Key Takeaways
President Donald Trump’s new Energy Team — Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary Chris Wright — are directing staff to quickly implement programs promoting the president’s pro-American energy and natural resource policies.
No longer burdened by the “net-zero” anti-hydrocarbon policies of the Biden administration or the UN’s Paris Accords, the secretaries are pursuing policies of abundance and growth and looking for impediments that have slowed down both in the past.
Calls for review of land withdrawals, permit denials, general foot-dragging, and endless delays have been undertaken by both secretaries, who have short timelines for reporting deadlines.
These directives are consistent with President Trump’s executive order that the United States should produce more of the energy, minerals, and natural resources it consumes and should clear government roadblocks keeping the United States from doing so.
Department of Interior (DOI) Secretary Doug Burgum and Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright have advised their staff to institute President Trump’s energy dominance program. DOE Secretary Wright prioritizes expanding energy production rather than pursuing Biden’s net-zero climate policies, stating, “net-zero policies raise energy costs for American families and businesses, threaten the reliability of our energy system, and undermine our energy and national security.” DOI Secretary Burgum issued orders reversing Biden’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and Alaskan oil drilling bans, directing the review of monuments for energy potential, speeding up permitting of energy projects, and unwinding environmental protections that are burdensome. Burgum states, “we are committed to working collaboratively to unlock America’s full potential in energy dominance and economic development to make life more affordable for every American family while showing the world the power of America’s natural resources and innovation.” Their agencies will follow President Trump’s direction to eliminate at least 10 regulations for every new one introduced.
Energy Department Directive
Energy Secretary Chris Wright called energy “the essential ingredient that enables everything we do” and ordered changes to how the agency will approach home appliances, nuclear power, gas exports, and more. His order said the department would pursue plans President Trump has outlined to speed up energy permitting, strengthen grid resilience, expand nuclear power capacity, and refill the nation’s strategic oil stockpiles by resupplying the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) — a crucial national security entity. President Biden used a substantial portion of the nation’s SPR to lower oil and gasoline prices before the midterm election 2022. During parts of Biden’s term, the SPR level was below half of its capacity, with much of the remaining oil a type that U.S. refineries no longer use. During Trump’s first term, a Democrat Congress denied him $3 billion to fill the reserve to capacity when oil sold at about $24 a barrel during Covid lockdowns.
Wright also ordered new attention be paid to the U.S. nuclear stockpile to meet Cold War-era waste cleanup commitments and modernize atomic weapons as a tool for peace. According to the order, Energy Department Research & Development (R&D) efforts will prioritize affordable, reliable, and secure energy technologies, including fossil fuels, advanced nuclear, geothermal, and hydropower. Wright also ordered a cost-benefit analysis for any new standards imposed that considers the upfront cost of purchasing new products and reflects actual cost savings for American families. The Energy Department will also exercise its legal authorities going forward to aid in approving and constructing new, reliable energy infrastructure.
Interior Department Directives
Interior is using President Trump’s executive order declaring a national energy emergency to “immediately identify all emergency and legal authorities available” to promote energy development on federal land. Burgum plans to allow more land for energy development, which Biden had restricted or placed under conservation. Toward the end of his term, President Biden ordered 625 million acres of federal waters withdrawn from future oil and gas leasing, or more than 1/3 of the OCS, using authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. During Trump’s first administration, he tried to reverse similar actions but smaller actions by the Obama administration to protect offshore areas, though a court rejected Trump’s effort in 2019. The ruling was never contested at a higher court, and the incoming Biden Administration supported the court’s decision. Burgum also revoked a 2021 order that halted oil and gas activity in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and he reinstated a mandate from the first Trump administration to rewrite the land and energy management plan for the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. The Biden administration had taken multiple actions restricting vast areas in the Petroleum Reserve from petroleum development.
Burgum’s “Unleashing American Energy” order sets the stage for the Trump administration to reopen and potentially revise the public lands rule, the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, that the Biden administration finalized in May. Interior’s assistant secretaries are directed to develop “action plans” and to suggest “steps that, as appropriate, will be taken to suspend, revise, or rescind” a list of rules and orders, including the public lands rule that seeks to place conservation-only on par with energy development, grazing, and other multiple uses of bureau rangelands. DOI cannot just revoke the rule; instead, it can restart the rulemaking process by opening it up for new public comment and conducting an in-depth analysis that would result in a revised rule. Bureau of Land Management lands have long been managed for “multiple uses,” allowing for coexisting uses with many public benefits.
Under Burgum’s order, the Interior Department will have until February 18 to review 157 national monuments across 33 states for potential boundary revisions that could open areas to oil and natural gas drilling and mining. The order instructs assistant secretaries to “review and, as appropriate, revise all withdrawn public lands, consistent with existing law,” listing the law that gives presidents the power to designate national monuments and withdraw them from mineral development. Presidents have used the Antiquities Act of 1906 to establish national monuments and their boundaries and some believe that that authority has been abused, wanting it to revert to Congress with the repeal of the Antiquities Act. Presidential authority to alter monument boundaries is uncertain and is being debated in court. Monument declarations have been banned by Congress in Wyoming and limited to 5,000 acres absent Congressional approval in Alaska.
Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, rich in coal, oil, gas, and uranium, are likely among the monuments under review. And so are the recently-designated Chuckwalla National Monument and Sattitla National Monument in California. California has more monuments than any other state, with more than 4 million acres likely under review. They include Mojave Trails, Sand to Snow, Carrizo Plain, Muir Woods, Devils Postpile, Cabrillo, Lava Beds, California Coastal, Sequoia NF, Cesar Chavez, Fort Ord, San Gabriel Mountains, Berryessa Snow Mountain, and Castle Mountains. The Carrizo Plain monument in central California has been the subject of previous attempts to open the land for oil and gas drilling, which has resulted in lawsuits and no new energy production.
Trump reduced the size of the two Utah monuments during his first term, calling them a “massive land grab,” and lifted fishing restrictions within a marine monument off the New England Coast to aid small business fishermen. A rules change approved by Trump allowed commercial fishing at the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean, a nearly 5,000-square-mile area southeast of Cape Cod. It was the first time in a half-century that a president modified the size of designated monuments. Biden, however, reversed Trump’s actions on these three monuments during his term in office.
Conclusion
Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 by primarily using subsidies to encourage an expansion of renewable energy and electric vehicle deployment is no longer the American government’s goal. Instead, President Trump and his energy team’s goal is American energy dominance, which promotes energy development, national security, and lowers prices for the American people. According to Chris Wright, Trump has a “simple vision” that “energy is good and that we need more” domestically sourced energy. Producing more at home will create additional direct and induced jobs, and increasing supplies will benefit consumers.
