Trump's energy emergency ignores climate and boosts fossil fuelsExBulletin

President Donald Trump signed several executive orders after his inauguration on Monday, January 20, 2025. He also declared a national energy emergency. Evan Vucci/AP .

switch captionEvan Vucci/AP

President Trump declared a national energy emergency in a series of executive orders issued Monday. But the document does not constitute an emergency for all forms of energy, it mainly supports the production of domestic fossil fuels.

“We're going to drill, baby, drill,” Trump said in his inauguration speech, then later signed the emergency declaration and said it “means you can do whatever you need to do to get out of this problem.” This is not accurate and many details of how this will be done are not included in the order.

Trump invoked presidential authority under the National Emergencies Act, which he also used in 2019 to build a wall along the U.S. southern border. This gives the president more power to bypass bureaucratic processes and public notifications. A Brennan Center analysis “identified 137 statutory powers available to the president when declaring a national emergency.”

In this case, those powers include suspending certain environmental regulations under landmark laws such as the Endangered Species Act and speeding up approval processes for energy projects.

Trump's statement did not specify precisely what he wants to do. Instead, it “directs executive departments and agencies to identify and exercise all legal emergency authorities available to them,” says Amy Stein, a law professor at the University of Florida who responded to the questions from NPR via email.

Reducing red tape, mainly for fossil fuels

In issuing the emergency declaration order, Trump said: “The inadequacy of U.S. manufacturing, transportation, refining, and energy production poses an unusual and extraordinary threat to the economy, national security and foreign policy of our country. » He blamed “the harmful and short-sighted policies of the previous administration.”

But in defining what constitutes “energy,” Trump left out two forms of renewable energy, wind and solar, that were particularly central to the Biden administration's ambitious climate policies. Together, they represent more than 14% of the country's electricity production.

“It’s striking that the emergency he seems to be declaring is linked to a lack of fossil fuel production,” says Sam Sankar, a lawyer and senior executive at Earthjustice. He says it's strange because “the United States currently produces more oil and gas than any other country on the planet has ever produced in the history of human civilization.”

Trump's order does not mention the effects of burning fossil fuels on global warming. Instead, he says Americans are suffering from high energy prices. It also envisions increasing demand for electricity from technologies such as artificial intelligence and says insufficient energy supplies “pose an imminent and growing threat to the prosperity and national security of the United States.”

To solve this problem, Trump wants to reduce regulations and speed up approval processes to deploy more oil drilling rigs, build more pipelines and connect more power plants to the grid.

Stein says key provisions of the emergency declaration include ordering departments and agencies to explore the use of federal land or eminent domain, which is when the government takes property private for public use with compensation. The goal, as Trump's order states, is to “facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources.”

Stein says the emergency declaration also authorizes special provisions to grant approvals for energy projects under several existing laws, including the Clean Water Act and the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act. She says it authorizes emergency consultation processes under the Endangered Species Act and construction authority for the Army Corps of Engineers.

Environmental groups can challenge this in court

One of the few checks on President Trump's emergency powers will likely come in the form of litigation. That won't happen until agencies determine what options are available.

“You can no more challenge presidential statements or orders than you can challenge presidential speeches,” Sankar says. “So what matters is when things happen on the ground that actually affect people.”

He says one example could be if the Trump administration stops paying funds that were required under the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden signed into law in 2022. It provided hundreds of billions of dollars incentives to encourage technologies that reduce or eliminate responsible greenhouse gases. for climate change.

It is possible that challenges arising from this emergency declaration could end up before the United States Supreme Court. This would provide answers to questions some have about the National Emergencies Act, such as what constitutes an emergency.

“In reality, we have no case law in the United States on what constitutes an emergency and when it is appropriate to have one,” says Soren Dayton, director of governance at the Washington, DC-based think tank Niskanen Center. He expects Trump's energy emergency or his more recent southern border emergency declaration to face a legal challenge.

Dayton welcomes this because he doesn't think complex issues like energy production, climate change or immigration should be addressed through presidential emergency declarations.

“These are difficult things and I think it's a matter of policy that we don't wave the presidency with this magic wand and say we can do all these things without any debate,” Dayton said.

NPR correspondent Camila Domonoske contributed reporting to this story.

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