As it turns out, the start of anything new in our world involves a flurry of paperwork. Accordingly, Donald Trump’s new “Golden Age of America” began with a cascade of executive orders setting the U.S. government on a new course for energy policy.
Most presidents come into office either as successors with mandates to carry forward the policies of their popular predecessors or disruptive agents of change with mandates to reform and redirect the government. Trump has the advantage of being both his own successor and a transformative leader, uniquely positioned to advance his established agenda while doubling down on his promises to reshape the nation’s political and economic landscape.
The volume of executive orders and actions Trump deployed in the hours after he took the oath of office is a testament to the power of being elected into a non-consecutive second term. Trump and his aides have had the time and the resources to chart out a new course for the ship of state.
(Photo: Documerica/Unsplash; Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump’s initial orders laid the groundwork for a sweeping new direction in energy policy. Many of the Biden administration’s policies were crafted around the progressive conviction that the U.S. needed to “transition” away from fossil fuels in order to avoid disastrous changes in climate. These included policies aimed at discouraging the production of oil and natural gas, attempts to stymie the export of fossil fuel energy products, and messaging that the U.S. government would subsidize green energy alternatives to such an extent that it would threaten the future profitability of oil and natural gas.
Reversing the Green New Deal
When it became politically inconvenient for the Biden administration to have embraced the Green New Deal so wholeheartedly, Democrat-friendly pundits began pointing out that the U.S. was producing more oil and natural gas under Biden than it had under Trump. This was an extremely deceptive line that masks the fact that the growth of both natural gas and oil production slowed considerably under Biden and was set to slow even further. As a result, the growth of energy production lagged the growth of the economy and the energy needs of U.S. businesses and households. What’s more, investment in the infrastructure critical to U.S. energy production—including refineries, ports for energy export, and pipelines—lagged enough to promise future curtailment of fossil fuel extraction.
Trump’s executive orders make it clear that the administration plans to unshackle American energy production. He has declared a national energy emergency. He has ended an order from the Biden administration that all federal agencies consider climate change and has once again withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords. He has announced that it is the policy of the U.S. government to encourage energy exploration and production on federal lands. The electric vehicle mandate is gone.
The government will seek to establish the U.S. as a leading producer of rare-earths and other non-fuel minerals. Every agency has been instructed to review “all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and any other agency actions (collectively, agency actions) to identify those agency actions that impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources — with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.”
Skeptics have argued that the impact of the Trump administration’s reforms will be modest and will not significantly increase fossil fuel production. That stretches credibility beyond the breaking point because it requires a belief that the Biden administration’s policies pushing Green New Deal energy production and discouraging investment in fossil fuels had no effect and would have no effect if they had been continued by Kamala Harris. It would mean that all that talk about the U.S. having a “responsibility” to reduce carbon emissions was meaningless blather.
It would also mean that climate activists should not complain about the exit from the Paris Accords or the change in regulatory rules around energy. If Biden’s policies were not diminishing fossil fuel production and use and Trump’s cannot reverse the effects, there’s nothing for the activists to complain about. The fact that they are complaining loudly is a sign that they actually do expect the new direction to matter.
The more likely scenario is that the Golden Age begins with paperwork but leads to digging, drilling, extracting, refining, and burning more fossil fuels, producing more energy and prosperity for the American people.
