Iran war exposes U.S. energy policy folly

America needs an 'all-of-the-above' strategy, not an 'either/or' whipsaw

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Lines of cars form as drivers wait their turn at the gas pumps in New York during the energy crisis, 1979. Photo: AP.

(Bill Sternberg is a veteran Washington journalist and former editorial page editor of USA Today.)

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. (Callaway Climate Insights) — For as long as I covered Washington, the energy debate was predictably partisan.

Republicans and their fossil-fuel industry donors championed underground sources: coal, oil, natural gas. Democrats and their environmental allies promoted above-ground sources: wind, solar, hydropower. Policies shifted back and forth depending on which party was in power.

The war with Iran exposes the folly of this either/or paradigm.

President Donald Trump inherited a reasonably good plan for cushioning the type of oil shock caused by the Strait of Hormuz closure. The plan was Joe Biden’s climate law, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA provided tax credits to encourage people to buy or lease electric vehicles, insulating them from gasoline price spikes. It provided hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for renewable energy.

Unfortunately, last year Trump and Republicans in Congress blew up most of the IRA — much as Trump, in his first term, discarded the agreement the Obama administration had brokered to restrict Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from international economic sanctions.