President Donald Trump’s executive orders will fast-track oil and natural gas development, erase perceived federal regulatory “burdens” for extractive industries, halt electric vehicle incentive programs and wind energy permitting, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement on climate change and, above all, “are a win for U.S. energy and Wyoming,” according to Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon.
Details on exactly how the new administration will achieve these things are not clear, according to some critics. The sweeping climate and energy policy directives are mostly within two executive orders: Declaring A National Energy Emergency and Unleashing American Energy.
The orders — issued within hours of Trump’s inauguration on Monday — included an immediate freeze of Biden-era grant disbursements to energy and climate initiatives, including in Wyoming.
On the line is $69 million to launch a Homes Energy Savings Program for low-income households to cope with rising electric utility rates, and $8.1 million for a Grid Resiliency Program, according to the Wyoming Energy Authority.
Additional federal grant money from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law slated for Wyoming could also be at risk. Officials are also examining potential implications for University of Wyoming School of Energy Resources research, as well as tens of millions of dollars for water infrastructure upgrades that towns say they desperately need. All are programs that state leaders had — mostly — agreed are vital to support jobs, economic resiliency and the quality of life in the Equality State.
Wyoming’s federal leaders didn’t share state officials’ eagerness for the funding. The entire Wyoming congressional delegation voted against the Biden-era federal spending measures.
It’s hard to say, though, how Trump’s executive orders will shake out, state officials and organizations told WyoFile this week. The directives are so sprawling, legally questionable and riddled with vaguery that it may take weeks to decipher, and even longer to understand the benefits and repercussions, some observers say. Most agree, however, they will surely result in a mess of entrenched litigation.
Regardless, the turnabout on energy and climate policy priorities at the White House is largely what Wyoming asked for.
“Voters across Wyoming, like the country, made it clear in November that a robust domestic energy industry is critical for both national security and economic prosperity,” Petroleum Association of Wyoming Vice President and Director of Communications Ryan McConnaughey told WyoFile.
“After four years of attacks on Wyoming’s core energy industries, we now can look forward to an immediate change in approach,” Gordon said.
“President Trump is wasting no time slashing restrictive regulatory red tape and is beginning the task of unleashing American energy,” Senate Western Caucus Chair Cynthia Lummis, a Republican of Wyoming, said in a prepared statement.
Conservation groups, meantime, spent much of the week countering claims made within the orders and warning of both intended and unintended consequences — all the while noting that the U.S. is producing more oil and gas than ever and that 2024 was the hottest year on human record. Moreover, they say, Trump’s executive orders are likely to have many unwelcome ramifications in Wyoming — including for an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy policy like the one Gordon has touted for years.
“Here is a classic case of picking winners and losers,” Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby told WyoFile. “You hear a lot of talk about all-of-the-above energy, but what I think they really mean is all-of-the-fossil-energy, because renewables are clearly not included in this push to boost energy production. It’s been entirely focused on oil, gas and coal.”
What’s in, what’s out, what’s in question
Though wind energy developers mostly try to avoid federal lands, there are a handful of proposals in the works that may see an indefinite delay resulting from Trump’s executive orders, including the Two Rivers Wind Project just north of Medicine Bow.
The nation’s largest onshore wind energy project, Power Company of Wyoming’s Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind energy complex in Carbon County, won myriad state and federal permits in 2023, and is expected to continue with construction unobstructed by Trump’s orders because its permits are already secured, the company said.
Likewise, the controversial 149-wind turbine Rail Tie project in southern Albany County may not be subject to the pause on federal wind energy development. It’s located on private lands and won a federal permit last year to connect to the Western Area Power Administration’s transmission network. Opponents, however, are petitioning Wyoming’s congressional delegation and the Trump administration to rescind the federal approval.
Trump’s orders also throw into doubt several energy efficiency and infrastructure programs.
Within a portion of the Unleashing American Energy executive order is a directive titled “Terminating the Green New Deal.” It mandates that federal agencies must temporarily pause billions of dollars in disbursements from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. That throws into limbo a $69 million Homes Energy Savings Program for low-income households that state officials were prepared to launch this year, according to the Wyoming Energy Authority. The program is intended to help qualifying households “save money on their energy bills and access more reliable energy by providing rebates for home energy efficiency projects,” according to the agency.
Many Wyoming residents have decried a series of electrical rate hikes in recent years, and more potential increases are in the works.
“With these new executive orders, there is a lot of uncertainty on where these programs stand,” Lander-based Wyoming Outdoor Council Program Director Alec Underwood told WyoFile. “Wyoming could likely miss out on hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to improve energy efficiency.”
“Voters across Wyoming, like the country, made it clear in November that a robust domestic energy industry is critical for both national security and economic prosperity.”
Ryan McConnaughey, Petroleum Association of Wyoming
Trump’s federal grant disbursement freeze also casts doubt on $8.1 million for a Grid Resiliency Program to study how to prevent electrical outages and boost electrical grid reliability in the state — a priority shared by both Gordon and Wyoming lawmakers.
Energy and environment nexus
President Trump’s Unleashing American Energy executive order, among other things, directs federal agency heads to identify all potential “burdens” to producing energy resources on federal lands and methods to eliminate such obstacles, “with particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral and nuclear energy resources.”
The Petroleum Association of Wyoming hailed the order as “critical for both national security and economic prosperity.”
“President Trump’s executive orders on energy will help streamline permitting, reduce red tape, lift the [liquified natural gas] export ban and set a pro-energy policy approach across federal agencies that will reassure producers — especially those in Wyoming often operating on federal lands,” the association’s McConnaughey said.
For others in Wyoming, fast-tracking fossil fuel development while seeking to eliminate regulatory checks is unnecessary for Wyoming’s extraction industries to flourish but threatens the state’s wildlife and environmental health — vital components to the state’s tourism and outdoor recreation industries.
“In Wyoming, our energy resources are an important economic driver, but so too are our recreation opportunities, tourism and wildlife,” Underwood of the Wyoming Outdoor Council said. “As the Trump administration moves toward prioritizing energy development over all other uses on public lands, we hope that the public who uses and enjoys these landscapes will continue to have a say in how public lands are managed.”
Though Trump’s orders were embraced by fossil fuel producers, as well as mining companies hoping to boost the nation’s rare earth element and uranium output, it’s difficult to say how swiftly those industries might realize an advantage, or whether customers might see lower energy prices.
One thing is for sure: Wyoming will likely remain entangled in a mountain of litigation over Biden-era initiatives that were cemented into policy via the National Environmental Policy Act and federal rulemaking, such as the power plant rule, the recently revised Rock Springs Resource Management Plan and banning federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin.
“The Biden administration did everything by the book, and it took a long time to get some of those regulations in place — and that’s by design,” Center for Western Priorities’ Hamby said. “Those processes are designed to make sure that the agency is consulting with a lot of stakeholders, hearing and responding to their input and crafting rules and regulations that reflect the input from the public comment process. It takes a long time, but it’s designed to be durable.”
Though Gordon championed the president’s executive orders, it’s unclear whether he might consider mirroring some of the same actions at the executive level in Wyoming. Asked whether Gordon might, for example, order state agencies to halt wind energy permitting or refuse Biden-era federal funding already flowing to Wyoming, his communications director said not necessarily.
“The Governor’s statement of support is not to suggest specific state-level actions are going to occur,” Michael Pearlman wrote to WyoFile, “but is in recognition of the immediate impact of the presence of an administration that the Governor feels will be more responsive to state input on issues important to our oil, gas and coal industries.”
Gordon talked about the importance of speeding up regulatory approvals, especially for large energy projects, while addressing attendees of the Wyoming Press Association’s annual convention in Cheyenne this month. It’s a goal that Gordon and then Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland agreed on during a groundbreaking ceremony for the TransWest Express transmission line project in 2023.
Still, he told the WPA audience, many large energy projects simply require a long lead time for planners, investors, regulatory officials and communities alike. That reality necessitates an all-of-the-above energy strategy like the one he’s championed in Wyoming and across the West.
It is “critical to allowing projects to develop over a horizon that’s going to take at least five years to maybe 10 years,” Gordon said. “You can’t do that with wild swings from one side to the other every four years. So finding that all-of-the-above energy approach is exactly where Wyoming has been and why we are in such a great position.”
The post What Trump’s executive orders mean for Wyoming energy, mining appeared first on WyoFile .