President-elect Donald Trump is expected to roll back several of President Joe Biden’s green energy policies and initiatives when he assumes office in 2024.
While on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to lift the Biden administration’s “war on energy” and “disastrous” energy policies.
“They annihilated your steel mills, decimated your coal jobs, assaulted your oil and gas jobs and sold off your manufacturing jobs to China and other foreign nations all over the world,” Trump said of the current administration.
Trump appointed North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to head his newly formed National Energy Council, and former Rep. Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – two pro-energy appointees who are expected to take aim at several of Biden’s policies. Here are five ways Trump could overturn several of those in short order:
1. The Paris Climate Agreement
The Paris Agreement, established at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2015, is a legally binding treaty among nearly 195 parties who are committed to international cooperation on climate change.
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Trump officially withdrew from the treaty in 2020, but Biden reinstated the U.S. to the climate agreement after taking office in 2021.
The Trump campaign told Politico in June that the president-elect would be in favor of withdrawing the U.S. from the treaty for a second time if re-elected.
2. Electric vehicle mandate
The EPA announced a final rule in March under the Clean Air Act to set new emissions standards that would require up to two-thirds of new cars sold to be electric vehicles by 2032.
The new standards would affect “light-duty vehicle manufacturers, independent commercial importers, alternative fuel converters, and manufacturers and converters of medium-duty vehicles,” according to the EPA’s final rule.
House Republicans have taken steps to block the mandate, passing the Congressional Review Act (CRA) in September to block the “out-of-touch regulation” from being enacted.
Trump tapped former gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) under his administration. (Jason DeCrow)
3. EV tax credit
Biden is currently offering a tax credit of up to $7,500 to incentivize the purchase of greener vehicles.
However, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Trump plans to ax the tax credit as part of his sweep of Biden’s climate agenda.
One of Trump’s strongest allies, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, revealed in July that he supports getting rid of the credit. “Take away the subsidies,” Musk posted to X, saying that “it will only help Tesla.”
Companies that are financially sound, such as Tesla, could benefit if the playing field for electric vehicles is narrowed, while the smaller companies that rely on the tax credit for consumer affordability could face setbacks, analysts suggest.
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4. Federal coal leases
Biden’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently approved an amendment to the Resource Management Plan (RMP) to ban new federal coal leases, essentially blocking any new federal mining leases in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, the country’s largest coal-producing region, by 2041.
This region produces about 40% of the nation’s coal. BLM, however, will allow for existing coal leases to continue to be developed.
Aerial photo of water holding ponds on private and public lands in the Tongue River and Powder River area of northern Wyoming near the Montana border. (William Campbell.)
Following the decision, Trump’s transition team reinforced the idea of the president-elect’s campaign promise to bolster American-made energy.
“Families have suffered under the past four years’ war on American energy, which prompted the worst inflation crisis in a generation. Voters re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin, giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, including lowering energy costs for consumers,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump-Vance Transition spokeswoman, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
5. Waste Emissions Charge
Biden’s EPA recently announced that it will try to “incentivize” the oil and gas industry to reduce methane emissions by imposing a Waste Emissions Charge, allowed under the Inflation Reduction Act.
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Under the Biden administration’s new rule, certain oil and gas facilities would be charged $900 per metric ton of “wasteful” emissions in CY 2024, $1,200 for CY 2025 and $1,500 for CY 2026.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency’s sign, on the headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto)
Trump-supporting oil-advocacy groups and House lawmakers slammed the fee, with the American Petroleum Institute releasing a policy road map for the incoming Trump administration to hit back against the EPA’s final rule.
“Energy was on the ballot” in the 2024 elections, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers told Fox News Digital in a statement following Trump’s victory in November.
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In electing Trump, Sommers said that voters had “sent a clear signal that they want choices, not mandates, and an all-of-the-above approach that harnesses our nation’s resources and builds on the successes of his first term.”
