President Donald Trump kicked off his first day back in the White House with executive orders directed to address what he calls an "energy emergency" — ostensibly to increase American production of oil and gas. This came after he campaigned on blaming inflation on the Biden administration's climate policies and vowing to save consumers money on their energy bills with increased production, even though U.S. oil and gas production under the Biden administration was stronger than in Trump's first term.
But if you look at his energy policies closely, wrote Robinson Meyer for the Heatmap energy newsletter, you'll see that his goal isn't actually to lower energy bills for Americans, but to force them to buy and use more oil and gas.
The problem, Meyer wrote, is that while some of Trump's policies are about opening up new areas for drilling and fuel production, a lot more of them are about repealing various mandates and incentives to make homes, appliances, and cars use less energy — meaning people would actually be paying more in the long run because they have to consume more. And then there are his threatened tariffs on Canadian energy, which would make oil and gas more expensive but also shift the supply to more domestic sources.
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"When you look closer, what stands out about Trump’s policies is how few of them are designed to lower energy prices," said Meyer. "Instead, they aim to do virtually the opposite: shore up oil and gas demand. According to The Wall Street Journal, ensuring demand for oil and gas products — and not deregulating drilling further — is what the industry has asked Trump to do. That makes sense. The United States is, at the moment, producing more oil and gas than any country in world history. The fossil fuel industry’s problem isn’t getting gas out of the ground, but finding people to sell it to. By suspending fuel economy and energy efficiency rules, Trump can force Americans to use more energy — and spend more on oil and gas — to do the same amount of useful work."
The irony, Meyer noted, is that in particular, Trump's efforts to roll back incentives for electric vehicles — which his close ally Elon Musk has endorsed out of a belief it would stifle his competition — could be a blow to districts that voted for him last year.
"By kneecapping demand for electric vehicles, Trump will hurt the critical minerals industry more than any anti-growth hippie could fathom," wrote Meyer. "For the past few years, corporate America and Wall Street have invested billions of dollars in lithium and rare-earths mining and processing facilities across the country. These projects, which are largely in Republican districts, only make financial sense in a world where the United States produces a large and growing number of electric vehicles ... If Trump kills the non-Tesla part of the EV industry, then he will also mortally harm those projects’ economics."