President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to declare a national energy emergency as soon as he takes office Monday, months after promising voters that he would cut their electric and gasoline prices in half in the first year of his administration.
 “To achieve this rapid reduction in energy costs, I will declare a national emergency to allow us to dramatically increase energy production, generation and supply,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Potterville, Michigan last August. “Starting on day one, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors and we will slash the red tape.”
The president-elect reiterated as recently as Dec. 22 his intention to “declare a national energy emergency” on the first day of his administration. He vowed to issue a series of executive orders to reverse Biden administration policies on natural gas exports, drilling and emissions standards.
Trump plans to establish a National Energy Council led by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, his pick to lead the Department of the Interior. Burgum said during a Senate hearing on his nomination this week that he expects the council to be established through an executive order.
It is unclear whether emergency declaration would be largely symbolic or would invoke broader powers that go beyond the executive orders on energy that Trump is widely expected to issue Monday. The president-elect’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
“My anticipation is that it will be a rhetorical declaration of an energy emergency,” said Mike Sommers, president of the oil industry’s lobby group American Petroleum Institute. “When you bundle together the executive orders, that will be the answer to what to do about the energy emergency.”
There are several emergency statutes Trump could invoke that are related to energy, said Glenn Schwartz, director of energy policy at the consulting firm Rapidan Energy. Emergencies are often loosely defined under federal law, giving the president broad discretion to use them as he sees fit, Schwartz said.
And Trump would likely face little pushback from the courts because they are reluctant to challenge presidential determinations related to national security, Schwartz said.
“What you end up with is that even if Trump were to expand his emergency powers in unprecedented ways, it is not clear that courts would step in to halt any of these resulting actions,” the analyst said.
Likely emergency authorities
There is a clear precedent for Trump to invoke emergency authority to promote power generation and expand the nation’s fuel supply, Schwartz told clients in a research report published last Thursday. Authorities using the powers would waive certain environmental and pollution rules related to energy.
Trump could issue fuel waivers under the Clean Air Act to allow gasoline onto the market that would otherwise violate federal air quality standards, the analyst said. Presidents have often used such waivers whenever they needed to stretch the country’s gasoline supply and keep prices in check, he said.
Trump could also invoke the Federal Power Act to order power plants to run at maximum capacity and not comply with pollution limits, Schwartz said. The energy secretary can invoke the act during wartime or when a sudden increase in demand or a shortage of electricity creates an emergency situation.
The provision has been rarely used since World War II and has mostly been reserved for situations where extreme weather has overwhelmed power plants, Schwartz said.
The largest grid operator in the U.S., PJM Interconnection, has warned of a power shortfall as coal plants are retired faster than new capacity is brought online. PJM operates the grid in all or parts of 13 states, in the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South.
The situation could become more acute as electricity demand increases significantly as the tech sector builds out energy-hungry data centers to support artificial intelligence applications.
The first Trump administration considered invoking the act in 2018 to order utilities to buy two years of power from coal and nuclear plants that were at risk of shutting down. The administration at the time ultimately dropped the idea after facing push back from industry.
Trump could also opt for a broader statute that lets the president suspend pollution laws for industrial facilities, power plants, oil refineries, steel mills, chemical plants and other industrial facilities in emergency situations, Schwartz said.
There is less support under federal law for the president to force new production, Schwartz said. Trump could direct federal agencies to fast track environmental reviews on energy projects he supports, such as pipelines, but the president cannot use emergency authorities to circumvent bedrock environmental policies such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, the analyst said.
Expected executive orders
Oil industry lobbyists at the American Petroleum Institute are anticipating that Trump will issue a series of orders tied to energy as soon as Monday.
The administration is expected to issue an order lifting the Biden team’s pause on new liquified natural gas export facilities, Sommers said. The president-elect will also likely try to reverse President Biden’s recent decision to ban drilling in 625 million acres of federal waters. Trump’s authority to do this has been disputed and such an order would likely end up in court.
“We are of the view that he has the ability to reverse that and we’ll defend that in court,” Sommers said.
The industry is anticipating the president will also direct the Interior Department to increase oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf Mexico, Sommers said. The Biden administration had issued the fewest leases in history under a program set to run through 2029.
These decisions are not expected to have any immediate impact on production. The U.S. has been the world’s largest producer of oil and gas for six years, outpacing Saudi Arabia and Russia. The CEOs of Exxon and Chevron have made clear that production decisions are based on market conditions, not in response to who is in the White House.
“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink,” Schwartz said. “He can give them all the resources they need to be able to drill, but I haven’t seen anything that suggests he can force them to take it out of the ground.”
Trump is expected to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. Executive orders targeting tailpipe emission and fuel economy standards for cars are also expected.
Still, only so much can be done through executive order, Sommers said, and the directives often have to go through a rulemaking process that takes time. The oil industry is more focused on pushing for more durable policy changes in the Republican-controlled Congress, he said.
“There’s not a lot of stuff that they’re going to be able to do on day one, other than direct federal agencies to fulfill their promise of energy dominance,” Sommers said.