"The last story I wrote before Donald Trump was elected president, four years and two months ago, was about the Obama administration’s claim that it had approved 60 renewable energy projects on public lands, capable of powering up to 5 million homes. I scrutinized those numbers, finding they dramatically overestimated the outgoing president’s accomplishments.

When Trump defeated Hillary Clinton a few days after the story published, I started to wonder if I had wasted my time.

As a journalist, I had focused my energies on holding President Obama accountable for not living up to his rhetoric on climate — and now he was being replaced by a man who denied the climate crisis even existed. Who would care that some of Obama’s solar and wind projects had never been built, when the federal government instead began promoting coal, oil and gas extraction?"

Sammy Roth reports for the Los Angeles Times January 21, 2021. [2]