In the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s victory Nov. 5, the clean energy industry is now obsessing over how far the next administration will push his own “drill, baby, drill” agenda in favor of fossil fuels and how quickly he will try to unravel programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act at the Department of Energy and EPA.
While D.C. clean energy industry groups are reaching out to work with the incoming administration and Congress, the policy landscape ahead could be treacherous. Trump and Republicans in Congress see the election results as giving them a mandate focused on “deregulation and deglobalization,” according to industry analysts ClearView Energy Partners.
What that means is major reversals of Biden administration regulations and programs aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and high tariffs on Chinese and other imported goods, including many components critical to clean energy manufacturing.
As detailed on his campaign website, Trump wants to roll back President Joe Biden’s signature legislative achievements, the IRA and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. He wants to ensure the U.S. has the lowest energy costs of any developed country in the world by bringing back incandescent light bulbs and protecting Americans’ access to gas stoves, promoting fossil fuel drilling on federal land and speeding up approvals of natural gas pipelines.
While providing no concrete details, Trump also pledged to “stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists that hold up critical energy development projects.”
Speaking at Bracewell’s post-election webinar Nov. 6, Scott Segal, co-chair of the law firm’s Policy Resolution Group, expects that, once inaugurated in January, Trump will issue “an immediate spate of executive orders,” which could resurrect previously rejected fossil fuel projects and pipelines and expand offshore drilling.
Another likely Day 1 action could be a lifting of Biden’s highly contentious pause on the approval of LNG exports to countries without free trade agreements with the U.S.
The re-election of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ― who will chair the Senate Commerce Committee ― will open the way for more offshore drilling permits, Segal said. The committee oversees offshore permitting, and Segal expects “some connectivity there between the administration and the Cruz team [on] reduced environmental reviews, which can have impacts even for independent agencies like FERC.”
ClearView’s post-election analysis contains a list of IRA programs, tax credits and funding streams most likely to be targeted by Republicans in Congress:
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- a clawback of IRA and IIJA funds that have not been spent, whether already obligated or not;
- cancellation of programs and incentives such as EPA’s methane Waste Emissions Charge, tax credits for clean commercial vehicles (45W) and used electric vehicles (25E), and funding for DOE’s Loan Programs Office; and
- tightening of IRA provisions on domestic content, not only for EVs and critical minerals, but for components used in solar and wind projects, along with narrowing the number of locations qualifying for bonus credits as energy communities.
The extent of IRA revisions will depend on whether the Republicans hold the House of Representatives, in addition to their control of the Senate, ClearView says. The Associated Press count as of press time shows Republicans with 214 seats and Democrats with 203.
A red sweep could allow lawmakers to dismantle the IRA via a “filibuster-proof” budget reconciliation bill ― which can be passed by a simple majority ― the same legislative maneuver the Democrats used to pass the IRA in 2022, ClearView says.
Keith Martin of Norton Rose Fulbright, another law firm with energy policy experts, also anticipates Republican efforts to move up the phaseout dates of some of the IRA clean energy tax credits, from the 2040s to the 2020s. Even the possibility of such changes already has developers getting steel in the ground for some projects to make sure they remain eligible for the tax credit, regardless of any accelerated phaseouts, Martin said at the recent Southeast Renewable Energy conference. (See SE Renewable Energy Conference Hears Blunt Talk on Trump.)
Permitting Stalemate
Analysts also see legislative uncertainty on both sides of the aisle for bipartisan action on permitting reform. Sens. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) and John Barrasso’s (R-Wyo.) bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Act (S. 4735) was approved by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in July but could lose momentum during the lame duck session beginning Nov. 12.
A top priority will be hammering out a budget bill or another continuing resolution to keep the government operating for a few more months.
Such budget turbulence notwithstanding, ClearView argues that for Democrats, pushing forward on EPRA could be a “last, best” opportunity for any movement on accelerating permitting, while Republicans may be motivated to “close out contentious issues to clear the decks for a new president’s agenda.”
Still, other analysts have countered that if Republicans control both the House and Senate, they might want to hold and revise the bill to include revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act.
But ClearView warns that taking no action might kill not only the Manchin-Barrasso bill but any appetite for action on permitting. “A fractious lame duck session might not merely eliminate the negotiating space necessary for Democrats and Republicans to broker a deal, but could set a standoffish tone for the next Congress. … Indeed, the less that transpires during the lame duck, the less momentum there might be going into the next year.”
Speaking at the Bracewell webinar, Ben Storrow, climate reporter at POLITICO’s E&E News, said another challenge for permitting reform is that Democrats have prioritized getting permitting provisions for transmission into the bill, which has been opposed by Republicans, especially in the Southeast. With their election losses, “the Democrats have less leverage now in those negotiations,” Storrow said.
A Republican Congress also could mount an all-out attack on any regulations issued by DOE or EPA during the lame duck session using the Congressional Review Act, said Joseph Brazauskas, senior counsel at Bracewell. Under the 1996 law, a new Congress can pass resolutions of disapproval on any regulations that were finalized within 60 days of the House and Senate returning to session. A CRA resolution of disapproval, signed by the president, would invalidate any final rule in its entirely.
Brazauskas said the Biden administration has factored the CRA into its release of regulations. “They did a pretty good job of isolating … and finalizing a number of key environmental and energy regulations,” he said, but he also noted that Trump would have other ways of rescinding or replacing emission-reduction regulations.
The question now is what the Biden administration can do in the next two months to push forward and protect its clean energy and climate policies.
Under the Administrative Procedures Act, an incoming administration can order agencies to stop any pending rulemaking, withdraw proposed or final rules that have not been published in the Federal Register, or push back or put a hold on the date a published rule is scheduled to go into effect.
In the runup to the election, DOE had been making nearly daily announcements of new funding opportunities and awards but has been uncharacteristically subdued since Trump’s victory. One sign of what’s ahead was a LinkedIn post from Jamie Nolan, media lead at the Loan Programs Office.
“SPRINTING TO THE FINISH,” she wrote. “Watch us go!”