President Donald J. Trump signed a blizzard of energy-focused executive actions, undoing his predecessor’s agenda on Day One of his administration. So far, the recurring themes of all issued executive actions stress reliable and abundant energy over net-zero and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) posturing. 

Here’s a breakdown of executive actions taken so far.

Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions

President Trump invalidated many Biden-era executive orders—including several that adopted ESG and climate posturing across the whole of government. The Trump administration blamed net-zero policies, saying they “exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulation.” 

Three climate-related EOs that were rescinded included: Executive Order 13990 of January 20, 2021 (“Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science To Tackle the Climate Crisis”), Executive Order 14008 of January 27, 2021 (“Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad”), and Executive Order 14030 of May 20, 2021 (“Climate-Related Financial Risk”).

Executive Order 13990 led to Department of Energy energy efficiency standards that made household appliances, on average, $9,000 more expensive per household, expanding the size of National Monuments to prevent public land access, forbidding drilling in the Arctic, tracking the social costs of carbon, and canceling the Keystone XL pipeline. It also revoked many Trump-era regulatory reforms for permitting, for instance.

Executive Order 14008 put climate considerations above energy development and conservation efforts, established positions like the Climate Envoy, put the U.S. back into the Paris Climate Accords, prioritized climate in foreign policy and national security, and adopted a government-wide approach to fighting the so-called climate crisis. 

Executive Order 14030 mandated the federal government track and account for climate-related financial risk (especially using ESG considerations and framing) across all agencies.

Unleashing American Energy EO

This executive order signals a move from top-down net-zero posturing to the deregulation and energy abundance supported by our Center for Energy and Conservation.

“It is thus in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources,” the executive order declared.

This action taken is expected to restart offshore oil and gas production in areas the Biden-Harris administration restricted and shore up domestic mining production and refining. It will repeal the EPA tailpipe emissions rule (electric vehicle mandate) and Biden-era energy efficiency standards and will revoke Biden-era executive orders that mandate net-zero posturing. All this will help expedite permitting for energy infrastructure projects and terminate future disbursements of green subsidies under the inflation-inducing Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. 

The executive order also unpaused the Biden-era moratorium on the construction of new liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals affirming a federal court ruling that these projects are in “the public interest” and should proceed to make America a net exporter of reliable energy.

Declaring a National Energy Emergency Declaration

President Trump’s National Energy Emergency Declaration is the first-of-its-kind declaration. Here is the Trump administration’s justification for enacting it: “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.”

If unchallenged, it will invoke the Defense Production Act and unlock new presidential power through 150 statues. The administration didn’t rule out using controversial methods like eminent domain to fulfill its goals, noting, “If an agency assesses that use of either Federal eminent domain authorities or authorities afforded under the Defense Production Act are necessary to achieve this objective, the agency shall submit recommendations for a course of action to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.”

The Trump-Vance administration blamed its predecessor for tampering with our energy supplies and suppressing reliable energy production. It claims the U.S. currently has an “inadequate energy supply and infrastructure causes” that invited inflation and higher energy prices. The order also claimed the U.S. is in a “dangerous energy situation” that “inflicts unnecessary and perilous constraints on our foreign policy.”

The order further declares the energy resources to be deployed are oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals. Omitted from the list are intermittent energy sources solar and wind energy.

Putting People over Fish: Stopping Radical Environmentalism to Provide Water to Southern California

California has long been plagued by water scarcity issues, due to federal protections for the Delta smelt and refusal to construct new reservoirs despite a 2014 ballot measure permitting these projects. Water infrastructure projects entered the spotlight again after it was revealed that a Pacific Palisades reservoir was emptied right before the Los Angeles wildfires broke out. 

Trump’s executive order would reroute water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California. The president noted in his memorandum:

My Administration’s plan would have allowed enormous amounts of water to flow from the snow melt and rainwater in rivers in Northern California to beneficial use in the Central Valley and Southern California. This catastrophic halt was allegedly in protection of the Delta smelt and other species of fish. Today, this enormous water supply flows wastefully into the Pacific Ocean.

A 2023 report confirmed that 95% of water collected in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta “has been flushed out” to the Pacific Ocean.

Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects

President Trump has railed against onshore and offshore wind projects, citing their status as a part-time energy source and its harmful impacts to birds and whales. His executive order calls for an extensive review of the federal government’s leasing and permitting practices for both wind projects citing “negative impacts on navigational safety interests, transportation interests, national security interests, commercial interests, and marine mammals.” 

President Trump was unfairly criticized for drawing a correlation between offshore wind and whale deaths—especially after he told podcast host Joe Rogan he wants to be a whale psychologist. But the President isn’t wrong. 

As I noted at IWF in the fall of 2023, ocean industrialization, including offshore wind, has a negative effect on endangered whales:

Sean Hayes, chief of protected species at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Northeast Fisheries Science Center, warned the Biden administration in a May 2022 letter that offshore wind could imperil endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Hayes explained, “The development of offshore wind poses risks to these species, which is magnified in southern New England waters due to species abundance and distribution. These risks occur at varying stages, including construction and development, and include increased noise, vessel traffic, habitat modifications, water withdrawals associated with certain substations and resultant impingement/entrainment of zooplankton, changes in fishing effort and related potential increased entanglement risk, and oceanographic changes that may disrupt the distribution, abundance, and availability of typical right whale food.”

Offshore wind is also the most expensive electricity source out there. The CATO Institute determined the “unsubsidized cost of offshore wind exceeds $120/​MWh.” In contrast, coal costs $36 per megawatt-hour (MWh) while gas combined is $108/MWh and nuclear energy costs $32/MWh if its lifetime is extended, respectively.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned about the biodiversity impacts of onshore wind, explaining, “Wind energy developments can affect birds and bats through direct mortality and through loss and degradation of their habitat, and this effect is well-documented for both species groups.” 

Our Center for Energy and Conservation believes this executive order won’t give subsidized wind energy an unfair advantage over reliable sources like coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear.

Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements

President Trump, again, withdrew from the flawed Paris Climate Agreement—a United Nations (UN) initiative to stave off global warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2050. Ahead of winning re-election, the president called the Paris Agreement a “trillion-dollar ripoff.”

The second Paris withdrawal acknowledged the U.S.’s balanced approach to environmental stewardship that occurs regardless of membership in global treaties, stating, “Over decades, with the help of sensible policies that do not encumber private-sector activity, the United States has simultaneously grown its economy, raised worker wages, increased energy production, reduced air and water pollution, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.  The United States’ successful track record of advancing both economic and environmental objectives should be a model for other countries.”

The Paris Accords’ goal to not increase global temperatures by 1.5 degrees Celsius is dubious at best. Using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Model for Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change (MAGICC), the Heritage Foundation determined that, at best, Green New Deal policies that align with the Paris Accords would only reduce temperatures by 2/10 (0.2) of a degree Celsius by 2100—well below the stated 1.5C goal. Meanwhile, China, Russia, and India skirt this agreement and continue to build new coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear plants. 

Moreover, there would be untold economic destruction, including 1.2 million jobs lost and the reduction of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.7 trillion across 18 years, if our nation followed these demands. 

Since Congress never ratified formal participation in the Paris Accords, the U.S. is not beholden to it.

Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential

During the Biden-Harris administration, resource-heavy Alaska was the target of 70 environmental regulations aimed at discouraging safe and responsible energy and mineral development.

President Trump recognizes Alaska’s potential to meet the growing U.S. demand for reliable energy and rare earth minerals, without despoiling the environment. 

Here on the website, IWF CEC Senior Fellow Sarah Montalbano explained the course correction done by the new administration, writing:

Mr. Biden paused oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), formally revoked existing leases in late 2023, and held a lease sale designed to fail in the final weeks of his administration. His administration also reinstated the Roadless Rule in the Tongass National Forest, which stymies logging and road building in the Southeast Alaska temperate rainforest. In April 2024, the Bureau of Land Management shut down about half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska to any permitting for development. Last summer, the Biden administration also shut down the Ambler Road access project, which would unlock access to a wealth of critical minerals if only Alaskans were allowed to build it.

Final Thoughts

IWF Center for Energy and Conservation is encouraged by the preliminary actions taken by the Trump-Vance administration to encourage the domestic production of reliable, affordable, and secure energy sources. Follow IWF.org/CEC for more updates as they come.