Aerial view of oil storage containers near the Chevron Pasadena Refinery in June 2024 in Pasadena, Texas. The United States is now the world’s largest oil producer. President Trump says he is declaring a “national energy emergency” as one of his first acts in office.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images North America
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Brandon Bell/Getty Images North America
President Trump said he would declare a “national energy emergency” as one of his first acts as president, pledging to support domestic fossil fuel production.
“We’re going to drill, baby, drill,” he said during his inauguration speech. “We will become a wealthy nation again and it is the liquid gold under our feet that will help us get there.”
Declaring an energy emergency would be a first for the federal government, and it’s unclear exactly what it would entail. Here’s what we know about this unprecedented action.
National emergency gives additional powers to the president
In a call with reporters Monday, a Trump administration official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss future actions. said that “the national energy emergency will unlock a variety of different authorities that will allow our nation to quickly rebuild, produce coal and natural resources, create jobs, create prosperity, and strengthen the national security of our nation.”
Declaring a national emergency gives the president additional executive powers. According to the Brennan Centerwhich studied emergency powers, laws grant the president the authority to suspend certain environmental regulations or impose restrictions on crude oil exports.
The Brennan Center and E&E News examined historical uses of these powers. No president has ever declared a “national energy emergency,” but regional “energy emergencies” were declared in the 1970s, when there was a shortage of fossil fuels. As a result, President Jimmy Carter gave state governors the authority to suspend certain environmental regulations, but urged them to “act with due diligence” due to the public health implications, and to suspend certain rules only “as a last resort”.
Carter did not make a formal statement national urgency, even if he considered the energy crisis a top priority for its administration.
There is no shortage of fossil fuels in the United States
Trump focused on fossil fuels in his inauguration speech, promising: “We will drive down prices, refill our strategic reserves to the top, and export American energy around the world.”
The regional emergencies of the 1970s responded to a shortage of fossil fuels, caused largely by price controls, according to energy historian Daniel Yergin noted.
But the United States is not currently facing a fuel shortage. The United States is a net exporter of fossil fuels, producing more oil and gas than any other country in the world at any time in history, and its production is slightly growing. During this time, many analysts currently project that the world as a whole is facing a short-term oversupply oil and natural gas, where supply will increase faster than demand.
Trump, however, has consistently said he wants to increase oil drilling in the United States. He should repeal regulations, promote more leasing on federal lands and strongly encourage companies to drill.
The power grid could be an area of interest
Even though oil and natural gas are plentiful, there are concerns that growing demand for electricity, primarily driven by data centers and increased manufacturing, could strain the power grid in coming years.
Trump did not specifically emphasize this concern in his speech, but he could use emergency authorities to try to keep power plants open that would have to close for economic or environmental reasons. He has historically expressed support for coal-fired power plants in particular.
On the call with reporters, a Trump official also mentioned that the action would “allow our nation to rebuild quickly” — an allusion to a long-standing effort to reduce regulations and legal challenges that often delay new energy projects, from pipelines to transmission lines and power plants.
In a piece last fall, E&E News explored some of the ways Trump could use emergency powers to speed up the opening of new power plants.
This time, saving energy won’t be a priority
In the 1970s, the federal response to the national energy crisis placed a strong emphasis on energy conservation through improved efficiency.
Trump, on the other hand, is strongly opposed to laws requiring appliances to be more efficient.
The Trump official told reporters Monday that the order declaring a state of emergency would also end “efforts to restrict consumer choice” on items such as shower heads, gas stoves and dishwasher.
Electric vehicles remain a target
Trump also promised to end the “electric vehicle mandate,” a term he has frequently used to describe a series of policies designed to encourage the transition to battery-powered cars.
There is currently no federal policy requiring all vehicles are electricbut the Biden administration has implemented several policies promote electric vehicles.
Some of these policies can be quickly reversed. This includes a decree setting the goal that by 2030, half of new vehicles sold should be electric vehicles. It was never enforceable on its own, but it was intended to give automakers and policymakers a goal to work toward.
An oil rig is pictured in Stanton, Texas in June 2023. U.S. oil production is increasingly low. President Trump said the United States was going to “drill, baby, drill.”
Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images
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Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images
But the electric vehicle policies that most outrage Trump and other Republicans — like big tax credits for consumers and manufacturers, tough federal emissions standards and mandates for electric vehicles at the states – cannot be undone with the stroke of a pen and require regulatory action lasting several months. Congressional legislation or Supreme Court intervention.
Trump’s action could prompt his agencies to prioritize anti-EV policy changes.
These rollbacks are strongly supported by the oil industry, while the auto industry has called for stability and consistency, that is, largely keeping Biden’s policies in place, with only small changes.
A commitment to lower prices
“We will bring prices down,” Trump said in his inaugural address. During the election campaign, he repeatedly promised to reduce energy prices by 50%.
It’s an unlikely goal, analysts say. (In 2020, when crude prices fell and energy consumption plummeted during the pandemic, the average American’s energy costs fell 19% – and that required a market-shattering global catastrophe.)
Policy changes can influence pump prices and electricity prices, and lower costs are certainly possible. But it’s not simple.
Trump has consistently argued that more drilling would lead to lower oil and gas prices, which industry experts believe to be true. The flip side is that lower prices would then discourage drilling and push prices back up, in the classic boom-and-bust cycle the oil industry is famous for.
Rock-bottom oil prices would also hurt the bottom lines of oil producers who openly supported Trump.
Trump’s support for exporting natural gas, a priority for the oil and gas industry, could also exert upward pressure on consumer costs, according to a recent report from the Ministry of Energy; Oil industry advocates accused the report, released at the end of the Biden administration, of being politically motivated.
