Editor Note: On this day in 2017, President Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord. On November 4, 2019, the U.S. formally notified the United Nations of such, which went into effect one year later. President Biden reversed the withdrawal to officially rejoin the Paris Agreement on his first day in office.

“Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune.”

THE PRESIDENT: One by one, we are keeping the promises I made to the American people during my campaign for President …. …

Editor note: America the Beautiful is at her best in December when billions of tiny stringed light bulbs turn darkness into magnificent beauty and celebration. Holiday lighting is a great social offering—a positive externality in the jargon of economics—given by many to all. With the increasing sustainability of energy, beginning with the fossil-fuel family, celebrate with the lights on!

Forget the holiday-lighting humbug from the deep ecologists who say:

I’ve reached the point of feeling like a Scrooge; feeling outrage over the tons of C02 going into the atmosphere via neighbors’ 10,000 light displays rather than feeling ‘joyous’.”

And:

Actually, here comes the Scrooge bit.… But aside from light pollution, a substantial environmental footprint is created by what the Energy Saving Trust terms an ‘extravagant light display’, which translates into the generation of 400kg of extra CO₂….

“It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation’s vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation.”

– President Trump, Executive Order (March 28, 2017)

Do you miss the prior Administration’s record on energy and climate–and push-back against environmental excesses otherwise?

With the Biden Administration scrambling to hoist an anti-consumer energy/climate agenda on Americans on short notice, it is important to keep the opportunity cost of free markets and America-first in mind.

Four years ago, President Trump signed into law one of the most libertarian, free-market executive orders in energy history, easily rivaling that of President Reagan’s oil price and allocation decontrol executive order of early 1981. Titled Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth, Executive Order 13783 began with this paragraph:

Section 1.

“Bad economics required the DOE furnace mandate in the first place: replacing gas furnaces are much cheaper than a new electric heating refit even with a longer-term, back-end savings. Why? Because consumers, given the choice, chose gas.”

The mandatory energy efficiency movement (conservationism vs. market conservation) arose alongside oil and natural gas shortages in the 1970s. It began prior to the Arab Embargo as President Nixon’s price control order of August 1971 was having its predictable, undesirable effect.

In March 1973, wholesale oil shortages and dire resource predictions led Congress to hold a full-fledged energy conservation hearing. The first fuel conservation hearing in decades, a new movement was begun not seen since World War II’s fuel rationing program.

What began with the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act of 1973 continued apace in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 and with the creation of the U.S.…