January 21, 2025
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Trump has declared an energy “emergency” to justify more oil and gas drilling
Although symbolic, President Trump’s declaration of an “energy emergency” could turn a wrench in renewable energy development and cut the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders during the inauguration parade inside Capital One Arena on January 20, 2025 in Washington.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
KLIMAWIRE | In the minutes of his second term, President Donald Trump declared a “national energy emergency” and said it would usher in a “golden age” of domestic affordability and global dominance.
Although largely symbolic, the move was a particularly bitter pill for climate advocates.
They discuss not only the need for an energy emergency, but also US oil and gas production has progressed in recent years — but Trump’s Day 1 decision comes after activists failed to persuade former President Joe Biden to declare a similar climate change emergency for four years.
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Collin Rees, US program manager for activist group Oil Change International, said Trump’s quick turnaround shows he understands the political power of an emergency declaration.
His group has long pressed the Biden administration to do the same on climate. Now, Rees said, advocates are asking why Biden never took that step, even if it was just to show his supporters that he took the threat of unmitigated global warming seriously.
“It would show that it was ready to fight and really mobilize all the resources of the government,” said Rees.
During his time in office, Biden made climate action a priority for the federal government and helped pass one of the largest climate laws in US history. But his team resisted calls to declare an emergency, even as climate-induced heat waves, droughts, floods, hurricanes and wildfires killed thousands of Americans.
Some environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers wanted to go beyond the climate policies that Biden put in place. The Bidens expected it use the climate emergency to end crude oil exports, halt offshore oil drilling, reduce US investment in international fossil fuel projects, grow domestic clean energy manufacturing, and rebuild renewable energy systems in communities affected by climate change.
For his part, Trump didn’t even wait until the end of his nearly 3,000-word inauguration speech to declare an energy emergency.
“We will lower prices, replenish our strategic reserves and export American energy around the world,” Trump said in a speech from the Capitol Rotunda.
The energy emergency It slashes the Endangered Species Act and claims without evidence that Biden’s climate policies have put the nation at risk and led to a “precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply and an increasingly unreliable grid.” The emergency creates a definition of energy that excludes wind and solar, and says the heads of key federal agencies should use their authority to “facilitate the identification, leasing, location, production, transportation, refining and generation of domestic energy resources.” particularly on the West and East coasts, where Democratic governors and state lawmakers have blocked some fossil fuel infrastructure. He faces a significant court battle in the coming months and years.
Regardless of the language, Trump won’t be able to fully implement his energy policy with the stroke of a pen, said Michael Gerrard, faculty director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
Much of that will be decided in the coming years, after battles in the courts and in Congress.
“Declaring an emergency gives few additional powers,” Gerrard said. “It’s not as if it allows federal or state law to be superseded as a general matter. Certain specific things can be done, but in terms of energy, they are very limited.”
This could be banning the import or export of certain types of energy or using the defense production law to build energy equipment. However, Gerrard said the energy emergency declaration was ultimately “more performative than official”.
As part of the reason for the emergency declaration, Trump said on Monday that the United States was in an energy crisis. But Trump also took steps to sideline clean energy on Day 1 — even as the sector expanded significantly under Biden’s presidency, and experts say it still has the potential to boost U.S. energy independence.
The Department of Energy has estimated that the country has sufficient renewable energy Chance to meet 100 times US annual energy demand.
Trump, however, has taken a dim view of cleaner forms of energy, especially wind. His office sent a memo to reporters on Monday saying Trump would move to halt onshore and offshore wind development.
The move will slow, but not stop, the expansion of US clean energy. But Oil Change International’s Rees said Trump’s avalanche of energy moves shows that conservative Americans now have the upper hand in getting their message across to voters.
“I think it’s an indicator that the right is doing better in politics,” Rees said. “Trump better understands the intersection of politics and energy.”
Reprinted E&E News Courtesy of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environmental professionals.
