How President Trump's Initiatives are Affecting the Energy Sector So Far

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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Donald Trump has been president for slightly more than 10 weeks, a period marked by an extraordinarily high level of presidential executive actions, numerous legal challenges to those actions, tariffs (both threatened and enacted), stock market gyrations and unprecedented job uncertainty for federal workers.

The energy sector has been a particular focus for the 47th president, and there's no indication that presidential and congressional actions affecting the energy sector will slow down any time soon. In late March, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) (Washington, D.C.) announced the formation of an interagency Anticompetitive Regulations Task Force, which will take a "whole of government" approach to eliminate anticompetitive state and federal laws and regulations that "undermine free market competition and harm consumers, workers and businesses," reported the law firm BakerHostetler (Cleveland, Ohio). The task force will take a close look at the energy sector, among others.

The situation remains highly dynamic. Numerous court challenges have been filed, and more are expected. To date, here is a snapshot of the most significant developments of the first 10 weeks of the second Trump presidency that relate to the energy sector, as well as a preview of issues that could emerge in the coming weeks and months.

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
LNG has been one of the energy sector's clear winners at this stage of the Trump presidency. After the new president lifted former President Joe Biden's "pause" on permitting new LNG export terminals in a flurry of Day 1 executive actions, several proposed terminal projects have moved forward.

In late March the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) (Washington, D.C.) gave preliminary approval for NextDecade Corporation's (NASDAQ:NEXT) (Houston, Texas) Rio Grande LNG project in southern Texas. NextDecade expects to construct a five-train facility that would have a peak processing capacity of 3.73 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) when commercial operations commence in February 2027. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Oil & Gas Production Project and Plant databases can learn more from detailed project reports and a plant profile. For more on that, see March 31, 2025, article - U.S. Again Gives Nod for More LNG.

Also in March, Venture Global LNG (NYSE:VG) (Arlington, Virginia) said that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) (Washington, D.C.) gave it consent to ship LNG from the second phase of its Calcasieu Pass terminal in Louisiana to countries without a U.S. free-trade agreement.

Another project, Commonwealth LNG, received a new permit this year while two other proposed LNG export facilities--Delfin LNG and Golden Pass--have secured permit extensions from the Trump administration already this year. Several existing terminals, such as Corpus Christi, operated in Texas by Cheniere Energy Incorporated (Houston, Texas), are planning upgrades that would add to their nameplate capacity.

The U.S. is the world leader in the LNG export market. Data from IIR Energy shows that about 16.2 Bcf/d of feed gas was being sent to LNG export terminals as of mid-March. For more on this, see March 20, 2025, article - No Let-Up in LNG Activity in the United States.

Cars and Trucks
The transportation sector is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. But the 47th president has long criticized electric transportation as well as climate science. Another one of Trump's Day 1 executive orders halted further disbursement of funds to support electrified transportation contained in Biden-era signature legislation: The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. For more on that, see January 21, 2025, article - Trump Invokes 'Energy Emergency,' Vows to 'Drill Baby Drill'.

But since those Biden-era laws were passed by Congress, fully reversing those funding decisions will have to come from Congress. That is expected to be part of the government funding bill for the next fiscal year, scheduled to be considered later this year.

The president's 25% tariff on all imported vehicles is scheduled to take effect April 3. Separately, a 25% tariff on foreign-made car parts is expected to take effect shortly thereafter. The U.S. imported about $246 billion of foreign-made vehicles in 2024, according to a report on CNN. The U.S. imported those vehicles from Mexico ($78.9 billion), the European Union ($41.5 billion), Japan ($39.9 billion) and Canada ($31.3 billion).

Aside from tariffs, which Trump may withdraw, modify or escalate in response to any retaliatory tariff moves from countries and regions that export vehicles to the U.S., the Trump administration also is seeking to roll back tougher vehicle tailpipe emissions standards and vehicle mileage requirements enacted by the Biden administration. Since those measures were issued as rulemakings by executive-level agencies, revising or reversing them will have to follow the same lengthy process that was used to develop the original rules.

Prior to the second Trump administration, many automakers had planned to invest tens of billions of dollars to meet a projected rise in electric vehicles (EVs). Auto executives pleaded in vain for Trump not to suspend tax credits for electric transportation. As the writing on the wall became clearer, several have suspended or scaled back planned investments in new sites to manufacture electric batteries and vehicles.

As The Washington Post reported, "General Motors--the second-biggest U.S. electric automaker, which has vowed to sell only electric light-duty vehicles by 2035--delayed plans for a new EV factory, sold its stake in one of three battery factories it built with LG and delayed the release of a new electric Buick last year. Ford Motor Company (NYSE:F) (Dearborn, Michigan), Nissan Motor Corporation (Yokohama, Japan) and Volkswagen AG (Wolfsburg, Germany) have also cut spending and delayed or canceled EV releases, and Volvo (Göteborg, Sweden) and Mercedes-Benz (Stuttgart, Germany) abandoned plans to sell only electric cars and trucks by 2030."

Many auto executives also asked the Trump administration not to upend the system of vehicle emissions standards, including California's ability to enact tailpipe standards that were tougher than federal ones. What automakers want to avoid is a patchwork quilt of different state regulations on vehicle emissions. It looks like that, too, was rejected by the president.

Electric Power
The Biden administration, like the Obama administration before it, enacted numerous rules on the Electric Power industry to lower power-plant emissions and rapidly grow the renewable energy sector. The second Trump administration, like the first, has vowed to undo or weaken those rules. Many of those efforts ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which tended to favor the Trump efforts. Again, assuming the administration follows the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), unwinding Biden- and Obama-era rules is expected to be a lengthy process.

But some initiatives can be implemented faster than others. In mid-March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) (Washington, D.C.) Environmental Appeals Board pulled the air quality permit for 1,500-megawatt Atlantic Shores offshore wind project as part of Trump's order to review offshore wind projects.

The New York Times uncovered an obscure provision of the Clean Air Act that may provide owners of fossil-fueled power plants a temporary reprieve on tougher emissions rules: Send an email to the EPA.

In late March posting on its website, the agency said the Clean Air Act enables the president to temporarily exempt industrial facilities from new rules if the technology required to meet those rules isn't available, and if it's in the interest of national security, the Times reported.

The Times report continued: "In its notice to companies, the agency provided a template for companies to use to get approvals, including what to write in the email's subject line. Then "the president will make a decision on the merits," said the notice.

Separately, a Trump order mandating that independent executive-level agencies, such as the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), receive approval from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (Washington, D.C.) for decisions affecting the Trump agenda could affect rulings on, among other things, electric grid interconnections decisions.

Former Democratic and Republican FERC commissioners have said the agency's Orders 1920/1920A, reforming transmission planning, and 2023/2023A, reforming interconnection rules, are crucial as the U.S. power system confronts spiking demand growth and increasing extreme weather events, according to a report in Utility Dive.

In a separate measure, the DOE's National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors initiative (NIETC), which last year identified 10 high-priority interstate electric transmission corridors. For more on that, see May 24, 2024, article - DOE Identifies 10 Preliminary National Transmission Corridors. Last December, that list was winnowed to three corridors. Now, one of the three remaining corridors, the Southwestern Grid Connector, which would run up the eastern edge of New Mexico, scrape the western edge of the Oklahoma panhandle and pierce the southeast corner of Colorado, has run into opposition from local ranchers and Rep. Lauren Bobert (R-Colo.), who asked the DOE to remove it from its list of potential interstate electric transmission corridors.

Oil and Gas
Oil and gas executives have long called for paring back federal restrictions on drilling on federal lands. They also opposed methane fees enacted by the previous administration. They found a kindred soul in the new occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Trump's January 20 executive actions included a rollback of methane emission fees and restrictions on drilling on federal lands and waters. Trump's commitment to streamlining federal rules and laws that hamper pipeline construction, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), also was welcomed by the industry.

But since many of these actions involved federal agency rulemakings, they also will have to be modified or undone following the procedures contained in the APA, a federal law enacted by Congress in 1946.

While industry leaders welcomed paring back regulations, Fortune magazine reported that oil and gas executives "see disaster" in Trump's oil and gas policies after those executives met with Trump in mid-March. In a world currently oversupplied with oil, and with OPEC+ nations scheduled to increase oil production targets this month, Trump's insistence that companies "drill, baby, drill" likely will push prices downward, perhaps below the break-even point, which varies across conventional and unconventional formations.

In that same mid-March meeting at the White House, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, oil and gas executives pleaded for a shield from state laws that would fine them for greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. The report, citing unnamed sources who were said to be familiar with the meeting, said Trump appeared to agree with the industry that the states' actions had the potential to undermine his energy-dominance agenda. Sources said the president hinted that he would consider ways his administration could help the industry.

One Trump measure that cuts across industries is tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. The oil and gas industry uses a lot of steel pipe for drilling.

ESG
Biden administration's rulemakings on environmental, social and governance (ESG) cut across a wide range of industries, like the Trump administration's tariffs on steel.

During the Biden administration, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) drafted, then revised, then enacted, a controversial rule requiring all publicly traded companies to report their climate-related risks and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. That final rule, enacted March 6, 2024, was strongly opposed by a wide variety of industries, particularly the original requirement that companies' calculations included Scope 3 emissions, which were emissions released upstream and downstream of where companies created goods and services. Scope 3 emissions were far and away the largest type of GHG emissions. They were dropped from the final rule adopted by the agency. For more on the final rule, see March 7, 2024, article - SEC Finalized a Narrowed Set of Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rules.

States and private parties filed suits against the rule, with the litigation being consolidated in the federal Eighth Circuit Court. Last week, that threat passed. On March 27, the SEC dropped its defense of its GHG reporting rule. SEC Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda said, "The goal of today's Commission action and notification to the court is to cease the Commission's involvement in the defense of the costly and unnecessarily intrusive climate change disclosure rules."

These measures, as numerous as they are, are unlikely to be the administration's last word on energy matters. Some legal challenges have already been filed, and more are likely. Congressional and federal agency actions are needed to fully implement the president's "energy dominance" agenda. Expect a blizzard of regulatory and congressional actions in the coming weeks and months.

Even at this early stage of his presidency, the election of Trump, who was perceived to be a friend to business, especially the energy business, has unfolded in ways no one predicted. Rather than creating a more stable and predictable environment for businesses to make their investment decisions, Trump's first 10 weeks has instead proven to be a mixed bag: Good for LNG and foes of ESG, so-so for oil and gas producers and electric power companies, but not so good for automakers.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) platform helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).