“Trump's efforts to free favored industries from regulation is a big part of his mandate.” By Doug Sheridan
The points made in this piece seem valid, and the energy industry should prepare itself for slow progress on certain issues. The green and climate lobbies certainly aren't going away.
The WSJ Heard on the Street column writes, Trump's efforts to free favored industries from regulation is a big part of his mandate. It won't be easy. Many of the admin's efforts to throw out or rewrite Washington's rulebook might be challenged, fizzle or fail outright.
A good way to handicap their odds is to look at how admin's have fared in the past. Taking away significant rules can be much harder than simply not making new ones. "They mostly managed to hit the pause button, and make some limited rollbacks," says Philip Wallach, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Another potential limit is that most rules that are nationwide in scope-such as those under the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act-are under the jurisdiction of the DC Court of Appeals. Seven out of the 11 judges on the court are Democratic presidents' appointees. While rulings can be appealed to the conservative Supreme Court, its docket space is limited.
With control of the executive branch and both houses of Congress, the incoming admin certainly has the power to let policies, or even entire bureaucracies, essentially wither on the vine through the power of the purse. Even that might not always fly, though.
Trump reportedly wants to weaken fuel economy standards that were strengthened under Biden. If Trump's frst term was any indication, this could end up being a slog. He initiated a review of Obama-era fuel-efficiency standards in 2017, but it wasn't until 2020 that federal agencies completed less-stringent rules. A year later, President Biden came in with an agenda to impose stricter fuel-economy standards. That effort, too, took time. Biden's standards were only completed earlier this year.
With the help of a GOP majority in Congress, Trump could successfully strike down methane fees-authorized under the IRA on the oil-and-gas industry. However, there may be limits on how much more methane regulation the admin can roll back—not only because of potential court challenges, but also because the EU, one of the top importers of US LNG, has authorized under its own methane curbs on imported fossil fuels.
To Sum It Up: Because Trump is constitutionally limited to a single term, energy might be a particularly thorny business to transform. Projects have a long regulatory and construction timeline.
Our Take 1: The points made in this piece seem valid, and the energy industry should prepare itself for slow progress on certain issues. The green and climate lobbies certainly aren't going away.
Our Take 2: As we see it, the goal for the admin should be to stop making bad rules immediately, and, by the end of the four years, clear out enough of the bureaucratic underbrish and bad energy policy to allow more sound policy to turbocharge American leadership in the global energy sector—with low-carbon natural gas and nuclear leading the way—both over the next four years and beyond. That's what success looks like.
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