Donald Trump made a big show of rolling back Joe Biden’s climate policies on his first day in office, eradicating most of the government’s policy considerations for global warming and declaring a national emergency over oil and gas production — the first of its kind.
But many of the most significant changes he is calling for will take months or even years to go into effect. And his desire to use presidential emergency powers whenever possible to expedite energy generation does not contend with the reality that the United States produced more crude oil than any country ever and became the world’s largest liquefied natural gas exporter under Biden’s presidency.
Jimmy Carter was the last to use the power for some states during the energy crisis in the late 1970s. That period of time was marked by Americans waiting in long lines for gas and Carter’s iconic sweater speech, where he urged people to turn down the thermostat to conserve energy while wearing a cardigan.
The United States is far from a situation like that. Nevertheless, Trump’s to-do list on energy and environmental issues was long.
He ordered expedited permitting for new pipelines and other energy infrastructure, the reopening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for drilling, increased lease sales for natural resource extraction and resumption of permits for new liquefied natural gas export terminals, among other changes.
He initiated the process of rolling back Biden’s regulations, including those intended to promote electric vehicles (including the waiver that lets California phase out gas cars), accelerate the closure of coal and gas power plants and create higher efficiency standards for appliances. He froze the distribution of funds from the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill and revoked the Biden administration’s research on the social cost of greenhouse gas emissions. The United States will withdraw again from the global Paris climate agreement, after pulling out the first time under Trump and then returning under Biden.
And he went after his energy bête noire — windmills. He immediately ended all new leasing for offshore wind projects on the outer continental shelf and ordered the agencies to reevaluate leases and permitting for not just offshore but all onshore wind farms as well.
“If you’re into whales, you don’t want windmills either. And they are the most expensive form of energy that you can have by far, and they’re all made in China, by the way,” Trump said in his evening speech at the Capital One Arena, repeating decades-old grievances. “They kill your birds and they ruin your beautiful landscapes.”
Energy experts predicted the moves would seriously impact the renewables industry, even if they don’t totally end investment.
“I don’t think this is an immediate death knell for future renewable investment,” said James Coleman, an energy law scholar at the University of Minnesota, on an X Spaces discussion after the orders were released. “I’m not exactly sure how much of a bite that takes out of the expected renewable investment, but especially if you get onshore, too, maybe that’s significant.”
That said, Trump banning all new leases for offshore wind could seriously hurt the industry because it is already battling with increasing costs and messy supply chains.
Trump marked his energy emergency by declaring in his inaugural address that the country will “be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it.”
Energy analysts widely agree that it will be difficult to use White House policy to encourage more fossil fuel production and then use it to drive down prices, because oil and gas markets operate globally.
The regulatory rollbacks could be the most significant Trump move today to create more demand for oil and gas and slow the transition to emissions-free fuels, but those will take months, if not years, to undo and replace.
Most of Biden’s climate legacy is cemented in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law; changes to those will require acts of Congress — though Republicans have pledged to bring about major rollbacks in their coming reconciliation package. A large portion of the funds available under the Inflation Reduction Act have already been disbursed by the agencies.
Doug Burgum, Chris Wright and Lee Zeldin — Trump’s nominees for Interior, Energy, and EPA, respectively — would be responsible for implementing Trump’s new energy agenda if they are confirmed.
Zeldin faced the most extensive questioning over the Biden-era regulations that Trump has now ordered should be revoked; Wright and Burgum, on the other hand, had friendlier hearings that indicated Congress anticipates a less turbulent transition.
Many of Biden’s climate policies are incentive-based and prioritize American manufacturing and union labor, which Trump praised and promised to strengthen.
The country is on track for an increase in electricity demand — driven by AI, data centers, cryptocurrency and the return of heavy manufacturing plants — over the course of Trump’s presidency, a major shift after decades wherein demand remained flat because of increasing energy efficiency. That change could drive the country toward a rejiggering of energy politics for Trump and the climate-advocacy left, making both the climate agenda and an America First oil and gas agenda difficult to pursue.
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Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.