A real-world energy policy

President Barack Obama all but declared a war on coal. Companies could build all the coal mines they wanted to, he said, but he would make sure it bankrupted them. Hillary Clinton as president would have continued the war and even stepped up the hostilities. “We’re going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business,” she said at one point.

Now it looks like the war is over. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order undoing Obama’s executive actions on climate change that would have, among other things, crippled the coal industry.

Just to be clear, Trump’s action on Tuesday will not “save” coal. Natural gas is cheaper than coal and more environmentally friendly, so it is replacing coal in a lot of plants. That change is pushing the price of coal ever higher.

But his actions will at least slow the decline of coal, and let its death be the result of natural economic forces. That will make the transition easier for both those in the industry and the rest of us who depend on inexpensive and reliable sources of energy.

More important, his move is the first step in a return to a sane, well-balanced approach to energy that takes into account both environmental concerns and economic realities.

Backing off from the “fossil fuels are evil” stand does not mean turning our backs on wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy. A sensible approach would take an “all of the above” policy. And it would acknowledge that there are trade-offs involving many factors in any policy.

We have been pursuing a fantasyland energy policy for years. It looks like we’re finally coming back to the real world. Good.