“The Big Reversal”, By Robert Bryce
Donald Trump takes office and orders the biggest one-day turnaround in energy and climate policies in American history.
Donald Trump takes office and orders the biggest one-day turnaround in energy and climate policies in American history.
It took the re-election of a battered Republican candidate — and a milestone rejection of the Democratic Party’s climate and energy policies by the American electorate — to stop the years-long assault on rural America, our landscapes, and our wildlife by Big Wind and its many allies.
But yesterday, in a landmark executive order, President Donald Trump ordered that all federal agencies must immediately assess “the environmental impact of onshore and offshore wind projects upon wildlife, including, but not limited to, birds and marine mammals.” For over a decade, Big Wind has dodged and weaved, and denied responsibility for its impact on everything from eagles to North Atlantic Right Whales. It has also repeatedly steamrolled rural communities and coastal communities in its pursuit of federal tax credits. No longer. There’s a new sheriff in Washington, and it’s clear that things are changing.
As I predicted in November, Trump immediately went after the offshore wind sector. But his executive order on wind, titled “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of The Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects,” goes beyond offshore wind. Trump also ordered a halt to the controversial Lava Wind project in Idaho.
As I reported in September, the entire state of Idaho opposes the Lava Ridge project, which is owned by New York-based LS Power. In 2023, the Idaho House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution stating its opposition to the proposed 1,200-megawatt facility, which could be built on federal land near the Minidoka National Historic Site. Shortly after Trump signed the order, Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) praised the move, saying, “Lava Ridge has been the embodiment of liberals’ disregard for the voices of Idahoans and rural America. Despite intense and widespread opposition from Idaho and the Japanese American community, the previous administration remained dead set on pushing this unwanted project.”
The executive order on wind energy was part of the biggest one-day turnaround in energy and climate policies in American history. Here are some of the specifics.
In a first-day blizzard of executive orders, the new Trump Administration reversed, eliminated, or suspended Joe Biden’s energy and climate policies on everything from the Paris Agreement to banning gas stoves. In an order withdrawing the US from the Paris deal, Trump said that any federal official that “plans or coordinates international energy agreements shall henceforth prioritize economic efficiency, the promotion of American prosperity, consumer choice, and fiscal restraint in all foreign engagements that concern energy policy.”
In a 3,400-word order titled “Unleashing American Energy,” Trump called out the “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” that have impeded the development of American energy sources. The words “solar” and “wind” do not appear in the executive order, which has been in the works for months. The order is a comprehensive takedown of nearly every “clean” energy mandate and subsidy created over the past few years. For instance:
It eliminates the Biden EPA’s electric vehicle mandate.
It ends the Department of Energy’s efforts to ban gas appliances.
It revokes 12 of Biden’s executive orders on energy and climate policy.
It aims to speed the “permitting and construction of interstate energy transportation and other critical energy infrastructure, including but not limited to, pipelines, particularly in regions of the nation that have lacked such development in recent years.”
It sets a deadline for the EPA to eliminate the use of the “social cost of carbon,” an arbitrary cost figure federal officials have used to justify expensive climate policies.
It has a section called “Terminating the Green New Deal,” which says all federal agencies must immediately “pause disbursement of funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, “including but not limited to funds” for EV charging.
It calls for the ending of the “pause” on LNG exports imposed by the DOE.
It includes an entire section on strategic elements. It instructs federal agencies to identify all “agency actions that impose undue burdens on the domestic mining and process of non-fuel minerals and undertake steps to revise or rescind such actions.”
Perhaps the best summary of the document comes in a section that calls for an “immediate review of all agency actions that potentially burden the development of domestic energy resources.” Here’s the text of that section:
The heads of all agencies shall review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and any other agency actions (collectively, agency actions) to identify those agency actions that impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources — with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources — or that are otherwise inconsistent with the policy set forth in section 2 of this order, including restrictions on consumer choice of vehicles and appliances.
Subscribed
The reaction from the climate NGOs was predictable. Yesterday, the head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Manish Bapna, said that withdrawing from the Paris deal would “lock in decades more dependence on the dirty fuels driving the climate crisis.” Bapna also revealed the tactic his group and other climate activists will use to counter the new Trump administration. He said the NRDC (2023 revenue: $193 million) is “counting on states, localities, the private sector and the people to step up and build on climate and clean energy progress.”
Climate Mayors, a group of 350 mayors who are “demonstrating climate leadership,” also issued a statement after Trump pulled out of the Paris deal. It said the mayors are “not backing down” on their commitment to the Paris Agreement because “The cost of inaction is simply too high.”
The statements by the NRDC and Climate Mayors are a harbinger of what’s to come. With Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of Congress, the NGOs will shift their money and focus to enacting climate policies at the state and local levels. I will be writing more about that tactic soon.
Thanks for keeping us informed on this. Most Americans are not aware of federal government’s linkage with NGOs.