How can Trump declare a national energy emergency?

President-elect Donald Trump vowed to declare a national energy emergency as soon as he takes office on Monday, months after promising voters to cut electricity and gasoline prices in half during his first year in office.

“In order to achieve this rapid reduction in energy costs, I will declare a national emergency so that we can dramatically increase energy production, production and supply,” Trump said. he told his supporters at the rally Potterville, Michigan, last August. “From day one, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors, and we will cut red tape.”

The president-elect declared his intention again on December 22.declared a national energy emergency” On the first day of his administration. He promised to issue a series of executive orders to reverse the Biden administration’s policies on natural gas exports, drilling and emissions standards.

Trump plans to build National Energy Board His choice to lead the Department of the Interior, led by North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. Burgum said during a Senate hearing on his nomination this week that he expects the council to be created by executive order.

It is unclear whether the emergency declaration will be largely symbolic or whether it will invoke broader powers that go beyond the energy-related executive orders Trump is widely expected to issue on Monday. The president-elect’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

“My expectation is that this will be a rhetorical declaration of an energy emergency,” said Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry lobby group. “When you put the executive orders together, it’s going to be the answer to what to do in an energy emergency.”

Glenn Schwartz, director of energy policy at Rapidan Energy, a consulting firm, said there are several emergency energy laws that Trump could invoke. Emergencies are often loosely defined by federal law, giving the president broad discretion to use them as he sees fit, Schwartz said.

Schwartz said Trump is likely to hold back from the courts a bit because they don’t want to challenge the president’s national security decisions.

“Your bottom line is that even if Trump expands his emergency powers in unprecedented ways, it’s not clear that the courts will step in to stop any of these consequential actions,” the analyst said.

Probably the emergency authorities

Schwartz told clients in a research report published last Thursday that there is clear precedent for Trump to invoke emergency powers to boost electricity generation and expand the nation’s fuel supply. Authorities exercising the powers will waive certain environmental and pollution regulations related to energy.

An analyst says Trump could waive the fuel under the Clean Air Act to allow gasoline to go on the market, which would otherwise violate federal air quality standards. According to him, presidents have often used such concessions to expand the country’s gasoline supply and keep prices under control.

Trump can also apply Federal power act Schwartz ordered power plants to operate at maximum capacity and not comply with pollution limits. The secretary of energy can invoke the act in times of war or when a sudden increase in demand or a shortage of electricity creates an emergency.

Schwartz said the provision has rarely been used since World War II and is mostly reserved for situations where extreme weather overwhelms power plants.

PJM Interconnection, the largest network operator in the United States, a lack of power as coal plants are being commissioned faster than new capacity is being commissioned. PJM operates a network in all or part of 13 states, the Mid-Atlantic, the Midwest and the South.

As the technology sector builds power-hungry data centers to support AI applications, the situation could worsen as demand for electricity increases significantly.

The first Trump administration considered invoking the act in 2018 to order utilities to buy electricity for two years from coal and nuclear plants at risk of shutting down. The then management eventually abandoned the idea after facing pushback from the industry.

Trump can also choose broader charter It allows the president to suspend pollution laws for industrial facilities, power plants, oil refineries, steel plants, chemical plants and other industrial facilities in emergency situations, Schwartz said.

Schwartz said the president has less support for a federal law to force new production. Trump could direct federal agencies to fast-track environmental reviews of energy projects he supports, such as pipelines, but the president has used emergency authorities to circumvent key environmental policies such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, the analyst said. can’t.

Pending execution orders

Oil industry lobbyists at the American Petroleum Institute expect Trump to issue a series of energy-related executive orders on Monday.

The administration is expected to issue an order ending the suspension of the Biden team new liquefied natural gas exports facilities, Sommers said. The president-elect is also likely to try to reverse President Biden’s decision to ban drilling in 625 million acres of federal waters. Trump’s authority to do so is disputed, and such an order would likely end up in court.

“We think he has the ability to pay it back, and we will defend it in court,” Sommers said.

Sommers said the industry expects the president to also direct the Interior Department to increase sales of oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The Biden administration has released information about this lowest rent in history Within the framework of the program that will last until 2029.

These decisions are not expected to have an immediate impact on production. The United States has been the world’s largest oil and gas producer for six years, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia. CEOs of the company Exxon and Chevron made it clear that production decisions were based on market conditions, not in response to who was in the White House.

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink,” Schwartz said. “He can give them all the resources they need to be able to dig, but I haven’t seen anything that suggests he can force it out of the ground.”

Trump is expected to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. Executive orders targeting tailpipe emissions and fuel economy standards for vehicles are also expected.

Still, only so much can be done with an executive order, Sommers said, and directives often have to go through a time-consuming rulemaking process. The oil industry is more focused on pushing for more lasting policy changes in the Republican-controlled Congress, he said.

“There’s not a lot they can do on day one, other than directly with the federal agencies, other than deliver on the promise of energy dominance,” Sommers said.