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President Biden has spent the last four years talking about building a clean economy that runs on green energy. President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a pledge to drill, baby, drill. But for the incoming administration, embracing oil might leave room for some renewable energy, too. NPR's Camila Domonoske reports many Republicans want both.
CAMILA DOMONOSKE, BYLINE: Trump calls oil liquid gold and climate change a big hoax, and he's promised to roll back Biden's environmental policies and unleash domestic oil production. Thomas Pyle runs an energy think tank. He was part of Trump's transition team in his first administration.
THOMAS PYLE: What we want to do is create an environment where - and I think this is clear in President Trump - that your president is an enthusiastic fan of energy production in the United States, from all sources.
DOMONOSKE: All sources - that's a theme you hear a lot from Republicans right now. That means oil and gas and solar and geothermal and nuclear and biofuels, often summed up in four words - all of the above. Here's Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, to reporters after the election.
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MIKE SOMMERS: Voters across the country and on both sides of the aisle sent a clear message to policymakers - that they want an all-of-the-above approach to energy.
DOMONOSKE: Trump's pick for energy czar, Doug Burgum, likes the phrase. So do key Republicans in Congress. It signals a belief that oil is here to stay, even as other energy sources grow, too. The oil lobby has promoted this phrase for decades. It was embraced by politicians from both sides, including, most famously, former President Barack Obama, who angered oil execs and environmentalists alike by supporting both natural gas and green subsidies.
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BARACK OBAMA: We need a sustained, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy - oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear, biofuels and more.
DOMONOSKE: And since the Obama era, there have been real changes in energy markets that make the case for renewables stronger and maybe just different. Renewables like wind and solar have gotten a lot cheaper, often cheaper than fossil fuels, and they're huge in states with Republican governments, like Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota. Kennedy Nickerson focuses on energy policy for the consultancy Capstone. She said some renewable projects will be set back by Trump's policies, but others will get support and a rebranding.
KENNEDY NICKERSON: If it's solar, Republicans will say, well, it's cheap. And if it's Democrats talking about solar, they'll say, well, it's clean.
DOMONOSKE: Biden also emphasized clean energy means jobs, and you'll hear that from Republicans, too. It's domestic, homegrown, made-in-America energy. Abigail Ross Hopper, who leads a big solar energy trade group, emphasized U.S. jobs and energy security in a press call this month.
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ABIGAIL ROSS HOPPER: That narrative, that conversation, is one that I think translates across political parties and really resonates.
DOMONOSKE: And, she noted, something else has changed. Demand for energy is soaring thanks to things like AI data centers and new factories. The country needs more energy of all kinds.
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ROSS HOPPER: This is not a time to choose between technologies. This is a time to expand and increase our energy dominance across the portfolio and across the world.
DOMONOSKE: Chris Wright is a fracking CEO and Trump's nominee for secretary of energy. He advocates for fossil fuels and says, while climate change is happening, it's not a crisis. Here's his take on rebranding green energy from a talk this summer.
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CHRIS WRIGHT: We want new energies, but let's just be honest, let's call them alternative energies or new energies. Don't call them clean energy 'cause there's no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy.
DOMONOSKE: The Trump team is not interested in clean energy, but they might support the same technologies under a different name.
Camila Domonoske, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF COCONUT RECORDS' AND WOODY JACKSON'S "DAKOTA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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