POWER March 2017 - 6

SPEAKING OF POWER
The Changing of the Guard
T
here's a new sheriff in town-Washington,
D.C., that is. President Donald
Trump has taken the reins from
Barack Obama, and he's come out with
guns blazing. It's true-the new administration
has wasted little time shaking
things up since taking office.
While hundreds, if not thousands, of
pages have been written by the media
about President Trump's selections of ExxonMobil
CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of
State, billionaire Betsy DeVos to run the
Department of Education, and Sen. Jeff
Sessions (R-Ala.) as the new U.S. Attorney
General, the nomination of Oklahoma
Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is
probably the pick that will have the greatest
influence on the power industry.
An Industry Friendly EPA
Many environmental groups and left-wing
politicians point to the 14 lawsuits Pruitt
has filed against the EPA as a reason for
concern. Yet, Pruitt has suggested, to anyone
who will listen, that he was just doing
his job. While being grilled by Democratic
senators during his confirmation hearing,
Pruitt said, " The efforts that I took
as attorney general were representing the
interests of the state of Oklahoma. " Regardless
of all of the partisan rhetoric, it
is very likely that Pruitt will be confirmed,
because Republicans control the process.
But no matter who is in charge of the
EPA, the power industry can expect some
significant changes to take place under
the Trump administration. One of its first
moves after the inauguration was to order
a freeze on federal grant spending by the
EPA and to stop all of the agency's external
communications, both of which have
since been relaxed, at least to some extent.
The administration also performed a
near-total scrubbing of the words " climate
change " from the EPA's website.
Soon after Trump took office, the White
House's website was updated too, adding
" An America First Energy Plan " to its
pages. The plan says, " President Trump is
committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary
policies such as the Climate Action
Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. "
6
It also says the administration is " committed
to clean coal technology, and to
reviving America's coal industry. "
However, one executive thinks reviving
the coal industry will be a tall task.
In December, I spoke to Robert Murray,
CEO of Murray Energy Corp., the largest
underground coal mining company in the
U.S. Murray said he asked then Presidentelect
Trump to temper his comments about
bringing coal miners back and bringing
coal back. " It will not happen, " Murray
said. " The destruction that has happened
is permanent. "
While it's true that countless coal-mining
jobs have already been lost, rumors are
that many EPA jobs may also be in jeopardy.
Myron Ebell, President Trump's EPA
transition team leader, told the Associated
Press that slicing the 15,000-person staff
in half would be a good start. Of course,
Ebell's opinion is not policy, but The New
York Times reported that Pruitt has a blueprint
to cut staffing levels and close some
regional offices so it's very likely to be a
leaner EPA in the near future.
Power Employment
Jobs around Washington aren't the only
ones that have been changing. A week
before President Trump took office, the
Department of Energy released its 2017
" U.S. Energy and Employment Report. "
The report notes that 860,869 workers are
directly employed in the electric power
generation industry, which covers all utility
employment across electric generating
technologies including fossil fuels, nuclear,
and renewable energy. It also includes
firms engaged in facility construction,
turbine and other generation equipment
manufacturing, as well as wholesale parts
distribution of all electric generation
technologies.
One of the most surprising things
to me was the number of solar employees-373,807-tallied
by the authors.
The figure was 154,631 more than the total
number of workers employed in the nuclear
and fossil fuel (coal, oil, and natural
gas) electric power generation subsectors
combined. Solar employment had grown
by nearly 25% year-over-year, with many
www.powermag.com
of the jobs being construction related,
resulting from the significant buildout of
new solar generation capacity. Job growth
in the wind category was even stronger-
about 32%-but total employment in
wind energy was only slightly more than
a quarter that of solar workers (101,738).
POWER Employment
Just as change seems inevitable throughout
the power industry, change is also
a fact of life in the media business. For
regular readers of this column, I'm sure
it hasn't gone unnoticed that long-time
POWER editor Gail Reitenbach is not the
author of this month's edition. It is with
some regret that I announce that she is no
longer a member of the POWER team.
Gail spent about 14 years with the
magazine. She is a dedicated professional
and was a great mentor to me personally.
Her keen attention to detail and interest
in the power industry made her a valuable
resource not just for staff, but also for all
POWER readers. She will be missed.
For those who don't know me, my background
is in operations and maintenance.
I spent about 25 years (including time in
the U.S. Navy) working in the industry at
nuclear, biomass, and coal power plants. I
have been with POWER magazine for more
than three years now and look forward to
taking on my new role as executive editor.
Dorothy Lozowski has assumed the role
of editorial director for POWER magazine,
as well as for Chemical Engineering magazine,
where she has been editor in chief.
She holds both bachelor's and master's degrees
in chemical engineering and will be
a great new resource for the POWER team.
Reporter Abby L. Harvey has also been
added to the lineup. Abby has been covering
energy and climate change for GHG
Monitor and is heavily involved in the
Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage
Conference, which is co-located with the
ELECTRIC POWER Conference & Exhibition
in Chicago, Ill., April 10-13, 2017. Abby's
first POWER article, " Cooling Towers: Efficiency
Waiting to Happen, " can be found
starting on page 28 of this issue. ■
-Aaron Larson is POWER's executive
editor.
POWER | March 2017
http://www.powermag.com
POWER March 2017

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