Fueling The Conversation, Week of May 5th, 2025
Given the flurry of activity in the first 100 days since President Trump resumed office, it’s easy to forget just how detrimental the Biden administration’s climate and energy policies were. All told, President Biden took hundreds of executive actions that resulted in runaway inflation, higher energy and electricity prices, and placed restrictions on our ability to produce our home-grown natural resources.
President Trump, promising to reverse these harmful policies, has issued dozens of energy-related executive orders and established the interagency National Energy Dominance Council. Following suit, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced his intention to review the costliest and most onerous Biden-era regulations, including electric vehicle mandates, the greenhouse gas endangerment finding, regulations preventing the construction of new gas and coal-fired electricity plants, and the social cost of carbon.
There are important and necessary first steps. Given how consistently our organization has fought to rein in federal control and fix harmful rules (through petitions, court filings, regulatory comments, and public outreach), we welcomed this hundred-day agenda with open arms. However, there is much more work to be done.
Executive orders are important because they have a significant influence over the internal affairs of the administration, but they are fleeting. Reviewing and reversing regulations last longer, but take a considerable amount of time and are subject to extensive judicial review. What that means is, absent meaningful action from Congress, the pendulum of executive and regulatory interpretation will continue to swing back and forth between competing administrations, perpetuating a cycle of doubt that stifles innovation, creates economic uncertainty, and jeopardizes American energy security.
Executive orders and regulations are directives on the interpretation of a law and are subject to the whim of decisions that shift with the political tide. Although recent Supreme Court decisions, such as Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, will hopefully place some constraints on the executive branch’s regulatory excesses, it’s more likely that regulations can still be weaponized to advance specific ideologies. Case in point: President Biden’s expanded Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, which determines which bodies of water are federally protected under the Clean Water Act. Under President Biden, WOTUS was broadened to restrict oil and gas production on private lands. After making it nearly impossible to produce on federal lands, the administration used WOTUS to target private lands, where energy development is flourishing. President Trump can take up our petition to revise the WOTUS rule, and hopefully, he will, but the road to lasting impact runs through Congress.
But when we continuously expand and contract regulatory interpretations, it only serves to create a climate of uncertainty, making it difficult for businesses, state and local governments, and even private citizens to navigate the rules. Providing clearer, more predictable standards reduces the costs associated with regulatory ambiguity, allowing America to be more competitive. By prioritizing legislation that enacts these changes into law, Congress has the opportunity to strengthen the framework for sensible and meaningful oversight, economic growth, and societal progress.
Moreover, by codifying deregulatory actions, we can push the onus back on states to address local concerns and create balanced legislation that benefits their region; what works for Miami, Florida, isn’t going to cut it in Watford City, North Dakota.
The stakes couldn’t be higher, and with an all-Republican congress and Republican administration, now is the time to act. A failure by Congress to rein in the regulatory state leaves the American people trapped in a regulatory limbo, where rules shift dramatically based on whichever way the political winds are blowing. This instability stifles progress and creates frustration, inefficiency, and long-term harm to our economy and environment.
While the Trump Administration’s actions are a necessary first step in achieving regulatory reform, and we applaud them fully, Congress must step up and ensure these changes endure through legislative action. It’s time to end the cycle of regulatory uncertainty and create a sustainable, forward-looking policy that expands economic opportunity and prosperity for all.
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Fueling the Conversation, a weekly column by IER President Tom Pyle, offers a principled take on energy events. Energy underpins all aspects of modern life, so policies that artificially limit production hurt everyday people paying to heat their homes and driving to work. “Green” groups push these policies for idealogical reasons, but this column uses economic logic and hard facts to advocate for energy freedom.
