Trump Prepares to Sign Slew of Energy Executive Orders
President-elect Donald Trump is preparing to sign a host of executive orders related to energy in the first hours after his inauguration. Bloomberg reported that Trump plans to declare a national energy emergency right after he’s sworn in as part of his plan to boost oil and gas production.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, in addition to energy, Trump will target immigration and government hiring policies with his first executive orders. The planned changes include declaring a national emergency on the border between the United States and Mexico, redirecting funding to border infrastructure, reversing the diversity, equity, and inclusion policies of the previous administration, and canceling the federal land and offshore oil and gas drilling bans that President Biden signed while he was in office.
As for the emergency that Trump is reportedly preparing to declare, Bloomberg wrote that it was unclear yet what it would be used to do specifically. The publication noted, however, that with such a declaration a president can “unlock special powers over the transportation of crude and use authorities to direct shifts in how electricity is generated and transmitted.”
Another direction of Trump’s energy policies is cutting off funding for transition technologies, including EV subsidies, the Wall Street Journal noted in its report. The president-elect has also threatened to ban offshore wind on his first day in office. Trump has called wind power “an economic and environmental disaster.” However, he would be limited in his efforts to stop new wind turbine construction to federal lands.
