President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to declare a national energy emergency as soon as he takes office on Monday, months after promising voters he would cut their electricity and gasoline prices in half in the first year of the his administration.
“To achieve this rapid reduction in energy costs, I will declare a national emergency to allow us to dramatically increase the production, generation and supply of energy,” Trump said. he told supporters at a rally in Potterville, Michigan last August. “Starting on day one, I will allow new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors and we will cut the red tape.”
The president-elect confirmed as late as December 22 that he intended to “declare a national energy emergency” on the first day of his administration. He vowed to issue a series of executive orders to reverse the Biden administration's policies on natural gas exports, drilling standards and emissions.
Trump plans to establish a National Energy Council led by Gov. North Dakota, Doug Burgum, his choice to lead the Department of the Interior. Burgum said at a Senate hearing announced this week that he intends to establish the council through an executive order.
It is unclear whether the emergency declaration would be largely symbolic or if it would include broader powers that go beyond the executive orders on energy that Trump is widely expected to issue on Monday . The president-elect's transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
“I expect it to be a rhetorical vindication of the energy crisis,” said Mike Sommers, president of the oil industry lobby group the American Petroleum Institute. “When you put the executive orders together, that is the answer to what to do about the energy crisis.”
There are several critical pieces of legislation that Trump could introduce that are related to energy, said Glenn Schwartz, director of energy policy at the consulting firm Rapidan Energy. Emergency situations are often clearly defined under federal law, giving the president broad discretion to use them as he sees fit, Schwartz said.
And there is likely to be little pushback from the courts on Trump because they are willing to challenge presidential decisions related to national security, Schwartz said.
“What you end up with is that even if Trump expands his emergency powers in unprecedented ways, it's not clear that courts would stop any of these actions,” said the analyst.
Most likely emergency authorities
There is clear precedent for Trump to invoke emergency authority to boost power generation and expand the nation's fuel supply, Schwartz told clients in a research report released last Thursday. Authorities exercising the powers would issue certain environmental and pollution regulations related to energy.
Trump could issue fuel rebates under the Clean Air Act to allow gasoline on the market that would otherwise violate federal air quality standards, the analyst said. Presidents have often used such grants when they needed to stretch the country's gasoline supply and monitor prices, he said.
Trump could also the Federal power act ordering power plants to run at maximum capacity and not comply with pollution limits, Schwartz said. The secretary can invoke the power of the act in times of war or when a sudden increase in demand or a shortage of electricity causes an emergency.
The supply has rarely been used since World War II and has been kept mostly for situations where extreme weather has overwhelmed power plants, Schwartz said.
The largest grid operator in the US, PJM Interconnection, has warned about a lack of power as coal plants are being retired faster than new capacity is being brought online. PJM operates the grid in all or part of 13 states, in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South.
The situation could be more acute as electricity demand increases dramatically as the technology sector builds out energy-hungry data centers to support artificial intelligence applications.
The first Trump administration considered the act in 2018 to order resources to buy two years of power from coal and nuclear plants that were in danger of closing. The administration at the time dropped the idea in the end after pushing back from business.
Trump could also choose a a broader statute which allows the president to waive pollution laws for industrial facilities, power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, chemical plants and other industrial facilities in emergency situations, Schwartz said.
There is less support under federal law for the president to force new production, Schwartz said. Trump could direct federal agencies to oversee environmental reviews of energy projects he supports, such as pipelines, but the president cannot use emergency powers to override basic environmental policies. -institutions such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, the analyst said.
Expected action orders
Oil industry lobbyists at the American Petroleum Institute expect Trump to issue a series of energy-related orders as soon as Monday.
The administration is expected to issue an order lifting the suspension of the Biden team new liquefied natural gas exports resources, Sommers said. The president-elect will also likely try to reverse President Biden's recent decision to ban drilling in 625 million acres of federal waters. Trump's authority to do this has been disputed and such an order would likely be in court.
“We believe he has the ability to reverse that and we will defend that in court,” Sommers said.
The industry expects the president to also direct the Interior Department to increase oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, Sommers said. The Biden administration was on the lowest rent in history under a program that will run through 2029.
These decisions are not expected to have an immediate impact on production. The US has been the world the largest oil producer for six yearscrossing Saudi Arabia and Russia. Leaders are Exxon and Chevron has made it clear that production decisions are based on market conditions, not in response to who is in the White House.
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink,” Schwartz said. “It can give them all the resources they need to drill, but I haven't seen anything that suggests that he can make them take him out of the earth.”
Trump is expected to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement. Government orders targeting tailpipe emissions and fuel economy standards for cars are also expected.
However, only so much can be done through an executive order, Sommers said, and the directives often have to go through a time-consuming rulemaking process. The oil industry is more focused on pushing for more permanent policy changes in the Republican-controlled Congress, he said.
“There's not a lot of stuff they can do on day one, other than federal agencies just to fulfill the promise of energy leadership,” Sommers said.
