Donald J. Trump became the 47th president of the United States on January 20. His second inaugural address focused significantly on energy policy, where he promised to declare a national energy emergency. Making America “energy dominant again” is the second of his four America First Priorities. President Trump’s energy policy aims to meet two of his goals: reducing energy costs as part of his plan to “defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices” and restoring American manufacturing.
The president’s inaugural remarks indicate renewed support for the oil, gas, and nuclear industries, and signaled an end to federal government preferences for resources such as offshore wind. He promised to tap into American gas and oil to spur economic growth and to promote American manufacturing.
President Trump further expressed an intent to export American energy all over the world and to refill strategic petroleum reserves, which have been depleted in the last few years to their lowest level in decades. Additionally, the incoming administration promised to streamline energy infrastructure permitting and use the energy emergency declaration to build critical infrastructure. President Trump also indicated that he would end the prior administration’s decarbonization policies, revoke the electric vehicle mandate, identify and rescind regulations imposing undue burdens on energy production and use, end leasing of government land to wind farms, and re-withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
DAY 1 ENERGY-RELATED EXECUTIVE ORDERS
On the first day of his second administration, President Trump signed the following executive orders pertinent to US energy policy:
Initial Recissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions
This order revokes several executive orders issued by former President Joseph R. Biden, including the following orders regarding the prior administration’s energy and policy agenda:
- Executive Order 13990 of January 20, 2021 (Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis).
- Executive Order 14008 of January 27, 2021 (Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad).
- Executive Order 14027 of May 7, 2021 (Establishment of the Climate Change Support Office).
- Executive Order 14030 of May 20, 2021 (Climate-Related Financial Risk).
- Executive Order 14037 of August 5, 2021 (Strengthening American Leadership in Clean Cars and Trucks).
- Executive Order 14052 of November 15, 2021 (Implementation of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act).
- Executive Order 14057 of December 8, 2021 (Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability).
- Executive Order 14082 of September 12, 2022 (Implementation of the Energy and Infrastructure Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022).
- The Presidential Memorandum of March 13, 2023 (Withdrawal of Certain Areas off the United States Arctic Coast of the Outer Continental Shelf from Oil or Gas Leasing).
- Executive Order 14096 of April 21, 2023 (Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All).
- The Presidential Memorandum of January 6, 2025 (Withdrawal of Certain Areas of the United States Outer Continental Shelf from Oil or Natural Gas Leasing).
Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements
This order aims to promote the US economy while continuing the nation’s leadership role in protecting the environment. As pertinent to energy policy, the order immediately withdraws the United States from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and any similar commitment made under this Framework. The order also revokes the US International Climate Finance Plan. Further, agencies that plan or coordinate international energy agreements must prioritize economic efficiency, American prosperity, consumer choice, and fiscal restraint in such agreements.
This order encourages energy exploration on federal lands and waters and aims to establish the United States as a leader in nonfuel minerals. The order:
- Directs agencies to review existing regulations that impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources, “with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.”
- Revokes many energy and environmental executive orders of the prior administration, and revokes Executive Order 11991 of May 24, 1977 (Relating to protection and enhancement of environmental quality).
- Directs the Council of Environmental Quality to provide guidance on implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and rescinding certain NEPA regulations, and to revise agency-level implementing regulations for consistency and to promote efficiency.
- Directs cabinet secretaries to eliminate permitting delays, such as through the use of general permitting and permitting by rule, and to expedite projects essential for national security.
- Directs the administration to prepare recommendations for Congress on permitting reform.
- Requires federal permitting processes to adhere only to legislated requirements for environmental considerations and to use only robust methodologies to assess environmental impacts.
- Disbands the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, established pursuant to Executive Order 13990, which would terminate use of estimates of the social cost of greenhouse gasses, and directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address deficiencies or rescind the current social cost of carbon methodology.
- Suspends disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), to include the electric vehicle mandate.
- Directs the Secretary of Energy to resume reviews of applications for liquified natural gas (LNG) export projects.
- Directs the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to reassess withdrawal of public lands, to update critical mineral surveys including uranium, and to ensure that critical mineral projects, including the processing of critical minerals, receive consideration for federal support.
Declaring a National Energy Emergency
This order declares the supply of energy and critical minerals and associated infrastructure to be inadequate and a cause of high energy prices. The order:
- Directs agency heads to use available emergency authorization to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources, including on federal lands and through the use of the Defense Production Act.
- Directs the Administrator of the EPA and the Secretary of Energy to consider issuing emergency fuel waivers to allow the year-round sale of E15 gasoline to meet any projected temporary shortfalls in the supply of gas.
- Directs agencies to expedite infrastructure, energy, environmental, and natural resources projects, including by facilitating the supply, refining, and transportation of energy in and through the West Coast, Northeast, and Alaska.
- Directs agency heads and the Secretary of the Army to identify planned actions to facilitate energy supply that may be subject to emergency treatment under the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.
- Directs the Secretaries of Energy and Defense to assess the Department of Defense’s ability to acquire and transport the energy, electricity, or fuels needed to protect the homeland and to conduct operations abroad.
This order withdraws from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Outer Continental Shelf, thereby preventing any new or renewed wind energy leases on the Outer Continental Shelf. The order also requires an immediate review of Federal Wind Leasing and Permitting Practices, to include an assessment of offshore wind on marine mammals and other wildlife, and the economic costs of intermittent electric generation and subsidies on the viability of the industry.
Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential
This order finds that Alaska “holds an abundant and largely untapped supply of natural resources,” including energy resources, and makes it government policy to maximize the development of these resources, such as by expediting permitting of energy projects and leasing of land for energy extraction. The order:
- Directs agency heads to rescind, revoke, revise, amend, defer, or grant exemptions from any and all regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions that are inconsistent with this policy.
- Prioritizes the development of Alaska’s LNG potential.
- Directs the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw orders and policies that prevent development of energy projects in Alaska and to return to the first Trump administration’s policies for energy development in Alaska.
- Directs the Secretary of the Army to assist the Governor of Alaska in the clearing and maintenance of transportation infrastructure.
- Directs the Secretaries of the Army and Commerce to revise or rescind any agency action that might slow critical projects.
This order requires all federal workers, including those working at energy regulatory agencies, to return to in-person work on a full-time basis.
Regulatory Freeze Pending Review
This order prevents agencies from issuing any new rule until reviewed by an incoming administration official, and requires the withdrawal of any rule not yet published in the Federal Register until reviewed by an incoming administration official.
Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis
This order directs federal agencies to “deliver emergency price relief . . . and increase prosperity of the American worker,” in part by “eliminat[ing] harmful, coercive ‘climate’ policies that increase the costs of food and fuel.”
INITIAL MAJOR PERSONNEL ACTIONS
President Trump announced the following nominations, appointments, and designations pertinent to agencies affecting US energy policy:
Cabinet-Level Nominations, Cabinet Designations, and Sub-Cabinet Appointments
- Department of Energy:
- Christopher Wright to be nominated Secretary of Energy, with Ingrid Kolb to be acting Secretary in the interim.
- Preston Griffith to be Under Secretary of Energy.
- Darío Gil to be Under Secretary for Science at the Department of Energy.
- Douglas Burgum to be Secretary of the Interior.
- Lee Zeldin to be Administrator of the EPA, with James Payne to be acting Administrator in the interim.
- Mark Christie has become the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
- David Wright has become the Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
- Patrick Fuchs has become the Chair of the Surface Transportation Board.
* * * * *
We expect additional executive, regulatory, and legislative action in the next few days and months to implement President Trump’s energy policy. We will provide additional analysis and guidance as these policies are being formed and once implemented. Please visit Morgan Lewis’s energy blogs Power & Pipes (FERC, CFTC, DOE, State), Up and Atom (Nuclear), and our subscriptions page for updates on the Trump-Vance administration’s energy policies or contact Juliana Israel to be added to Morgan Lewis’s energy and project development distribution list.