By Tyson Slocum, Public Citizen
President Donald Trump’s unconstitutional blitzkrieg on congressionally-mandated agencies has been slightly stymied, for now, in part by Public Citizen’s litigation challenges to the dissolution of USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; we’ve stopped grabs of our personal information at Treasury and the Department of Education; and we’re challenging the removal of critical health information at CDC, FDA, among other ongoing attacks.
But Trump’s January 20 declaration of an energy emergency is the underreported threat, as the executive order sets into motion the maniacal politicization of national security as a means to dismantle generations of public health and safety laws in order to promote coal, natural gas and oil. It also entails a brazen attack on the leadership and clean energy priorities of Americans living in the most populous regions of our nation, forcing America’s working families to pay more for energy.
It may seem absurd that, at a time when no country in the history of the world produces more oil and natural gas every day than the United States, that there would somehow be an energy emergency. But when radical, unhinged fossil fuel executives have the ear of the President, they see this fraudulent emergency declaration as their opportunity to destroy progress of wind and solar development, and maximize fossil fuel exports that increasingly dictate whether their fracking operations are profitable or not.
Trump 2.0 is all about wrathful vengeance and legal disorder, and the energy emergency avowal—issued in the first hours of his presidency, signaling its importance—lays out a diabolical blueprint of his spiteful approach: it falsely claims the rise of wind and solar (referenced as “intermittent”) has “driven our Nation into a national emergency.” Without any factual citation, the order continues its outrageous fabrications: “These numerous problems are most pronounced in our Nation’s Northeast and West Coast, where dangerous State and local policies jeopardize our Nation’s core national defense and security needs, and devastate the prosperity of not only local residents but the entire United States population.” New York State’s fracking ban, New England’s renewable energy mandates and California’s climate laws now all harm national security under Trump’s sweeping decree: he has declared energy civil war against the states and citizens that voted for his political opponent. Even though Trump has made it pretty clear he has his various, bizarre issues with wind and solar, he’s not going to use any of these emergency powers to disrupt the record renewables being deployed in Texas, or interfere with wind in the GOP farm belt. No – his energy emergency is designed to mischaracterize the heart of the Democratic campaign and policy agenda of combating climate change and promoting renewables as dangerous to America’s national security. The energy emergency will be used as an electoral cudgel to denigrate Democratic credibility on energy prices and energy security, no matter that the facts demonstrate the exact opposite.
Trump’s assault is not bluster—let’s walk through the executive order. First we start with Section 8, which defines which energy resources will qualify for emergency assistance. Every energy source is listed exceptwind, solar, battery storage and energy efficiency. Fossil fuels are literally the primary recipients of any emergency aid. Trump’s swap of “all of the above” for “energy dominance” rhetoric is deliberate: Trump seeks to promote fossil fuels as “dominant” and characterize renewables as “weak.” All of the above is simply too inclusive for Trump’s war on renewables. He’s already stopped all renewable energy development for offshore federal waters. Indeed, Trump’s new National Energy Dominance Council relies on the same classifications as the January 20 energy emergency order to promote fossil fuels at the expense of renewables.
Section 2 directs any federal agency seeking to utilize energy emergency powers to first “submit recommendations for a course of action to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.” Thus the administration will claim that all energy emergency actions are rooted in national security rationales.
The U.S. military has bases in all 50 states, all of which are interconnected to local utilities. Section 7 directs the military to dictate aspects of U.S. civilian energy infrastructure: “In collaboration with the Secretaries of Interior and Energy, the Secretary of Defense shall conduct an assessment of the Department of Defense’s ability to acquire and transport the energy, electricity, or fuels needed to protect the homeland and to conduct operations abroad, and, within 60 days, shall submit this assessment to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.” It then cites 10 U.S.C. § 2808, which grants the military sweeping powers—“without regard to any other provision of law”—to build anything it wants in the event of a “declaration by the President of a national emergency.”
New York State opposes a natural gas pipeline? Trump can now order the U.S. military to seize the land and build anyway–while delegating the construction to whatever fossil fuel company wants it.
Congressionally mandated oil lease sales in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge attracted zero bidsbecause they’re uneconomic? Trump’s order triggers use of the Defense Production Act to provide taxpayer subsidies to transform uneconomic arctic leases into profitable ones.
Exporting Liquified Natural Gas first requires a federal government determination that the exports must be “consistent with the public interest”? Trump’s energy emergency declaration determines that unfettered fossil fuel exports are essential for America’s national security interests, and therefore not only are increased LNG exports in the public interest, but any impediment to producing more methane or transporting methane via pipeline for export are now essential for national security. Indeed, Trump’s new Interior Secretary issued a companion directive declaring his agency will “identify all emergency and legal authorities available to facilitate the identification, permitting, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, distribution, exporting and generation of domestic energy resources and critical minerals,” transforming America’s federal lands and offshore waters into nothing more than staging grounds for increased fossil fuel exploitation and export overseas.
The Secretary of Defense can produce a classified report claiming that the rise of wind and solar hampers troop readiness, and can therefore declare the regional power grid to be compromising national security in order to justify emergency bailouts of natural gas and coal baseload power plants under Section 202c of the Federal Power Act or other authorities. Indeed, Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright (a former fracking executive) just ordered that his agency “will bring a renewed focus to growing baseload and dispatchable generation.”
If some of this rings familiar, that’s because Trump attempted a variety of energy emergency/national security efforts to boost coal during his first administration, which I fastidiously described here. Trump’s efforts last time were haphazard and faced internal pushback. He is avoiding those mistakes this time, first by declaring the energy emergency within hours of taking office, and second by decimating opposition within agencies. He firmly controls the National Security Council—even installing his Interior Secretary as a member for the first time in American history. On May 29, 2018, Trump’s then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry asked the National Security Council to determine the national security implications of “premature” retirements of coal and nuclear power plants. Weeks later, FERC’s then chief of staff Anthony Pugliese outlined collaboration between FERC, the Department of Defense, DOE and the National Security Council to identify the baseload power plants critical to ensuring that military bases, hospitals and other infrastructure can maintain operations in a disaster. At the same time, Perry’s team drafted a memo suggesting a strategy by which DOE would require RTOs to buy energy from certain coal, nuclear and other baseload generation pursuant to 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, combined with the Defense Production Act’s contracting authorities.
And yes, while FERC rejected another Rick-Perry-requested emergency intervention on behalf of coal baseload power in January 2018, it was because two of the largest owners of coal power plants at the time (Dynegy and NRG) argued that the bailout would ruin the competitive markets that allowed their non-coal power fleets to earn tons of profits. In addition, the most powerful lobbying voice of the fossil fuel industry, the American Petroleum Institute, also opposed the bailout because it excluded natural gas. This time around, Trump made sure that the only fuels he was excluding were wind and solar: all fossil fuels are defined as beneficiaries of energy emergency actions.
The Congressional Research Service recently concluded that a Presidential emergency declaration “is largely determined by the President himself,” with an expectation that the President will act in the interest of the American people. But under Trump’s deranged social media declaration that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law”, it is not reasonable to assume good intentions.
So what is to be done? Here are Public Citizen’s three recommendations:
- Northeast and West Coast states fight back. Defend your policies and attack Trump’s outrageous, unpatriotic and unlawful assault on American states.
- Demand your Senators sign on and endorse Senate Joint Resolution 10 to nullify Trump’s outlandish energy emergency order.
- As Trump’s agencies begin rolling out their reports and recommended actions to impose draconian emergency actions that usurp state sovereignty, work with Public Citizen and other advocates to identify parties that can legally challenge these outrageous attempts to push fossil fuel expansion.