage, overtime pay, and employment standards across all enterprises, as well as relaxing certain workplace safety requirements—aimed squarely at reducing corporate compliance burdens. In finance, the administration curbed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) powers and reduced regulatory oversight of financial institutions. It raised the asset threshold for small and mid-sized banks, lowering their capital requirements and stress-test mandates. In environmental policy, it withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and eased federal restrictions on carbon emissions. It relaxed methane-emission regulations for the oil-and-gas industry and authorized expanded drilling and extraction activities. It repealed or revised the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), accelerating infrastructure-project approvals. In healthcare and pharmaceuticals, it permitted more states to obtain Medicaid work-requirement waivers—reducing government healthcare spending—and expedited FDA approval processes for certain drugs and medical devices to speed market entry. In energy, it expanded oil-and-gas extraction on federal lands, lowered compliance costs for energy firms, lifted drilling bans in certain wildlife refuges, weakened fuel-economy standards, relaxed tailpipe-emission limits for gasoline-powered vehicles, and removed restrictions on manufacturing such vehicles. 2. Lowering tariffs. The Trump administration’s repeated high-profile announcements about imposing new tariffs are, in fact, strategically aimed at lowering tariffs—not domestically, but abroad. Specifically, the goal is to pressure other countries into reducing their tariffs and value-added taxes (VAT), consumption taxes, and other non-tariff barriers imposed on U.S. exports.

Trump Aims to Loosen Methane Controls on Oil and Gas Sector

4 days ago

President Trump formally proposed scaling back federal methane controls on the oil and gas sector, aiming to save $45 billion and boost oil production by 210 million barrels. The proposal reverses previous Biden-era EPA standards regarding emissions monitoring and flaring.

bloomberg

2026-07-20

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Trump Aims to Loosen Methane Controls on Oil and Gas Sector

Trump Aims to Loosen Methane Controls on Oil and Gas Sector

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