Day One: Trump Reverses Biden Attacks on Everything From Drilling to Dishwashers
President Donald Trump kickstarted his energy agenda immediately after taking office Monday, signing executive orders declaring an energy emergency, blocking offshore wind leases, withdrawing from the Paris climate accords, and rolling back regulations targeting home appliances and gas cars. Trump also ended the ongoing pause on permitting for liquefied natural gas export projects.
Trump signed the orders Monday night, following a White House announcement earlier in the day. The announcement said Trump will "unleash American energy" through executive actions, many of which will roll back the Biden administration's climate regulations. As part of the freshly inaugurated president's actions, all agencies will be empowered to take emergency measures to reduce the cost of living for Americans.
Trump's emergency declaration gives his administration immediate access to federal funds that, under the National Emergencies Act and Defense Production Act, can be leveraged to increase energy production or fortify the power grid. While it remains unclear how exactly Trump will use those emergency powers, the White House hinted Monday that they could be used to invest in energy infrastructure such as pipelines or power plants.
"It's an emergency because Americans' electricity prices are rising, transportation prices are rising—we don't want to become like Europe. Our electric grid is disintegrating," Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, said in an interview, adding that Trump could also appoint energy czars across the government to ensure a cohesive strategy for addressing the energy emergency.
Trump's day-one executive orders represent an abrupt departure from the Biden administration's all-of-government approach to fighting global warming by cracking down on oil and gas. They also follow through on Trump's campaign promise to "drill, baby, drill" and end climate-related rules that drive up costs and make it harder to produce energy on federal lands and waters.
Over the last four years, the Biden White House issued a wide range of environmental actions to subsidize green energy, force the electrification of cars and appliances, and shut down fossil fuel development, often prioritizing such actions over consumer choice and energy security, experts argued.
"By making American energy more affordable and accessible, President Trump is benefiting not only our nation but the world. Now, the real challenge is implementing a whole-of-government approach to eliminate the climate hoax at every level," Jason Isaac, the CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Washington Free Beacon.
Trump's actions will also reopen Alaska for oil and gas development. Alaskan lawmakers argued throughout the Biden administration that their state unfairly bore the brunt of the federal climate agenda. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R.) recently published a list of 70 such actions and, in one of the Biden administration's final actions, the Interior Department introduced new restrictions on oil drilling across three million acres of land in Alaska.
That was just the tip of the iceberg. The Biden administration locked up more than 40 million acres of Alaskan land and millions of acres of waters off the coast from drilling and effectively killed a congressionally mandated oil and gas lease sale in the state's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"President Trump is unleashing American energy dominance by crushing the disastrous Green New Deal agenda," Rep. August Pfluger (R., Texas), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, told the Free Beacon in a statement. "By ending Biden's electric vehicle mandates and slashing through red-tape regulations, we're restoring consumer freedom, fiscal sanity, and putting American workers first."
"The Republican Study Committee applauds President Trump's bold action to unlock Alaska's vast energy potential—a direct counter to Biden's four-year regulatory assault on American energy independence," Pfluger continued.
Trump's moves also received immediate criticism from far-left environmental activist groups, which widely supported the Biden administration's climate agenda.
"No matter how extreme he becomes, we’ll confront Trump with optimism and a fierce defense of our beloved wildlife and the planet’s health," said Kierán Suckling, the executive director at the anti-fossil fuel Center for Biological Diversity. "His anti-environment agenda is overwhelmingly unpopular and truly a threat to life on earth."
"Donald Trump believes we are in such a dire energy emergency that he wants us to stop producing affordable clean energy and force dated and wasteful technology," added Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous. "The truth is, the only emergency he is focused on is repaying the corporate polluter executives for donating to his campaign—while we pay the real price of higher energy bills."
Suckling vowed to take the Trump administration to court to "challenge each of these horrific, senseless attacks on wildlife, public lands and our health."
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