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Washington Post ran this article “California proves Trump wrong”

trump wants to drill drill drill baby to make the United States self sufficient when it comes to fossil fuels.  Problem is the Saudi’s can do what they did the last time the US was making gains as an oil producer and that was to flood the market with oil driving down the price and putting a lot of US oil workers out of a job.  And if the only market for oil produced in the US is the US then there becomes a pricing problem.  Add to that the world is moving away from fossil fuels.

The future is clean renewable energy.  These are jobs that have to be done in the United States but can be done in every state.   And we are always going to need energy.   My county went to clean renewable electricity a couple of years ago.

From the article...

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has been busy dismantling climate and environmental regulations, arguing that they’re job killers. The administration has declared an end to the “war on coal,” announced plans to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and is working to rescind former President Barack Obama’s signature piece of climate legislation, the Clean Power Plan.

Here in California, the opposite is happening. The state has some of the most ambitious climate policies and environmental regulations in the country. California plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels over the next 13 years and eventually to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The policies crafted in Sacramento are being put in action in places like Fresno and the rest of the San Joaquin Valley, which has become the epicenter of California’s renewable energy industry. Around a third of the state’s renewable energy comes from the valley. Between 2002 and 2015, the construction of renewable energy infrastructure created at least 88,000 jobs in the San Joaquin Valley, according to Betony Jones, who was the director of the green economy program at the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center until late last year. About 90 percent of those jobs were created between 2012 and 2015.

Billington wasn’t the only oil industry worker who turned to the union when barrel prices fell. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 428 has put about 200 displaced oil workers to work over the last few years, mostly in solar. Billington started recruiting his buddies from the oil industry, offering them jobs on his team. At first, his friend Jonathan Sanchez was a tough sell. Sanchez had watched with dismay as crude fell and the work dried up. “They start out saying, everything’s fine. We’re going to get through this,” he told The WorldPost. “Then, slowly but surely, your friends start disappearing.”

Sanchez wasn’t sure he wanted to leave what he knew. “I was leery,” he said. “It took me a long time to cross that line.” Out in the oilfields, people talked about solar like it was a passing fad. It was too expensive, no one was going to adopt it, it’s oil that runs the world.

But Sanchez couldn’t help but notice that he was starting to see solar everywhere he looked. Rooftop solar salespeople had been calling his house with deals on installation. He’d be driving to the coast on vacation and pass solar farm after solar farm. He started to feel like the shift from oil to solar was inevitable. Last year, he took the leap. So far, no regrets. He’s making good money and already got a promotion. “It’s clear that we’re going the solar route,” he said. “So why not learn what you can now to get ahead of the game and not be one of these guys that are chasing the bus, trying to jump on?”

 Last year, researchers at Berkeley published a report that weighed the costs and benefits of the state’s major climate policies and their impact specifically in the San Joaquin Valley. The researchers accounted for positive factors like job creation and investment as well as negatives like the cost for companies to comply with new regulations and potential job losses in vulnerable sectors like the oil industry. They concluded that California’s major climate policies and programs have been an “economic boon” to the region, resulting in a net gain of more than $13 billion and more than 37,000 jobs.“