By Timothy Gardner, Valerie Volcovici and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Monday laid out a sweeping plan to maximize already record high U.S. oil and gas production by declaring a national energy emergency, stripping away excess regulation, and withdrawing the U.S. from an international pact to fight climate change.
The moves signal a dramatic U-turn in Washington’s energy policy after former President Joe Biden sought for four years to encourage a transition away from fossil fuels in the world’s largest economy and establish the U.S. as a leader in combating global warming.
Topics
“America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” Trump said during his inauguration speech.
“And we are going to use it.”
He later signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris climate deal, an international pact to fight global warming. He had also pulled the U.S. from the pact during his first term.
“I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord rip off,” he said. “The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”
He also said he intended to put a stop to new wind power development, which was a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to decarbonize the power sector.
“We’re not going to do the wind thing,” he said. “Big, ugly wind mills. They ruin your neighborhood.”
Trump said he expects the orders to help reduce consumer prices and improve U.S. national security.
“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world,” he said.
Environmental groups have said they intend to challenge the executive orders in court.
U.S. oil and gas production is already at record levels as drillers chase high prices in the wake of sanctions on Russia after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
But Trump has said production could be higher if environmental initiatives imposed by the Biden administration were rescinded. He said, for example, he intended to end the Green New Deal – a reference to Democratic climate efforts – and revoke what he called Biden’s electric vehicle mandates.
Biden’s administration sought to encourage electric vehicle use by offering a consumer subsidy for new EV purchases, and by imposing tougher tailpipe emissions standards on automakers. It also sought to encourage clean energy technologies using taxpayer subsidies that have drawn billions of dollars in manufacturing investments.
The Democratic National Committee called Trump’s day one agenda a “disaster for working families”.
“Killing manufacturing jobs and giving a free pass to polluters that make people sick is hardly putting ‘America first,'” said Alex Floyd, DNC spokesperson.
EMERGENCY DECLARATION
Trump had promised during his campaign to declare a national energy emergency, arguing the U.S. should produce more fossil fuels and also modernize electrical infrastructure and ramp up power generation to meet rising demand.
U.S. data center power use could nearly triple in the next three years, and consume as much as 12% of the country’s electricity on demand from AI and other technologies, the Department of Energy projects.
Sam Sankar, senior vice president for programs at Earthjustice, a non-profit group which is gearing up to fight Trump policies in the courts, said the declaration of an energy emergency in a non-war period is rare and untested, creating a potential legal vulnerability.
The first Trump administration had considered using emergency powers under the Federal Power Act to attempt to carry out a pledge to rescue the coal industry, but never followed through.
This time, Trump’s declaration would seek to ease environmental restrictions on power plants, speed up construction of new plants, ease permitting for transmission and pipeline projects, and open up new federal lands.
“The common theme is really unleashing affordable and reliable American energy,” a Trump official said earlier on Monday. “Because energy permeates every single part of our economy, it’s also key to restoring our national security and exerting American energy dominance around the world.”
‘RIGHT TO THE TOP’
Trump’s promise to refill strategic reserves, meanwhile, has the potential to lift oil prices by boosting demand for U.S. crude oil.
After the invasion of Ukraine, Biden had sold more than 180 million barrels of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a record amount. The sales helped keep gasoline prices in check, but sank the reserve to the lowest level in 40 years.
Trump is also expected to sign another order aimed at developing natural resources in Alaska, repealing several of Biden’s electric vehicle initiatives and protecting gas-powered appliances from federal and local regulators who want to phase them out of homes and businesses, the incoming official said.
Alaska has been a contentious area of the country when it comes to energy and the environment, with Republicans having long seen opportunities for oil and gas production there while Democrats have sought to preserve pristine land.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, David Lawder, Jarrett Renshaw, Timothy Gardner, Valerie Volcovici and Dan Burns; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Heather Timmons, Alistair Bell, Paul Simao, Deepa Babington and Diane Craft)
