Trump plans to unleash fossil fuels and mining in 2025, unraveling Democrats green new deal

Coming with the new year is a new president with a very different vision on energy than President Joe Biden, who campaigned on a promise to “end fossil fuel.”

President-elect Donald Trump is dismissive of the immediate “climate crisis” narrative that drove much of Biden’s energy policies. He promises to establish American “energy dominance” and focus policy on bringing down the cost of energy. 

While Trump can overturn Biden’s industry-punishing executive orders and create a friendlier regulatory environment for the oil, gas, coal and mining industries, experts say there are economic and technical limits to what the outcomes of his policies will be. Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, here’s what we might expect for energy and industry in the second Trump administration. 

Market forces

During a speech at the Economic Club of New York luncheon in September, Trump said he would end the Biden-Harris administration’s “anti-energy crusade and implement a policy of energy abundance, energy independence, and even energy dominance.” This would include, he said, getting the price of gasoline down below $2 per gallon, which would decrease the cost of all goods and services. 

“We have more liquid gold under our feet than any other country, including Russia and Saudi Arabia [and] will be using it. My plan will cut energy prices in half or more than that within 12 months of taking office. It will be an economic revival of our country like no one has ever seen before,” Trump said before his campaign proved successful in the November election. 

Trump has shown a commitment to these energy pathways by nominating North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum for Interior Secretary, who led the third highest oil-producing state in the U.S. Trump also nominated Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright for Energy Secretary. If the Senate confirms him, Wright will be the first Energy Secretary who has actually worked in the energy industry. 

While his picks speak to Trump’s commitment, there are other challenges that may not mean an increase in oil and gas production. Despite Biden’s promise to destroy the oil and gas industry, the U.S. reached record-high production levels. Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer and editor in chief of Shale Magazine, said that this high production under Biden will have economic consequences limiting further increases. 

"Unfriendly regulatory environment"

“Low gas prices are not what will make them go out and produce oil,” Rapier told Just the News. The reason production is so high is because prices are high, Rapier explained. While Biden limited drilling and exploration on public lands and created an unfriendly regulatory environment, the high oil prices allowed the industry to thrive within that framework. 

A similar thing, Rapier said, happened during the Obama administration. While Obama was no friend of oil and gas, high prices drove innovation in the American oil and gas industry leading to what’s commonly referred to as the Shale Revolution. However, there comes a point when supply meets demand. 

“So what Trump will do, he will make available areas that were put off limits by Biden. He will sweep away some of the rules that were put in place, like methane emission rules and some things like that. But I don't expect that to spur a lot of drilling. I expect it to be dictated mainly by prices,” Rapier said. 

Drill, baby, drill

Rapier said that oil and gas executives are telling him that they’re not expecting the new administration will affect their drilling plans a lot. Over the last several months, oil production has flattened out, suggesting that producers are easing back on the throttle. 

“I could see production potentially declining next year. I didn't think that was likely a year ago, but it's really going to depend on prices,” Rapier said, adding that if prices stay below $70 per barrel, as they’ve done for much of the past few months, he expects investments in increased production to diminish. 

Alex Stevens, manager of policy and communications for the Institute of Energy Research, told Just the News that market signals will ultimately shape production under the new administration, but the administration will make investments safer. 

“I think the main point of ‘drill baby drill’ is to signal to American energy producers that they will have the freedom to invest in new production so long as the market signals that it is needed. In this environment, markets will be better able to adapt to changes in supply and demand because regulatory red tape will not be in the way,” Stevens said. 

One area that Trump will have a positive benefit, both Stevens and Rapier said, with respect to liquified natural gas exports. Biden had placed a moratorium on export permits to nations without free trade agreements with the U.S., which includes European countries. 

The official reasoning of the Biden-Harris administration was that a full study of the overall impacts of LNG exports was needed to be done to determine if increased exports are in the public interest. The Department of Energy released the study in mid-December, with critics questioning its conclusions. Trump is expected to overturn the moratorium upon taking office without regard to the DOE study.

“I think that'll have a significant long-term impact, because we do have a lot of natural gas we can still produce. We have become the largest LNG exporter in the world, and that was threatened by the pause in the LNG exports,” Rapier said. 

Mine, baby, mine

As with oil and gas, the Biden-Harris administration did no favors for the mining industry, including blocking a road in Alaska that would have allowed access to potential mining developments and canceling leases for a mining project in Minnesota. 

There is a key difference between mining and oil production. The times between exploration and production in oil and gas are measured in years, but in mining, it’s measured in decades. While a “mine, baby, mine” administration will help, the impediments to domestic mining go far beyond the machinations of the Biden-Harris administration. 

David Hammond, a mineral economist with decades of experience as a mining consultant, told Just the News that the benefits to mining of the Trump administration will be marginal.

“I think there's a number of things that Trump can do, but the impact on them is going to be in the near term, almost, you almost won't be able to see it,” Hammond said. 

If a mining project is far along in the application process, the Trump administration could speed things up to bring it online. It can take 10 years just to get the federal permits needed for a mining process. While Trump can have an influence, permitting reform will require Congressional action, and past attempts haven’t gone smoothly. Stevens, with the Institute for Energy Research, said Congress will likely pursue “meaningful” permitting reform in 2025. 

“By meaningful permitting reform, I mean changes to ESA [Endangered Species Act], time clocks on environmental impact statements, and a wide range of reforms that will go well beyond the permitting talks that were being discussed towards the end of the year. There will likely be some give and take there with the repeal of the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] being the focal point for negotiations,” Stevens said.

Waiting decades

Even if those processes are expedited under Trump, or if Congress passes effective permitting reform to shorten that time, Hammond said litigation can delay mining projects for many years. 

Additionally, there are the technical difficulties in opening a mine. As an example, he points to the Resolution Copper mine in Arizona, which has been in the permitting process for over a decade. Even if Rio Tinto, the owners of the mine, were handed permits and all litigation was immediately dismissed, a near fantasy scenario, Hammond says it would be another decade before construction was complete and the mine producing. 

“By the time we engineer it, and we develop the underground workings, and we get the mill built, and we get the tailings put in — without any more obstruction by the enviros — it still will be another 10 years before we're going to produce a single pound of copper,” Hammond said. 

There’s no guarantee in four years that a new administration will continue Trump’s mining-friendly policies, so there is no certainty what regulatory environment Rio Tinto will face when it’s ready to begin production. 

Likewise, there’s no guarantee what mineral prices will do. Lithium prices, for example, have completely crumbled in the past couple of years as demand for electric vehicles failed to keep up with federal mandates. In October, a lithium mine in Nevada won final approval. Production is still a few years away, but due to falling prices, the project may no longer be economically viable. 

Trump has promised to roll back EV mandates, and Congress may do away with EV tax credits, further lowering lithium demand. Trump’s policies may also lower demand for solar panels and wind turbines, which will decrease demand for rare earth and other minerals. 

Hammond said that one area Trump could have lasting positive benefits on mining is in shortening the permitting time needed for exploration. If it were quicker, there would be a lot more exploration done, which would help the industry identify potentially economical mineral deposits. 

Climate leadership

Frank Lasee, president of Truth in Energy and Climate and author of “Climate and Energy Lies,” told Just the News that however his policies play out, Trump’s lasting impact will be the shift in the national narrative on climate and energy. 

During the Biden years, questioning if climate change is causing a crisis justifying the rapid elimination of fossil fuels earned skeptics the dreaded “climate denier” label. After Trump called climate change a hoax, Democrats were quick to slap the label on him. Voters, apparently, weren’t particularly bothered by the position. 

“I think that one of the biggest things Trump's going to do is the leadership effect of continuing to say, this is a climate crisis hoax. There isn't a climate crisis. And he'll talk with the American people about that,” Lasee said.