Trump’s 100-Day Energy Policy Scorecard: Disrupted Markets and Slowed Investment
The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term have been tumultuous and marred by abhorrent trade strategies and legally dubious immigration policies. Trump’s first 100 days have also disrupted energy markets and sparked uncertainty among energy producers.
Trump has used his first 100 days to advance his fossil fuel energy agenda through executive fiat. On Day 1, the president signed a slew of executive orders, including one declaring a national energy emergency and another to unleash American energy, particularly “oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.” Trump has also signed orders challenging states’ climate laws, propping up coal—an energy source that the private sector is moving away from—and using wartime emergency powers to increase the federal government’s role in critical mineral production.
As the president has used the power of the pen to spur favored industries, he has used executive orders to hamstring renewable energy sources. After promising “to have a policy where no windmills are being built,” Trump signed an executive order halting offshore wind farm development. The Trump administration has since shuttered two previously permitted offshore wind energy projects in New York and New Jersey.
While many of Trump’s moves are concerning for anyone in favor of small government, the president has taken steps to reduce the regulatory bloat of the federal government. Trump’s Day 1 executive orders directed federal agencies to identify and streamline regulations that inhibit energy development. The Trump White House has proposed streamlining environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, which has become a bureaucratic impediment to energy and infrastructure projects since its passage in 1969.
In March, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unleashed what it called the “Biggest Deregulatory Action in U.S. History.” Under the direction of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the agency began taking 31 deregulatory actions, including scrapping the Biden administration’s tailpipe emissions rule (a de facto electric vehicle mandate). While some of these regulatory actions may pass legal muster, the proposed reconsideration of the endangerment finding—which allows the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act—has been called a “fool’s errand” by The Volokh Conspiracy‘s Jonathan H. Adler.
Most recently, the Interior
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