Trump Seizes Wartime Powers in Battle for More Fossil Fuels

Article content

(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump’s declaration of an energy emergency opens the door to exercising sweeping Cold War-era powers and little-known powers to speed up pipelines, expand power grids and bail out struggling coal plants.

Article content

Article content

By invoking the country’s national and economic security, the plan lays the groundwork for energy projects to move forward at unprecedented speed — even if that means encroaching on the habitat of endangered species or exploiting powers normally reserved for wartime.

Article content

The president has directed federal agencies to search laws and regulations to find arcane rules that would allow him to facilitate the production of more oil, natural gas and electricity, as well as approve the construction of the pipelines and power lines needed to transport them.

The declaration, which Trump signed after taking office on Monday, sets the stage for him to push the boundaries of national security to achieve his energy priorities, potentially going further than former President Joe Biden did in his quest to combat climate change. It is part of an ongoing campaign by presidents to expand the limits of executive power.

“This is power politics in an age of power, not rules,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a consulting firm in Washington.

Critics say the idea of ​​an energy emergency conflicts with rising oil and gas production. The United States has consolidated its position as the world’s largest crude oil producer in recent years, with record production far exceeding that of any other country.

One of the biggest changes Trump has initiated is to speed up project review processes using emergency consultations under the Endangered Species Act. This process is typically reserved for natural disasters, such as wildfires and hurricanes, and allows for faster approvals for projects that may harm vulnerable wildlife, but do not completely put them at risk.

Article content

Article content

Trump also ordered quarterly meetings of a committee of Cabinet-level officials authorized to green-light projects even when a species’ survival is at stake. The committee – known as the “Divine Squad” – has met only a handful of times over the past four decades.

“They’re definitely digging deep to take advantage of very specific exceptions,” said Noah Greenwald, director of the Endangered Species Program at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This executive order is a death sentence for polar bears, lesser prairie chickens, whooping cranes, and many other species that are on the brink of extinction.”

Industry leaders have long complained that environmentalists have used the Endangered Species Act as a weapon to challenge plans to expand oil drilling, build power plants and develop mines. During Trump’s first term, efforts to protect greater sage grouse — whose habitats overlap with major oil regions — derailed plans to expand drilling operations in the western United States.

Supporters of Trump’s latest move say it will shift the balance, speeding up approvals while ensuring species are protected.

Article content

“We have a permit process that takes a long time and has been abused,” said Andrew Black, president of the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association.

White House officials said Trump would take a balanced approach.

“Just as he did in his first term, President Trump will promote conservatism and environmental stewardship while promoting economic growth for Americans across the country by unleashing our energy — which is far cleaner than oil and gas in foreign countries — and lowering prices,” he said. Harrison Fields, White House Deputy Chief Press Secretary.

Most emergency powers in federal law are designed to quickly stop proceedings, not start them. For years, environmental activists have viewed it as a way to confront climate change, pressing Biden to halt crude oil exports, halt pipeline flows, and take other executive actions to throttle greenhouse gas emissions.

Now, Trump is invoking the crisis to release more fossil fuels. The energy sources selected for special treatment are limited to those favored by the president – ​​oil, gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal and nuclear – while wind, solar and battery storage are excluded.

Article content

Trump’s separate emergency powers allow the administration to overturn individual states’ efforts to shut down pipelines and other energy infrastructure for environmental reasons. Williams in 2020 canceled the planned Constitution Pipeline to carry gas from Appalachia to New York after the state blocked it over water quality concerns.

“We desperately need more pipeline infrastructure to the Northeast,” said Dina Wiggins, president of the Natural Gas Supply Association. “There’s a lot of gas” in the area, “but we can’t get it through New York State.”

Trump justified his announcement by calling the US energy system “riskily inadequate and intermittent” and said it “leaves us vulnerable to hostile foreign actors and poses an imminent and growing threat.”

He says the growing demand for electricity from artificial intelligence makes the need for quick action more urgent.

“Under the emergency declaration, I can get approvals myself without having to wait years,” Trump told world leaders and CEOs gathered in Davos on Thursday.

Article content

Trump has tried similar tactics before. During his first term, officials considered using Cold War-era powers to direct government purchases of energy and generating capacity from struggling coal plants in an attempt to prevent them from closing.

This time, the president ordered an evaluation of the Department of Defense’s ability to obtain and transmit “energy, electricity, or fuel needed to protect the homeland and conduct operations abroad.” He also asked agencies to fix any vulnerabilities, even if it meant taking advantage of emergency military construction authority normally reserved for wartime.

The effort could extend beyond military bases, potentially reaching pipelines that supply diesel to ships in New York Harbor or trucks at munitions depots across the country, according to a person familiar with the effort who requested anonymity because the deliberations were private. . Privately owned pipelines and refineries that supply fuel to the military could be targeted for development or increased capacity. Since nearly every U.S. military base is connected to the civilian power grid, they could also play a role.

Supporters of the plan say it will simplify bureaucratic reviews and allow rapid construction of basic infrastructure.

Trump is even borrowing from Biden’s playbook. Each of the past three summers, Biden has issued emergency waivers to allow high-ethanol E15 gasoline to be widely sold.

Now Trump is recommending doing the same.

“Presidents are learning from each other and taking bolder and bolder steps toward the outer edge of what is at the frontier,” Bock said.

Article content