Four major climate, energy moves included in Trump's day one executive orders

President Trump issued a broad slew of energy policies and efforts to roll back environmental protections on his first day in office.

The moves excited supporters and the fossil fuel industry. American Petroleum Institute (API) President and CEO Mike Sommers, for example, said in a written statement that Trump’s moves “chart a new path where U.S. oil and natural gas are embraced, not restricted.”

But they worried environmentalists, who warned that the orders would ultimately be bad for the planet.

“The theme that runs throughout is to maximize both the supply of and the demand for fossil fuels, which is precisely the opposite of what we need to do to address the climate crisis,” Michael Gerrard, founder of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, told The Hill. 

Here are some of the measures that could be the most impactful.

Blocking new wind energy projects

Trump on Monday issued an executive order that barred the government from auctioning off the rights to build wind farms offshore and also temporarily blocked new rights for wind on public lands.

In addition, the order directs the Interior Department to halt the construction of a wind farm in Idaho that was approved under the Biden administration.

Trump has long railed against wind as an energy source, calling windmills ugly and claiming that they have killed birds. According to MIT, wind turbines can kill birds, but fewer than are killed by house cats and fossil fuels.

The wind industry and climate advocates alike expressed concern about the order — noting that it could disrupt the industry and prevent the build out of carbon-free power. 

“In any emerging industry, even minor delays can lead to multi-year setbacks, resulting in bottlenecks and higher costs that ultimately impact energy consumers,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, in a written statement. 

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) was among the critics of the action, writing on social platform X that it would “raise the cost of energy, kill thousands of skilled trades jobs, and threaten billions of dollars of planned investments in rural communities.”

Offshore wind also has particularly large potential for energy production since the areas off the coast where it's generated are especially windy, have lots of room and don't have to contend with angry homeowners, said Gerrard.

“There's a huge capacity offshore,” he said. 

Revisiting the EPA’s finding that climate change is dangerous

Another executive order Trump signed directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to revisit its 2009 finding that climate change is dangerous, a key policy that underlies many agency regulations.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA has the authority to regulate planet-warming gases if it determines they pose a threat to public health. In 2009, it did just that, saying that greenhouse gases "endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations."

Some observers said the order was an attempt to undermine climate rules en masse

Stan Meiburg, who was the EPA’s acting No. 2 during the Obama administration, told The Hill via email that overturning the finding would mean that greenhouse gases “would no longer be recognized as pollutants under the meaning of that term in the Clean Air Act, and so therefore the Act would not apply to them.”

He added that this could lead to the undoing of a number of climate regulations, “with particular impact” on regulations impacting cars and powerplants. 

Gerrard said that if the administration is successful in overturning the endangerment finding it would be “devastating” because “it’s the basis for almost all of EPA’s actions on climate change.”

However, he expressed skepticism about whether any attempts to do so would actually be successful.

“I think that would be a fool's errand,” he said. 

“When the endangerment finding was first issued in 2009 there was a very large body of scientific evidence supporting it, and it was challenged, and the DC Circuit almost laughed it off because of the amount of scientific evidence,” he added.  “There's immensely more scientific evidence today.”

Moves to speed up fossil fuel infrastructure 

Trump’s orders made a number of moves aimed at speeding up both fossil fuel projects specifically and infrastructure projects broadly. 

The actions, which included the declaration of a "national energy emergency" as well as orders aimed at bolstering oil and gas drilling, may not only expand the nation’s fossil fuel buildout but also restrict its consideration of the environment during the construction process. 

Jackson Ewing, director of energy and climate policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, said that Trump’s emergency declaration could be among the most impactful policies in this category. 

The order was invoked under the National Emergencies Act, which gives the president emergency powers. Trump's team said the powers it unlocked would enable the administration to jumpstart energy production.

“The biggest thing that it unlocks is more rapid leasing, siting and permitting for oil and gas production,” Ewing said. 

“It's trying to really expedite fossil fuel exploration and production by either removing impediments or trying to speed up processes that are currently slow,” he added, noting that laws that protect water and endangered species are among those that the order targets.

In addition, another of the executive orders says that when considering projects under a bedrock law requiring environmental reviews, federal agencies must “prioritize efficiency and certainty over any other objectives.”

Blocking Biden’s climate cash

Another of the major provisions in a lengthy order is a directive to “pause the disbursement” of funds that come from the Democrats’ signature climate law as well as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 

The laws allocated billions toward clean-energy projects and incentives, including tax credits for renewable energy and the purchase of electric vehicles. The Biden administration already disbursed much of the funding, racing to get money out the door in its final months.

But freezing further funds from the laws could still have a notable impact.

“He's directly interfering with the way the Inflation Reduction Act plays out to help incentivize clean energy transition,” said Sam Sankar, senior vice president for programs at Earthjustice.

Sankar noted that the climate law in particular covers “an enormous range of things” from air pollution monitoring to tax credits for low-carbon energy sources. 

Ewing also noted that the law enables the Energy Department to disburse loans to climate-friendly energy projects. 

He said that even a temporary pause in funding under the laws that Biden signed could lead to fewer investments in the industries the laws are designed to support.