President Trump’s executive order declaring a national “energy emergency” continues
Last week, US Senate Republicans rejected Democratic legislation that would have ended President Donald Trump’s “energy emergency.”
The vote was along party lines, 47-52, to tank a joint resolution against Trump’s executive order that unlocks emergency powers to ease environmental regulations and facilitate energy production and mining.
The proposal, S.J. Res. 10, was sponsored by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Martin Heinrich (D-NM). They argued that the executive order is disingenuous given that the United States is producing record amounts of energy and asserted that the order threatens clean energy growth because it favors fossil fuels over renewables.
Trump’s sweeping executive order, signed on his first day in office, directs agency heads to use emergency authorities and any other powers available to them “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources.” The order defines energy as crude oil, natural gas, liquid road fuels, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, hydropower, and critical minerals.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Mike Lee (R-UT) defended the order on the Senate floor, saying that while Democrats often remind their colleagues that the United States is producing more energy than it ever has before, they “conveniently omit” that the country is consuming more energy and is expected to need much more in the coming years.
The federal government, utilities, analysts, and advocates across the political spectrum — including environmental groups — all agree that the US does require more energy, pointing to soaring power demand, rising electricity costs, and grid reliability issues.
