By Dino Grandoni, Evan Halper, Maxine Joselow · The Washington Post (c) 2024
Clean energy tax breaks, pollution rules, America’s participation in the Paris climate agreement – all these policies and more could be on the chopping block after the election of Donald Trump.
The president-elect’s return to the White House in January could erase many U.S. efforts to combat climate change, with the incoming administration set to boost fossil fuel production, roll back rules aimed at curbing pollution, dismantle support for renewable energy and step back from helping lead international climate negotiations.
“The first 100 days, we have the opportunity to roll back regulations that are forcing businesses to be able to struggle,” Lee Zeldin, the former New York congressman Trump tapped to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, said during a Fox News interview.
Trump’s deregulatory push aims to boost economic growth, though it comes as climate scientists say the United States and other nations need to decrease the burning of fossil fuels to prevent dangerous levels of warming.
Here are some of the biggest changes Trump and his allies are expected to make:
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Withdraw from the Paris climate agreement
Trump plans to announce the United States will again withdraw from the landmark 2015 deal aimed at limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. The withdrawal won’t take effect until one year after Trump has notified the international community, according to U.N. rules. When Trump exited from the pact during his first term, no other nation followed. This time, however, Argentine President Javier Milei is evaluating whether to withdraw his country.
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Open up more areas for oil and gas drilling
To fulfill his campaign promise to “drill, baby, drill,” Trump is expected to open more acreage to oil and gas extraction. The Interior Department oversees hundreds of millions of acres of federally-owned lands and waters, including vast oil-rich stretches in the Gulf of Mexico and the West. Trump’s pick to run the department, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R), told donors Trump would halt President Joe Biden’s “attack” on fossil fuels. Environmentalists are particularly worried about the near-pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, which Republicans opened up for energy companies during Trump’s first term. In 2017 Trump signed a tax bill mandating at least two lease sales in the refuge’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain by the end of 2024, but the Biden administration has limited development there so far.
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Weaken power plant rules
Trump said he plans to roll back ambitious rules restricting power plant emissions that were designed to curb global warming and boost public health. The rules place tough requirements on gas and coal plants, mandating they burn substantially cleaner just as a historic spike in energy demand is driving utility plans for dozens of new fossil-burning facilities. The EPA estimated greenhouse gas standards would prevent up to 1,200 premature deaths, 870 hospital visits and 1,900 asthma cases in 2035. The rules would also cut carbon emissions through 2047 by 1.38 billion tons – equivalent to the annual emissions of 328 million gasoline-powered cars. Trump promised to eliminate the rules during a campaign stop in August, accusing the Biden administration of a “regulatory jihad to shut down power plants.”
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Abolish a fee on methane
Methane, one of the biggest drivers of climate change, is often released into the atmosphere during oil and gas production. New Biden administration rules place restrictions on such pollution, in an effort to push fossil fuel companies to contain these leaks. Some major oil companies, which see methane reductions as a way to cut their own emissions, have embraced this approach. But industry trade groups and conservative lawmakers are calling for a weakening of federal mandates, including a fee that will be imposed on companies that do not comply with the new methane limits. Trump repeatedly promised oil company executives during the campaign that he would carry their agenda forward, and his deputies are likely to make this change a priority.
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Claw back clean energy subsidies
The Inflation Reduction Act that Biden signed two years ago authorized tens of billions in subsidies to accelerate the energy transition. They range from tax credits to consumers who purchase electric vehicles, heat pumps and rooftop solar systems to big oil companies seeking government support for producing green hydrogen or trapping and storing carbon emission from fuel production. Trump attacked such spending on the campaign trail, vowing to “rescind all unspent funds” under the law. The president-elect, though, would likely need Congress to rescind the incentives, and that could prove a heavy lift because spending is flowing heavily to red states, many of which are using it to attract clean technology manufacturing.
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Shrink national monuments
One of the biggest environmental fights of Trump’s first term centered on Utah. In 2017, Trump shrank the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by more than 1 million acres, prompting protests from conservation and Native American groups, only for Biden to restore protections during his first year in office. Now Trump could contract the boundaries over much of the rugged sandstone region, potentially paving the way for mining and use by recreational vehicles.
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End the LNG pause
The new administration is expected to immediately end Biden’s “pause” on approving new facilities that export liquefied natural gas, or LNG. The Energy Department, which fracking executive Chris Wright will head if confirmed by the Senate, is poised to issue permits for billions of dollars worth of LNG export terminals along the Gulf Coast and elsewhere. These projects could generate planet-warming emissions for decades to come while cementing the United States’ role as the world’s biggest LNG exporter.
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Scrap Biden’s environmental justice initiative
Trump is expected to scrap what his allies view as “woke” initiatives across the federal government, especially those that prioritize diversity, equity and inclusion. That includes Biden’s Justice40 initiative, which seeks to steer at least 40 percent of the benefits of federal climate investments to disadvantaged communities that are disproportionately exposed to pollution.
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Narrow protections for endangered plants and animals
The incoming administration is expected to roll back Biden-era rules safeguarding the more than 1,000 rare plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act, including one barring officials from taking economic considerations into account when making these decisions. Trump’s Republican allies in Congress are also expected to try to remove protections for specific animals, including the lesser prairie chicken and the northern long-eared bat, at the request of the oil and logging sectors, respectively.
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End climate disclosure rules for corporations
The fossil fuel industry and GOP lawmakers have been fighting new rules that require companies disclose their climate impact and liabilities since the Securities and Exchange Commission passed them in March. The rules are intended to force companies to reckon with the financial risk they are creating for investors through their emissions and vulnerability to warming. Regulators argued the requirements are aimed at protecting investors, rather than pushing companies in a more climate-friendly direction. The SEC put the rules on hold as legal challenges work their way through the courts, and the CEO of one of the lead litigants, Liberty Energy, is Trump’s choice for secretary of energy. The new administration is widely expected to abandon the rules.
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Lift restrictions on auto emissions
Trump has been clear that he plans to lift federal rules requiring that automakers shift production lines toward electric vehicles and other low emission technologies. As he did during his first term, Trump is expected to target aggressive fuel efficiency standards that push the industry in this direction.
His administration will also likely take aim at a special waiver California has been granted to impose fuel efficiency standards that are tougher than those of the federal government. As one of the country’s biggest markets for cars and trucks, the California rules drive production planning at big auto companies. The state’s rules have also been embraced by a dozen other states, giving them considerable influence over the auto market. The expected changes put automakers in a challenging place. While they are frustrated by sluggish sales of zero emission models in the near term, most have already planned their production lines around existing federal and California rules.
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Stall federal clean energy purchasing
During his first year in office, Biden signed an executive order aiming to buy his way to a cooler planet, instructing the federal government to become carbon neutral by 2050. Much of that work would have been done by spending billions to outfit federal buildings with solar panels and buy electric vehicles. With so much purchasing power, the Biden administration hoped the move would have the side benefit of driving up demand for green technologies. But now, Trump can rescind that order and stall that clean-energy purchasing.