President Donald Trump’s initial actions on energy “will help keep the lights on,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said Monday as the newly inaugurated president signed a flurry of executive orders.
Trump’s Day One actions included declaring a “national energy emergency” and signing an “Unleashing American Energy” executive order. Among other things, the orders set the stage to accelerate oil and gas drilling, expedite the approval of energy development projects, and remove red tape surrounding the federal permitting process.
“As electricity demand skyrockets, America is facing major electric reliability challenges that require bold and decisive action,” Matheson said. “President Trump’s swift reset of American energy policy appropriately prioritizes smart energy policies.
“In recent years, federal agencies have taken numerous policy actions that jeopardize the nation’s grid and hamper the ability of electric cooperatives to keep the lights on across rural America. We need more power, not less. These early Trump actions help put our nation on a better path by acknowledging this simple fact.”
In declaring an energy emergency, Trump’s executive order called U.S. energy production “inadequate to meet our nation’s needs” and said the reliability of the electric grid must be strengthened.
“The policies of the previous administration have driven our Nation into a national emergency, where a precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply, and an increasingly unreliable grid, require swift and decisive action,” the executive order says. “Without immediate remedy, this situation will dramatically deteriorate in the near future due to a high demand for energy and natural resources to power the next generation of technology.”
Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” order calls on the heads of federal agencies to review all existing regulations 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.”
Matheson said electric co-ops “appreciate the president’s recognition that the nation’s permitting system must be modernized if we are to address today’s energy challenges and meet tomorrow’s energy needs.”
He said NRECA understands the Trump administration’s goal to make government spending more efficient. The president issued an executive order Monday officially creating a Department of Government Efficiency advisory group that aims to slash government spending and regulations.
Electric co-ops have a strong case to make that they are using the federal funds they receive to bolster grid reliability, Matheson said.
“We look forward to discussing how electric co-ops are leveraging numerous federal programs to shore up the electric grid in local communities across the nation,” he said.
Some of Trump’s executive orders are expected to face legal and legislative challenges.
Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.