Trump Establishes Council for National Energy Dominance
In fulfillment of his campaign promise, the president has appointed Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum as chair and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright as vice chair.
On February 14, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that officially established the National Energy Dominance Council, a White House advisory group tasked with coordinating and directing energy policy to achieve “energy dominance.”
During his campaign, Trump committed to forming a Cabinet-level energy council to “unlock American energy,” with a focus predominantly on oil and gas production.
The National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC) will be led by Doug Burgum, Secretary of the Interior and former governor of North Dakota, with Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy, serving as vice chair. Additional members will be selected from the Cabinet and essential government agencies.
A fact sheet distributed by the White House prior to the formal issuance of the executive order noted that the NEDC will provide counsel to President Trump on strategies for achieving energy dominance by enhancing processes related to permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transport of all forms of American energy.
The council’s primary objective will be to formulate a “National Energy Dominance Strategy” aimed at reducing federal regulations, incentivizing private sector investment, and fostering innovation.
The White House stated that the NEDC is designed to accelerate the reversal of energy policies implemented by the Biden administration, which they claim have driven “overall household energy prices” up, including a 30 percent rise in gasoline prices.
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One of the immediate steps involves removing restrictions on offshore oil leases spanning extensive areas of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as the Gulf of America, previously referred to as the Gulf of Mexico in industry leasing charts, contracts, and documents.
The White House noted that during the preceding four years, it’s estimated that the nation produced over 2 billion barrels less oil than expected had President Trump’s energy policies remained in place, representing a significant volume of lost supply that could have eased energy prices for American households.
Addressing regulatory barriers in oil production is not the foremost challenge facing domestic operators, as the United States already excels in natural gas production.
The fluctuations of the global market primarily dictate the decisions of companies regarding drilling activities.
Currently, there are over 9 million acres of federal public lands under oil development leases that remain inactive throughout the West.
The second major hurdle in realizing Trump’s “drill baby drill” energy vision is the necessity to expand pipeline capacity for transportation and storage, along with rapidly enhancing the infrastructure required to export liquefied natural gas (LNG).
In an executive order on his first day, January 20, Trump revoked the Biden administration’s pause on LNG exports, simplified the LNG export licensing process to one-sixth of the previous duration, and shortened the permitting timeframe for drilling on federal lands.
Furthermore, Trump has tasked the NEDC with tackling and reversing U.S. reliance on China for a variety of critical minerals, a situation which he claims has jeopardized the nation’s supply chain, particularly highlighted by China’s recent restriction on exporting germanium, gallium, and antimony to the United States.
