President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to declare a national energy emergency as soon as he takes office Monday, months after promising voters that he would cut their electric and gasoline prices in half in the first year of his administration.
“To achieve this rapid reduction in energy costs, I will declare a national emergency to allow us to dramatically increase energy production, generation and supply,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Potterville, Michigan last August. “Starting on day one, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors and we will slash the red tape.”
The president-elect reiterated as recently as Dec. 22 his intention to “declare a national energy emergency” on the first day of his administration. He vowed to issue a series of executive orders to reverse Biden administration policies on natural gas exports, drilling and emissions standards.
Trump plans to establish a National Energy Council led by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, his pick to lead the Department of the Interior. Burgum said during a Senate hearing on his nomination this week that he expects the council to be established through an executive order.
It is unclear whether emergency declaration would be largely symbolic or would invoke broader powers that go beyond the executive orders on energy that Trump is widely expected to issue Monday. The president-elect’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
“My anticipation is that it will be a rhetorical declaration of an energy emergency,” said Mike Sommers, president of the oil industry’s lobby group American Petroleum Institute. “When you bundle together the executive orders, that will be the answer to what to do about the energy emergency.”
There are several emergency statutes Trump could invoke that are related to energy, said Glenn Schwartz, director of energy policy at the consulting firm Rapidan Energy. Emergencies are often loosely defined under federal law, giving the president broad discretion to use them as he sees fit, Schwartz said.
And Trump would likely face little pushback from the courts because they are reluctant to challenge presidential determinations related to national security, Schwartz said.
“What you end up with is that even if Trump were to expand his emergency powers in unprecedented ways, it is not clear that courts would step in to halt any of these resulting actions,” the analyst said.
Likely emergency authorities
There is a clear precedent for Trump to invoke emergency authority to promote power generation and expand the nation’s fuel supply, Schwartz told clients in a research report published last Thursday. Authorities using the powers would waive certain environmental and pollution rules related to energy.
Trump could issue fuel waivers under the Clean Air Act to allow gasoline onto the market that would otherwise violate federal air quality standards, the analyst said. Presidents have often used such waivers whenever they…
Read More: How Trump could declare a national energy emergency
