Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Politics

Trump’s National Energy Emergency Is Here

And it won’t benefit renewables.

Donald Trump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Donald Trump looked to further unleash American energy production as one of the first actions of his new term, signing an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency” among the litany of other actions and declarations he made on Monday.

Earlier, in his inaugural address, he boasted that the United States has “the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it.”

“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world,” Trump said.

The order describes an “active threat to the American people from high energy prices,” as “hostile state and non-state foreign actors have targeted our domestic energy infrastructure, weaponized our reliance on foreign energy, and abused their ability to cause dramatic swings within international commodity markets.” The order directs agency leaders to “exercise any lawful emergency authorities available to them, as well as all other lawful authorities they may possess” to facilitate U.S. energy production, including — but not limited to — activities on federal lands.

The Trump administration had earlier outlined its plans in a document posted to the White House website Monday morning, which promised regulatory reform not only for “energy production and use,” but also for “mining and processing of non-fuel minerals.”

The document said the purpose of the national energy emergency would be to “use all necessary resources to build critical infrastructure.” In remarks in the days before the inauguration, Trump described the goal of declaring an energy emergency as enabling investors to more easily “build big plants, AI plants,” and that the U.S. needs to “double the energy that we already have — and it’s going to end up being more than that.”

That could mean waiving environmental rules — including undoing the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant emissions rules — in order to speed the building of power plants in order to power new data centers.

While the exact parameters of these plans are still being drawn and will probably require either months-long rulemaking processes or legislation or both, by Monday morning, clean energy and environmental groups have already started to weigh in.

“On his first day back in the White House, President Trump is trying to turn back the clock on America’s clean energy leadership at the expense of American people and their health,” Debbie Weyl, the acting United States director of the World Resources Institute, said in a statement following the president's address to the nation. “If realized, President Trump’s actions would sacrifice the United States’ competitiveness globally, raise energy prices for American families, and pollute our air. Pledging to roll back climate policies that have created more than 400,000 good-paying American jobs will only hurt workers and our economy.”

On the other hand, at least portions of the clean energy industry are seeing the bright side of Trump’s emphasis on energy maximalism.

“A promise to achieve greater energy abundance in America must include leveraging the incredible, proven power of advanced energy technologies. 96% of all the new electricity added to America’s power grid in 2024 was provided by advanced energy, the lowest-cost way to reliability meet growing electricity demand,” Heather O’Neill, the president and chief executive of the trade group Advanced Energy United, said in a similarly timed statement.

“Our power grid faces real challenges, and at a moment when wildfires and extreme temperatures threaten lives across the country, it’s clearer than ever that we need to deepen our investments in advanced energy solutions that increase resilience and lower costs. We urge the Administration to embrace the market forces and tax cuts that are empowering states to meet their energy needs and goals.”

When the White House published the text of the emergency declaration, however, it became clear that Trump took a narrow view of what kinds of energy might serve to mitigate the situation: “crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals.” No hydrogen, no solar, and no wind.

While the newly inaugurated Trump administration has already taken a dramatic rhetorical turn in how it treats the oil and gas industry compared to Biden’s, it’s less clear that production can actually be meaningfully increased. While the Biden administration was stingy in opening up public lands for fossil fuel exploration — often doing soonly under political or legal pressureoil andgas production hit record levels while Biden was in office.

Any Biden administration efforts to curtail fossil fuel production faced legal and political pushback. In the first week of his presidency, Biden issued a moratorium on new oil and gas leasing on public lands, which was quickly halted by a federal judge. During the drafting of the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature climate law, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin insisted on oil and gas lease sales as a condition of his support, and then on opening up Willow, the oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, for drilling by ConocoPhillips. At the same time, gas prices soared to over $5 a gallon following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, leading the Biden administration to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a tool to bring down oil prices, selling almost 200 million barrels.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve now has just under 400 million barrels, well short of its legal limit of 714 million. Trump has promised to refill it, which would be a boon to American domestic oil producers, although this would likely require a Congressional appropriation.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the signing of the executive order declaring a national energy emergency.

Blue

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Electric Vehicles

Tesla’s Robo-Future Is Still Pretty Far Off

The company says its first Optimus robots will start rolling off the line in “2026.”

Hailing a Robotaxi.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images, Tesla

Tesla is a car company everywhere except Wall Street. It delivered some 1.7 million cars in 2024, which were built in factories in Texas, California, Germany, and China. These car sales (and leases and sales of regulatory credits) generated some $77 billion in revenue. Its gross margin on these cars is about 18.5%, or around $14 billion.

When Tesla reported its first quarter earnings, it announced a more than 70% decline in profits, continued falling sales, and ahit to its business from the trade war with China. But its stock climbed the next day, and is now trading at around $350 a share, from $238 before the report, giving it an overall value of over $1 trillion. By some metrics, Tesla makes up more than half of the overall value of the automotive industry.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Politics

The Energy Department’s Possibly Illegal Move to Fund a Fossil-Fired Steel Furnace

At least one target of Chris Wright’s grant review may run into some sticky statutory issues.

Flags and steel.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Department of Energy announced on Thursday that it’s reviewing some 179 awards made by the Biden administration worth $15 billion to ensure they were “consistent with Federal law and this Administration’s policies and priorities.”

But what happens when federal law and Trump’s priorities are at odds?

Keep reading...Show less
Blue
Climate

AM Briefing: Republicans Waver Over Cost, Energy Ahead of Budget Vote

On budget negotiations, Climeworks, and DOE grants

Republicans Waver Over Cost, Energy Ahead of Budget Vote
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Current conditions: It’s peak storm season in the U.S., with severe weather in the forecast for at least the next six days in the Midwest and EastSan Antonio, Texas, is expected to hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit todayMonsoon rains have begun in Sri Lanka.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Republicans waver on budget ahead of possible floor vote next week

The House Budget Committee meeting to prepare the reconciliation bill for a floor vote as early as next week appears to be a go for Friday, despite calls from some Republicans to delay the session. At least three GOP House members, including two members of the Freedom Caucus, have threatened to vote no on the budget because a final score for the Energy and Commerce portion of the bill, which includes cuts to Medicaid, won’t be ready from the Congressional Budget Office until next week. That is causing a “math problem” for Republicans, Politico writes, because the Budget Committee “is split 21-16 in favor of Republicans, and Democrats are expecting full attendance,” meaning Republicans can “only lose two votes if they want to move forward with the megabill Friday.” Republican Brandon Gill of Texas is currently out on paternity leave, further reducing the margin for disagreement.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow