A Memo for Trump's Energy Czar

Four common sense pillars for a new national energy policy

Promises, promises.

Last week the Financial Times reported that president-elect Donald Trump is considering appointing an “energy czar,” described as:

The new energy tsar role and its powers are not yet finalised, but people familiar with the plans said it would co-ordinate Trump’s deregulatory agenda across a patchwork of agencies including the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and Environmental Protection Agency.

The energy tsar role would likely replace the “climate tsar” — or National Climate Advisor — established by Joe Biden’s White House, underlining the stark shift in emphasis by the new administration.

I haven’t been asked my opinions, but if I were, here is the advice that I would give to the new energy czar.

1. “Not” is Not an Energy Policy

Speaking to the New York Times, Myron Ebell, who led the 2016 Trump transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, said of Trump 2.0 energy policies:

“We’ll look at what Biden did and put a ‘not’ in front of it.”

In general, policy making through executive orders — rather than through congressional legislation — lends itself to a seesawing of priorities as administrations change. Executive orders may offer instant political gratification, but as a primary means of energy policy making, they ultimately create fundamental uncertainties for businesses, states, and our allies. The incoming Trump administration will continue the seesaw on Day 1 by issuing some energy-related executive orders and proclamations, like the symbolic exiting from the Paris climate agreement, look to be issued on Day 1.

For U.S. energy policy in 2025 and beyond, what happens starting on Day 2 matters much more. The Trump administration is coming into office with a Republican majority in the Senate and the House, meaning that they have an significant opportunity to govern through legislation — with the key word there being opportunity.

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2. Energy Policy is an Open Field

The new energy czar, working with Congress, has an opportunity to define what American energy policy looks like for the foreseeable future. The 2024 Republican Party platform was exceedingly thin on energy, leaving much to be filled out:

We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy Independent, and even Dominant again.

Drill, baby, drill is a slogan, not a policy, and the U.S. is already the world’s dominant producer and exporter of fossil fuels.

The platform did articulate some clear goals:

• Republicans will unleash Energy Production from all sources, including nuclear;

• [P]ower American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable Energy

• Republicans will increase Energy Production across the board, streamline permitting, and end market-distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal ... lowering Energy prices even below the record lows achieved during President Trump’s first term.

Energy production, reliability, affordability are the direction of travel that Americans voted for in the election. Now how are we going to get there?

The U.S. has already achieved one of the main planks in the 2024 Republican Platform. Now what?

As I argued on these pages earlier this year, Congress and the new administration should focus on a comprehensive national energy policy bill:

Regardless the outcomes of the upcoming U.S. 2024 election, the Congress should take on as a top priority the passage of comprehensive energy policy legislation — I’ve got a name for the bill, the Energy Policy Act of 2026. History tells us to keep expectations in check, but at the same time, comprehensive federal energy legislation is today necessary and more important than ever.

The details of such comprehensive legislation go well beyond this post, but as a start they might include elements like:

• Refining the Inflation Reduction Act to make it more technology neutral and to place limits on its overall costs;

• Including the reforms of the Manchin/Barrasso permitting bill that already has gained bipartisan support;

• Building on the promising advanced nuclear “first mover” efforts currently underway in 8 U.S. states;

• Mandating best industry-wide practices in managing pollution and waste, such as on methane leakage and flaring;¹

• Ensuring long-term support for and independence of the U.S. Energy Information Agency to continue providing the world’s best energy data, so that U.S. energy policy can be evaluated and, as needed, course corrected in real time.

Most importantly, such legislation should be built on a bipartisan foundation of issues that perhaps 80% of Congress will agree on — There is plenty that can be done in the big areas of energy policy common sense and consensus. Let’s start there.

3. Turn the Global Energy Economy to U.S. Advantage

Three days after the U.S. election, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Donald Trump to congratulate him, and also offered him a business proposition:

"We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia, And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper, and brings down our energy prices?"

Obviously, the Trump administration should take this offer.

Earlier this year, U.S. allies in Europe and Asia expressed concerns over the reliability of the U.S. as a long-term supplier of natural gas. following the Biden administration’s announcement of a LNG “pause,” which:

. . . has provoked consternation around the world. Business leaders in Asia and Europe protested the pause, saying it could threaten their ability to find alternative sources of energy. Buyers in those regions are especially worried; Japan, which is almost wholly reliant on imported energy including LNG, already announced that it will start looking for new suppliers given uncertainty over the future U.S. export role.

The U.S. — via the national energy policy legislation discussed above — should codify as U.S. policy its long-term commitment to supporting its allies with reliable and affordable energy supplies and technologies. Such relationships benefit the domestic economy but also support a leading the U.S. role in global geopolitics.

4. Don’t Forget Environmental Policy

According to reports, the leading candidate to serve as the Trump administration’s energy czar is North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. I am sure that many will be surprised to learn that Governor Burgum set a net-zero carbon dioxide by 2030 aspirational goal for North Dakota:

“We also know that, while carbon is a key building block of life, we are living in an increasingly carbon-constrained world. That’s why I issued the aspirational challenge earlier this year at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference for North Dakota as a state to become carbon-neutral by the end of the decade. This isn’t another government initiative, and it isn’t like what the other states are doing. This challenge includes no mandates, no regulations, and no pressure for any individual company or producer to change to what we are already doing. Rather, it sends a clear message to the federal government and other states that North Dakota can reach the end goal faster with innovation and free markets and without the heavy hand of government mandates and regulation.”

Similarly, Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy, recognizes the risks posed by changes in climate due to the emissions of fossil fuels and has advocated for energy technology modernization and diffusion to eliminate global poverty as a more effective approach to reducing emissions:

The world would benefit from a massive increase in energy research and innovation as opposed to simply massive subsidies for existing technologies that are not up to the task. Across the board innovation is the only road to more energy and better energy — energy with lower emissions and improved affordability. This will take time and concerted effort.

If U.S. energy resources are the cleanest — with advanced nuclear and natural gas at the forefront — then expanding their deployment in the U.S. and beyond will contribute to accelerating the rate of global decarbonization. Solar also has an incredibly bright future, but for now at least is dominated by China.² There are plenty of other technological opportunities for cleaner, cheaper, reliable energy as well — batteries, geothermal, carbon capture and much more. Supporting accelerated energy innovation is also common sense.

Europe’s electricity from coal (blue) and natural gas (yellow). The two red spikes are two of the dirtiest coal plants in the world. Replacing the blue with yellow (via US LNG) would make a dent in carbon dioxide emissions. Image: Grant et al. 2021.

Even if the Trump administration is allergic to climate policy in any form, there are opportunities for environmental realpolitik. For instance, since Europeans value climate objectives more than does the incoming Trump administration (safe to say), the U.S. could link long-term contracts to purchase U.S. LNG with agreements to earlier shuttering of Europe’s dirtiest coal plants. Natural gas is about half as carbon intensive as coal, and burns much cleaner, especially when compared to older coal plants.

Environmental policy has long been a priority of Republicans and recasting common-sense policies not as climate policies but as energy policies that have the effect of accelerating decarbonization, perhaps the new Republican congress can usher in an era of climate pragmatism. Of course, if Republicans are perceived as acting in ways that rollback or undercut environmental protections — which are very popular — that could contribute to electoral losses in the midterms.

Again, put common sense at the center.

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1. Japan’s longstanding “top runner” program offers an excellent model for how common sense government regulations can make industry more competitive.

2. Wind energy will play a role in the national and global energy mix, but I am much less bullish than on solar, nuclear, and natural gas.