Some environmentalists would like to see Democrats act more like President Donald Trump, even though they despise his policies.<\/p>\n
With headlong assaults on offshore wind and other renewable energy projects, the president has opened a door to more aggressive action by a future Democratic president on climate and energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump kicked down the door and removed the frame,\u201d said Mitch Jones, deputy director of the environmental group Food & Water Action. Now, he said, \u201cthere is now so much more room for an executive with the right policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
A future Democratic administration adopting the Trump-pioneered tactics to use against oil and gas presents a risk for oil and gas companies, according to experts, some environmentalists and even some in the industry. Most industry leaders, though, aren\u2019t talking about such prospects and aren\u2019t publicly worried.<\/p>\n
But, veteran Oklahoma oilman Mike Cantrell said, \u201cThey should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
A potential Democratic president such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Cantrell said, \u201cwould use the executive power much like Trump uses it on the right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Representatives for Newsom did not provide comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The idea of trouble for fossil fuels was also expressed last year in an anonymous survey of oil and gas executives from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cLife is long,\u201d said one unnamed executive, \u201cand the sword being wielded against the renewables industry right now will likely boomerang back in 3.5 years against traditional energy.\u201d<\/p>\n The industry will face \u201charsher methane penalties, permitting restrictions, crazy environmental reviews and other lawfare tactics,\u201d the executive predicted.<\/p>\n Trump has long complained about renewable energy infrastructure, even making an unfounded claim at one point that wind turbines cause cancer<\/a>. And he laid out his plans to stop the U.S. from participating in a transition to renewable energy as soon as he returned to office last year.<\/p>\n But he\u2019s strayed into territory where other presidents fear to tread by canceling wind energy projects that already had permits and clawing back money<\/a> for solar projects that had already gone out the door. Many of the moves were legally dubious and judges have rejected them<\/a>, but they\u2019ve still left the industry badly damaged<\/a> as investors flee.<\/p>\n Still, bad news for renewables isn\u2019t necessarily good news for oil production.<\/p>\n Imagine what could happen in future years to an offshore oil drilling project approved late in a Republican administration, said Severin Borenstein, director of the Energy Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be real hesitancy,\u201d Borenstein said, \u201cif the next president can just say, yeah, you sunk billions of dollars, but we don\u2019t really care \u2014 we\u2019re canceling that.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s no-holds-barred strikes on wind and solar are fundamentally different from the way previous Republican administrations have used their power to advance the interests of fossil fuels, said Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, executive director of the Western Environmental Law Center.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was at least within the bounds of normal policy discourse,\u201d he said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t feel like they were just completely ignoring a century of norms and legal frameworks that had been built up over time, which is what this administration has been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, Schlenker-Goodrich said, the temporary moratorium Biden placed on new leasing of public lands for oil and gas still allowed new drilling by companies that had existing leases and permits. What\u2019s different, he said, is that Trump is blocking development for companies that have active leases and permits.<\/p>\n But the White House and some fossil fuel industry leaders say Trump\u2019s attempts to shut down wind and solar projects reflect how the pendulum swings in Washington when a new administration takes over.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the Democrat Party that frivolously launched an ideological crusade on the coal, oil, and gas industries to advance their radical Green New Scam,\u201d White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an emailed statement, misnaming the Democratic Party in a manner many members find annoying or offensive.<\/p>\n \u2018Shock to the system\u2019<\/p>\n The head of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry\u2019s main trade group, offered a similar \u2014 if less combative \u2014 explanation earlier this month.<\/p>\n \u201cBarack Obama had a war on coal. Joe Biden had a war on oil and gas. This is not the first administration that has halted energy projects,\u201d API CEO Mike Sommers said in his \u201cState of American Energy\u201d speech.<\/p>\n Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, described the current situation as a comeuppance for wind and solar. His nonprofit is closely aligned with the fossil fuel industry,<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think this is \u2018Boy, he\u2019s showing us all these great tools that we can use to go after oil and gas,’\u201d Pyle said. \u201cI think that it\u2019s a shock to the system for renewables because they have had the gravy train for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n Oil and gas and other fossil fuels also receive subsidies, although advocates for the various sources differ on how much. A U.S. Energy Information Administration report<\/a> from 2023 found that renewables got about 46 percent of federal energy subsidies while fossil fuels and nuclear got about 15 percent combined from 2016 to 2022.<\/p>\n In Oklahoma, Cantrell said Trump\u2019s moves highlight the political peril the oil industry faces in having friends in only one party on Capitol Hill. Cantrell, a board member of the National Stripper Well Association, said he\u2019s been encouraging oil leaders to cultivate relationships with Democratic elected officials. One way to start, he said, is to avoid attacks on wind and solar.<\/p>\n \u201cAs small-business producers, we have to take a position that America needs all of America\u2019s energy,\u201d Cantrell said in an interview. \u201cWe don\u2019t denigrate wind and solar and other forms of energy.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump set a \u201cbad precedent\u201d with his unconstrained strikes on wind and solar, said Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell who represents clients in the oil and gas industry as well as renewables.<\/p>\n But he said Biden set his own anti-energy precedent with his temporary halt on approvals for new natural gas export terminals, although it didn\u2019t directly lead to the cancellation of any projects.<\/p>\n What it really shows, Maisano said, is that Congress needs to step in and overhaul the way that the federal government approves and permits energy projects of all types.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a hard example, a hard political example, of why you need to have Congress step in with a permit reform approach that addresses this issue,\u201d Maisano said.<\/p>\n API\u2019s Sommers made a similar point in his speech, likening a permitting overhaul to a truce in the partisan energy wars.<\/p>\n On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans have been trying for several years to package their differing complaints about permitting into legislation that can draw bipartisan support. But Trump\u2019s unbridled strikes on wind and solar prompted Democrats to put<\/a> the effort on ice for now.<\/p>\n The idea that a future Democratic president should take cues from Trump builds from the view that Biden and many Democrats before him have been too timid on the environment and many other issues, paralyzed by fear of criticism.<\/p>\n