Trump Ticker: "Unleashing energy" edition
Looking at the discombobulated slew of early-term executive orders
Trump Ticker
After last year’s presidential election, I — and many others — predicted that a second Trump term would be even more destructive than the first because this time the administration would be better prepared, and would not be plagued by the same incompetence, legal shoddiness, or misdirection as last time.
I was wrong. During his first few days in office, Trump issued dozens of executive orders, resolutions, pardons, and other “presidential actions.” Some were mere bluster. Others blatantly unconstitutional. Almost none displayed any evidence of forethought or, well, thought. It’s more like a hastily sketched, grievance-laden wish list penned on the back of a faux-silk napkin by lobbyists, ideologues, and oligarchs at one of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago soirees. The list, so far, is the product of greed, spite, right-wing ideology, and power-hunger. Rather than approaching policy — if you can call it that — with more competence and intelligence than before, it appears that Trump and friends are relying on the sheer volume of action to overwhelm any legal challenges.
I’m not going to even try to list them all here. Rather, I’ll take a look at a small sampling that fit under the Land Desk’s usual beat.
Declaring a National Energy Emergency: It takes a few paragraphs to even figure out what is meant by “energy” or, for that matter, “emergency” here. The preamble makes it sound as if the nation’s collective gasoline pumps could run dry at any moment. But that can’t be it, because the U.S. is pumping more crude oil than ever before from the Permian Basin and other fields, it is the largest petroleum producer in the world, and it is a net exporter of petroleum products. There is no danger of any sort of fossil fuel shortage. Surely they know that, right?
Then at paragraph six, we finally get a hint:
The policies of the previous administration have driven our Nation into a national emergency, where a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid, require swift and decisive action. Without immediate remedy, this situation will dramatically deteriorate in the near future due to a high demand for energy and natural resources to power the next generation of technology.
Okay, then, they’re talking about electricity. Yeah, that actually makes some sense. No, there’s not an electricity shortage. But the growing number of power-sucking AI and cryptocurrency-mining data centers, electric vehicles, and electrified buildings are significantly increasing demand for power, which threatens to strain the grid and raise electricity prices for everyone else.
That’s why, for better or worse, the Biden administration encouraged utility-scale solar and wind facilities on federal lands, subsidized enhanced geothermal research and development, and subsidized and fast-tracked huge transmission projects — despite hefty opposition and environmental and cultural impacts — such as SunZia. And it’s why both the Biden and California’s Newsom administrations poured billions of dollars into keeping Diablo Canyon nuclear plant running.
In the West, utilities and grid operators are trying to address these issues by creating a regional transmission organization and day-ahead and real-time power markets. These will help get power from where it’s generated to where it’s needed.
Trump’s order, on the other hand, does nothing tangible to address growing electricity demand, strain on the grid, or aging infrastructure. One of the only specific actions is to order the Secretary of Energy to consider allowing the year-round sale of E15 gasoline to meet nationwide fuel shortages. Huh? Did these guys just dust off some order from the 1970s energy crises and add new dates, or what?
Anyway, the good thing about this one is that it will probably have minimal on-the-ground effects, though it may give agencies some cover to ignore rules and regulations. As one energy analyst told RTO Insider, “They are press releases on fancier paper … directions to the agencies, but they’re not specific legal actions.”

Unleashing American Energy: Anyone who has been paying attention knows that if American energy is on a “leash,” it’s a very long and flimsy one. I really hate having to repeat this, but a lot of folks seem to be immune to facts: America is producing more oil and natural gas than ever before. Period. Eliminating environmental protections will not increase production, nor will it decrease prices. It will only increase profits for the petroleum corporation. This is not rocket science.
Among the “action” items in this order:
“… eliminate the electric vehicle mandate.” That one’s pretty easy, since there is no federal electric vehicle mandate and there never was one. The administration will consider axing federal EV incentives, and looks to revoke California’s waiver allowing it to phase out gasoline-powered vehicle sales.
“Safeguarding the American people’s freedom to choose from a variety of goods and appliances.” Again, Trump’s tiny hands are swatting at straw men. Go into any Home Depot and you will find a virtually unlimited variety of washers, driers, lightbulbs, shower heads, ranges, and toilets. You may or may not be able to find efficient ones, but you can certainly find wasteful ones.
Immediate review of all agency actions that potentially burden the development of domestic energy resources. This one’s funny because in another first-day order, Trump halts all offshore wind leasing and blocks the approval of the Lava Ridge wind facility in Idaho. Isn’t that burdening energy resources?
Terminates the American Climate Corps.
“Unleashing Energy Dominance through Efficient Permitting” and “to expedite and simplify the permitting process.”
Gets rid of analyzing the social cost of carbon and other greenhouse gases.
Terminates the “Green New Deal” (there is no such thing, by the way) and “immediately pauses the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.” Again, Trump’s orders contradict one another, demonstrating their shoddiness: Billions upon billions of dollars in these acts were aimed at building up energy infrastructure and addressing grid and power shortfalls. And nearly $1 billion of it was just loaned to the Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in Nevada, which would advance Trump’s quest to increase domestic critical mineral production. This throws all of that into doubt.
Restarts reviews of proposed LNG export projects. Again, the U.S. is currently exporting more LNG than ever before and if the volume continues to increase it will lead to higher natural gas prices in the U.S. That, in turn, will lead to higher electricity prices. Just saying.
“Restoring America’s Mineral Dominance” by removing “undue burdens” on domestic mining. Are you kidding me?
Orders the Interior and Agriculture secretaries to review any mineral withdrawals, which would include the Thompson Divide in Colorado and around Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico.
Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential: Trump wants to “maximize the development and production of the natural resources” within Alaska by expediting oil and gas leasing and revoking restrictions on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and National Petroleum Reserve and to rescind protections on subsistence resource values. And he wants to reopen the Tongass National Forest’s roadless areas to logging. Basically, Trump wants Alaska to be corporations’ natural resource colony.
While this might conjure horrifying images of a battalion of drill rigs pummeling the Arctic tundra, it’s probably not worth worrying too much yet. The oil and gas industry hasn’t shown all that much interest in drilling in ANWR — a lease sale earlier this month drew zero bids — and petroleum company officials say they would prefer to focus on more accessible hot spots like the Permian Basin, which Biden basically offered up as a sacrifice zone.
The state’s elected officials mostly are bubbling with joy over the orders, but they aren’t all on board with Trump’s renaming of Denali, the nation’s highest peak. Trump has switched its title back to Mount McKinley, after the 25th U.S. president known for … well, not much, aside from implementing tariffs — one of Trump’s pet policies and a sure way to increase U.S. consumer prices.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, are against the name change.
It’s not an executive order, yet, but Trump and some Republicans in Congress have threatened to withhold federal aid for victims of the Los Angeles fires unless California changes its water policies. And no, they’re not talking about the Imperial Valley alfalfa farmers guzzling up a monster’s share of the Colorado River. Truth is, they don’t really know what they’re talking about.
Basically, Trump has bought into his own lie that diverting water from the northern part of the state to SoCal would have enabled firefighters to easily extinguish the flames. And that Newsom’s environmental policies are to blame. This is patently false. And even if it were true, it’s inexcusable and morally wrong for a president to withhold aid based on a state’s political leanings. In his Los Angeles Times Boiling Point column, journalist Sammy Roth hits the nail on the head:
Try to imagine how Americans would have reacted last fall — after Hurricane Helene slammed Florida’s Big Bend region, killing dozens of people — if then-President Biden had threatened to withhold federal aid for purely political reasons.
What if Biden had blamed the destruction on the climate denial of Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, saying taxpayers in other states shouldn’t have to bail out Floridians for storms intensified by their elected leader’s fossil-fuel-friendly policies?
What if Democrats had said they’d help rebuild Florida only in exchange for the state’s red-leaning congressional delegation agreeing to make concessions on gun control, LGBTQ+ rights or some other partisan issue?
It’s hard to imagine. A president could never be so heartless. A political party could never be so cruel.
Yeah, not quite.
Heartless and cruel, indeed.
On that note, I’d urge all of you who have not yet done so to watch the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde’s sermon at the Washington National Cathedral as part of the inauguration ceremonies.
As one might expect a reverend to do, she calls for unity and asks the Trump administration to have mercy on those less fortunate than them. Basically, she’s asking the president to practice compassion and empathy, sort of like Jesus — or any other civil and decent human being — might do.
At no point did Budde condemn Trump, or call him a fascist, or burn him in effigy, or make fun of his orange makeup or small hands. She just asked him to show a bit of mercy. And yet, the reaction from Trump and his supporters has been rather ugly and angry. Trump demanded that she apologize to him, while others condemned Budde for uttering, well, Christian teachings. Silly me: I thought that was her job.
The whole Rev. Budde "controversy" comes down to a simple matter of translation, Jonathan. For example, my copy of the Bible translates Matthew 25 as:
"Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,
naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ … whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’"
But apparently the $60 Trump/Lee Greenwood Bible has it differently:
"Then the king will say to those on his right, and by 'right' I mean 'FAR right': ‘Come, you who supported me and gave me money and carefully ignored the voice of your own conscience, if you ever had one to begin with.
For 'those people' were hungry and we cut their food stamps; they were thirsty and we gave them polluted water in lead water pipes; they were strangers and we dragged them out of churches and schools, separated their families, locked them in camps & deported them to face almost certain death; they were naked and we let them freeze outdoors in the alleys; they were ill and we banned vaccines, raised Rx prices & cut off all their health care; in prison and we locked the door, threw away the key but did make a whole lot of money from all the private prisons we built. …
For whatever you did for ME, you did for ME, and who the hell cares about anybody else anyway?’"
And, my eggs are not any cheaper!