President Trump said at his inauguration ceremony on Monday that he would sign a slew of executive orders to give his administration new powers to promote fossil fuels and withdraw support for renewable energy, saying the U.S. government no longer intends to fight climate change. suggested that there was no.
Trump also intends to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on global warming for a second time. He said vast tracts of public land and federal waters, including Alaska's fragile wilderness, would be opened up for oil and mineral extraction. He also said he would eliminate regulations aimed at promoting electric vehicles and block the construction of new offshore wind farms in federal waters.
Trump also said he plans to declare a national energy emergency. He would be the first president to do so, despite the fact that the United States currently produces more oil and natural gas than any other country. The declaration could suspend some environmental regulations, expedite permits for oil and gas drilling, and lift powers to keep coal-fired power plants open.
“We're going to keep training, baby, we're going to keep training,” Trump said at the Capitol after taking the oath of office.
Trump's switch to fossil fuels comes after the hottest year in recorded history, and scientists say the world is running out of time to limit global warming to relatively low levels. Last year, emissions from the combustion of coal, oil and gas pushed global average temperatures 1.5 degrees Celsius and 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say any warming above this level poses major risks of deadly heat waves, wildfires, droughts, storms and species extinction.
Most of Mr. Trump's energy policies cannot be achieved with a simple stroke of a pen; some require action by federal agencies and Congress, or may face legal challenges. Statutory law also prevented the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the renaming of North America's highest mountain, Denali, Alaska, to Mount McKinley. Trump has promised to do both.
But taken together, these declarations underscore how Trump sees the world. The United States is weakened in the fight against climate change, oil and gas are symbols of strength and power, and abundant fossil fuels will ensure that the United States can dominate its allies. And so are our competitors.
In his inaugural address, Trump said the United States “has the most oil and gas of any country on earth, and we're going to use it.” “We will lower prices, refill our strategic reserves, and export American energy around the world.”
The remarks drew a standing ovation in the Capitol Rotunda, where Trump spoke, and applause at the Hay-Adams Hotel in downtown Washington. There, executives from the country's major oil and gas companies drank champagne and ate mini Pop-Tart pastries with Trump. . Image of playing cards. The party was sponsored by Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder of oil company Continental Resources, who helped raise millions of dollars for Trump's campaign.
Mr. Trump's policies were the opposite of his predecessor's approach. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called climate change an existential threat and said the United States, the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter in history, has an obligation to lead the world in curbing fossil fuel pollution. Ta.
Biden never called for an immediate phase-out of coal, oil and gas. But he has imposed regulations that will make coal-fired power plants more expensive to operate, restrict future drilling leases, and build on wind, solar, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies to lay the groundwork for decarbonization. signed into law investing hundreds of billions of dollars in From fossil fuels.
“We've made really big progress on the clean energy transition,” said Deb Haaland, Biden's Interior Secretary. Biden “really understood that he had a responsibility to do everything he could to address the climate crisis,” she said.
Mr. Trump's efforts to reshape the U.S. energy landscape may run counter to market realities. U.S. oil production reached new heights last year, and natural gas prices fell to their lowest annual average on record, adjusted for inflation, according to the Energy Information Administration. Many oil and gas companies are calling for deregulation, but they also say they are not considering significantly increasing production because such a large increase would likely put pressure on prices and cut into profits. By mid-afternoon on Monday, U.S. oil prices had fallen more than 1% as details of Trump's energy plan emerged.
“If you increase energy production, prices could fall from there,” Jack White, a Colorado petroleum engineer, said at Ham's party.
During Trump's first term, his cabinet members rushed to repeal environmental regulations, leading to many of their efforts being overturned in the courts.
Some experts also questioned whether Trump's declaration of a national energy emergency would be more symbolic than substantive.
“It's not clear what constitutes an emergency,” said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “The United States is producing more oil and gas than ever before, more than any other country in the world, and yet we have no gas lines and no major power outages,” he said in an emergency order. said it was “almost theatrical.”
White House officials said on a call with reporters that the state of emergency was motivated by the belief that policy decisions by the Biden administration are currently making U.S. energy costs higher than they need to be. Interest in artificial intelligence and a data center construction boom are creating an urgent need for more energy, officials said.
Legal experts have identified about 150 emergency powers that the president can invoke under certain conditions, such as suspending certain air pollution requirements or ordering the release of certain materials from the strategic stockpile. However, many of their powers are relatively limited. During his first term, Trump proposed using certain emergency powers to prevent the retirement of unprofitable coal-fired and nuclear power plants, but the effort was ultimately abandoned.
Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said some climate activists had called for Biden to declare a national emergency over climate change, but legal experts say doing so would “It is impossible to actually unleash the power of great powers,” he concluded.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to restart oil and gas production and repeal Biden's Green New Deal, his catchphrase for climate change policies. He promised to do so by cutting food and energy prices in half within his first 18 months in office.
Environmental groups and a coalition of mayors and governors announced Monday that many states, cities and businesses will continue to reduce their own global warming emissions.
“The clean energy boom is unstoppable,” said Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “President Trump can delay the transition, but he can't stop it.”
Trump is expected to order federal agencies to recover unused funds from the Inflation Control Act, a sweeping climate change and clean energy bill that Biden signed into law in 2022. .
But Biden administration officials have scrambled in recent months to close deals worth more than $96.7 billion, representing 84% of the law's subsidies for clean energy, meaning that money won't be easily recouped. are. This includes $8.8 billion for a national program to help consumers buy energy-efficient home appliances, $3 billion to reduce air pollution at U.S. ports, and $3 billion to reduce air pollution at U.S. ports to help local power companies replace coal and gas combustion with wind power. , $9 billion to support switching to alternative electricity sources such as solar and nuclear power.
There remains about $11 billion in grants and other spending that has yet to be finalized, including programs aimed at protecting agriculture and reducing pollution in disadvantaged communities.
At the same time, a large portion of the Inflation Control Act's spending (which could reach hundreds of billions of dollars) will come from taxes that companies can charge when they use or produce various low-carbon energy sources, such as carbon capture technology and wind power. It flows through deductions. Solar cells, batteries, hydrogen, nuclear power, geothermal.
Repealing these deductions would require action from Congress, and some Republicans whose districts benefit from this spending argue that at least some of the tax cuts should continue.
Trump, a longtime critic of wind power, also promised to end federal leases for large wind farms in federal waters.
The Biden administration has already approved 11 commercial-scale wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean. Some are currently under construction, while others have been canceled or delayed due to inflation or supply chain issues. Several eastern states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, have set ambitious renewable energy goals and wanted to build more offshore wind farms this decade. However, additional projects would require federal approval.
