@Lyle It's not surprising to non-US observers at all. The control of US governments by coal and petro interests is obvious.

The article itself is a string of WTFs. Solar and wind being 19% of generation is pathetic. Usually daytime generation is almost entirely rooftop solar, not: "rooftop solar panels on houses or businesses, while helpful, provide just a tiny fraction of the total power supply".

Basically, the US is seeking competitive advantage by avoiding the costs of new energy infrastructure, whatever that does to the climate. Through a terrible coincidence of timing, the capex of the new energy infrastructure of solar, wind and batteries is cheaper than the opex of gas, coal, nuclear or hydro, so this strategy has backfired.

Here is an overcast windy day. Rooftop solar (light yellow) is still 2/3rd of daytime generation. Wind (green) is doing the rest of the heavy lifting, you can see how those turbine blades are angled to not produce much during the day. All this is only electricity visible to the grid, so about half of actual electricity use. The graph doesn't include my workplace or home (both run on on-site solar during the day and battery overnight).