President-elect Donald Trump spent much of his time on the 2024 campaign trail pledging to restore U.S. energy dominance through bolstering oil and gas production, expanding fracking and lifting a pause on liquefied natural gas exports, a sharp contrast with his predecessor and prompting new questions over how he will move to enact some of these sweeping changes.
Trump vowed at a Pennsylvania rally last month that he would lift the Biden administration’s “war on energy” and “disastrous” energy policies that he argued permeated the current administration.
“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 Biden administration.
It’s not the first time Trump has used energy and climate issues to cut a sharp contrast with his predecessor.
Women cheer as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally in Reading, Pa., on Nov. 4, 2024. (Ed Jones/AFP)
The Republican president-elect has vowed to use his second White House term to re-exit the Paris climate accord, undo strict emissions standards for vehicles and power plants, and bolster production of U.S. oil and gas, including through fracking, which is the controversial technology by which pressurized fluids are used to extract natural gas from shale rock.
In the days after his victory, industry groups representing the nation’s biggest oil and gas producers told Fox News Digital they have little doubt Trump will make good on these promises in a second term.
“Energy was on the ballot” in the 2024 elections, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers said in a statement.
In electing Trump, Sommers said voters “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.”
But some areas will be more difficult for Trump to act on unilaterally.
EPA’S NEW RULE TO CHARGE OIL AND GAS COMPANIES FOR EMISSIONS COULD FACE A TRUMP RECKONING
Excess natural gas is burned off at an oil refinery in Sinclair, Wyo. (Marli Miller/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images/File)