Climate and energy in Trump's Day One executive orders
New US President Donald Trump has declared a national energy emergency, announced the country's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and named cabinet-level appointees including new heads of the Department of Energy and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
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In an inauguration address that made no direct mention of climate or the environment, the President promised to "drill, baby, drill" and to use the country's oil and gas reserves to underpin a resurgence of US manufacturing. "We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world," he said. "We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it."
Trump went on to sign some 26 executive orders within hours of his inauguration: according to the Washington Post, in the first day of his previous administration, he signed only one of the 220 orders he would later go on to sign over the next four years. Many of the orders signed by the President on 20 January could be challenged in court, the Washington Post points out, in a legal process that could slow down or halt their implementation.
National energy emergency
The executive order Declaring a National Energy Emergency says insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation "constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to our Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy" and says expansion of energy infrastructure is an "immediate and pressing priority".
"Moreover, the United States has the potential to use its unrealised energy resources domestically, and to sell to international allies and partners a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy," the action notes. Uranium is included in the order's definition of the terms "energy" or "energy resources".
Paris rescinded
In the order Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements the president says the policy of his administration is "to put the interests of the United States and the American people first in the development and negotiation of any international agreements with the potential to damage or stifle the American economy. These agreements must not unduly or unfairly burden the United States".
Under this order, "The United States Ambassador to the United Nations shall immediately submit formal written notification of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. "The United States will consider its withdrawal from the Agreement and any attendant obligations to be effective immediately upon this provision of notification," the order notes.
It also instructs the Ambassador to the United Nations to immediately submit formal notice of the USA's withdrawal from "any agreement, pact, accord, or similar commitment made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" and to "cease or revoke" any financial commitment made by the USA under the convention.
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to well below 2, and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial levels. The agreement entered into force in November 2016, but Trump announced his decision to withdraw from it in 2017 during his first term as president. The US withdrawal was formally completed in November 2020, but an executive order on re-entering the agreement was one of the first to be signed by Joe Biden when he was inaugurated as president in January 2021.
Energy unleashed
An executive order on Unleashing American Energy orders an "immediate review of all agency actions that potentially burden the development of domestic energy resources". It directs the heads of "all agencies" to review existing regulations and agency actions to identify those that "impose an undue burden on the identification, development, or use of domestic energy resources - with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources". It also, among other things, instructs the US Geological Survey "to consider updating the Survey’s list of critical minerals, including for the potential of including uranium".
This order rescinds 12 climate-related orders from the previous administration, as well as terminating immediately "all activities, programmes, and operations associated with the American Climate Corps", an initiative launched by then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, with the help of actor, producer and climate advocate Robert Downey Jr, in 2022 to recruit climate professionals for the deployment of some USD62 billion of investment to meet climate goals.
"The American dream will soon be back and thriving like never before," Trump promised.
Officers and secretaries
Appointments and nominations announced by Trump on 20 January include:
Douglas Burgum to be Secretary of the Interior
Christopher Wright to be Secretary of Energy
Howard Lutnick to be Secretary of Commerce
Preston Griffith to be Under Secretary of Energy
Brandon Williams to be Under Secretary for Nuclear Security
Ingrid Kolb is appointed as Acting Secretary of Energy pending Wright's formal appointment.
David Wright has been designated by the President as Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Mark Christie as Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
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