In a significant move to reshape America’s energy policy, President-elect Donald Trump has announced the formation of a National Energy Council, appointing North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as its head. This initiative aims to streamline energy production and reduce regulatory hurdles, signaling a departure from previous administrations’ approaches. Burgum, who has also been nominated as Secretary of the Interior, will hold dual roles in the administration and will have a seat on the National Security Council.
Trump said in a statement.
“This Council will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation,”
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-doug-burgum-will-chair-new-national-energy-council-2024-11-15/
A New Direction in Energy Policy
The National Energy Council is designed to coordinate efforts across various federal departments and agencies involved in energy-related activities, including permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation. By centralizing these functions, the council seeks to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles that have historically impeded energy development. Trump emphasized that the council will “oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”
Doug Burgum: A Strategic Appointment
Governor Doug Burgum’s selection to lead the council is noteworthy. With a background in business and a tenure as governor of an energy-rich state, Burgum brings practical experience to the role. His leadership is expected to align with the council’s objectives of reducing regulatory burdens and promoting energy development. Burgum’s state, North Dakota, ranks third in the nation in crude oil production, behind Texas and New Mexico. It relies heavily on both coal and wind for electricity production.
Implications for Energy Production and Regulation
The establishment of the National Energy Council under Burgum’s leadership suggests a shift towards policies that prioritize energy production and economic growth over stringent regulatory frameworks. This approach may lead to increased domestic energy output and a reduction in energy costs for consumers. However, it also raises questions about the balance between energy development and environmental protection.
Conclusion
The creation of the National Energy Council and the appointment of Doug Burgum as its head represent a strategic move by the incoming administration to revitalize the nation’s energy sector. By focusing on reducing regulatory barriers and promoting innovation, this initiative aims to achieve energy dominance and stimulate economic growth. As these policies unfold, their impact on the energy landscape and the broader economy will be closely observed.
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Drill, baby drill!!!🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I do want to see your energy costs drop into the toilet before we start exporting more.
$1.00/gallon gas would be good.
New oil production in the US is currently quite expensive, only partly due to excess regulation. Streamlining the process may see our oil in the neighborhood of $40/barrel, but I doubt we’ll see $10 unless the Saudies flood the market to choke the US off.
Venezuela undercuts the market price for domestic consumption, but I can’t see Exxon/Mobil doing that.
Could be that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be restocked. The current administration (JB and crew) has replaced around 10% of what was withdrawn – for political purposes.
yay! another bureaucracy?!?!
…. replacing many.
You hope? I wouldn’t try to guess what is expected to, or will happen, but I would like to remind people that the Democrats and their ilk across the western societies have been talking about the same thing, but fortunately never got it together. Their intention was clear: There has been extensive local opposition against new large wind and solar facilities and new HV transmission lines. Their intention was to make a way to ride roughshod over all opposition.
Well, are they gone or “surely will go away any moment now”?
I hope they also start looking more seriously at NUCLEAR…
… and don’t forget they still have very large amounts of COAL available.
Cut all subsidies and mandates for unreliable weather dependent supplies.
Introduce rules stopping the environmental damage by wind turbines, onshore and offshore.
And make it so EPA cannot interfere.
Just kill the EPA, the states have their own environmental agencies anyway.
However, some states have ceded some of their environmental regulatory authorities to EPA. Not a huge problem, but it may not be as easy as falling off a wagon.
Yeah, I’d challenge Reuters statement that South Dakota, or anywhere for that matter, relies on wind energy. One cannot reasonable rely upon something that is unreliable.
Did you mean North Dakota?
“In 2023, coal-fired power plants provided 55% of North Dakota’s electricity generation, and wind energy accounted for 36%, which was the sixth-highest share of wind power for any state.”
North Dakota Profile
Still, the pesky EPA Endangerment Finding for carbon dioxide releases looms large. Rescind this, and there’s no stopping the US. The economy will be lifted, floating on a sea of oil, with chunks of coal bobbing about! Just Stop Oil and thier ilk can metaphorically drown and choke on the whole shebang. Difficult to chuck soup or paint on anything when you’ve been tarred by a gusher of crude. That would be a wonderful day indeed.
Felt good to scribble that. Let the trolls seethe!
Regards,
MCR
Amen. The endangerment finding is a scientific travesty, just read Carlin’s paper on it.
I have been involved in development of a number of mines in Australia. The process became increasingly complex over my career.
A geologist I worked with in the 1980s produced a flow chart of the steps and government agencies involved to get a mining started. My boss at the time took that flow chart, which covered a number of A0 sheets, to the State and Federal governments to point out the difficulties and overlap of agencies.
The State made an effort to make a one stop shop but it died when a new government was voted in. So this move is a good step but it needs to be locked down to have an enduring effect.
Getting any new mining project started will exceed Trump’s 4 year term.
Can Donald get Elon to do the same for the UK? We need to get rid of TTK, Red Ed and all the lefty green and woke idiots in the UK.
all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed
and
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
In other words, it is in your hands, and no doubt desirable, but I suspect the majority are still a long way from any serious abolishing.
Fleas on the back of the public
Factchecking BBC style
BBC’s fact-checking programme wrongly refers to RFK Jr as JFK Jr https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/11/15/bbc-fact-checking-verify-rfk-jfk-trump-election/
All those FK’s look alike.
And what about foreign policy? Paris et al?
What?! How novel, a Western democracy placing a priority on their own FF resources to generate energy and energy independence, that will underpin economic growth.
No doubt, the green climate bedwetters, will describe this approach by a democratically elected government as an ‘existential threat’ to life on planet earth.
Good. They should all claim they are going to die all the time. It exposes them for the Chicken Little’s that they are.
My concern with Burgum is that he supports and promotes the idea of co2 capture and apparently, North Dakota has benefited from federal subsidies for wind. ND is one of the few states where electricity rates have not been affected by the addition of wind – likely because they maintained their reliable coal fired power plants and because ND is sparsely populated. Hopefully, he is not an all of the above advocate. We need to get rid of wind and solar – although I do think solar has some niche applications not related to powering the grid.
What’s Burgum’s take on the climate “emergency”?
And what’s his take on carbon capture subsidies, etc.? Many questions. And for that matter, what does this emphasis on “innovation” really mean? If any “innovation” is for the purpose of “climate” mitigation, it is misdirected from the start.
This is what happens when we put adults in charge
A possible way to bypass the regulatory bottleneck would be to “nuclearize” all of our federal military bases/facilities. Going nuke would be a National Security project, and the purposely built in overcapacity would be sold to the grid. Today’s TVA.
I agree with this approach. For 25 years I worked at a large military base. In Calendar Year 2000, the Directorate of Public Works adopted ISO 14001 standards to assist in controlling ops. Lofty target goals to be completed by CY2025 were established for various programatic areas, including energy. The main energy goal was for the base to supply its own internal power-to be energy self-sufficient-by CY2025, that is independent of reliance upon outside electrical delivery. It also aimed to phase out petroleum based heating (boilers, natural gas radiant heaters, etc.). Phaseout of petroleum based energy was low hanging fruit (easier to accomplish) than total energy independence. With no real ability to install photovoltaics (base sits @47 degrees north latitude) nor bird-choppers, and no real control over streams or rivers to dam for hydro, the idea of small modular reactors was never accepted as a viable option, let alone funded for a pilot (test bed) project, which I found quite odd. Might be time to seriously review the SMR option at military bases, if they are serious about reaching those energy independence targets (don’t know about ‘by CY2025’ though)
Regards,
MCR
And they could start by using naval reactors; no need to reinvent the wheel on day 1.
Burgum is a good choice, but I expect him to be mostly frustrated by all the numerous government agencies who like Lilliputians are intent on tying down and restraining the energy production industry, even if those agencies are now about to go under control of an industry-friendly GOP administration.
To actually fix the issue of over-regulation, Congress is going to have to get busy on repealing and/or rewriting Federal laws to un-delegate authority that Congress has been ceding to the unelected bureaucrats for many decades. With GOP control of the White House and both houses of Congress, this may be the best opportunity in our lifetimes to actually fix how our Federal government functions, at least to the degree that lawmaking can do that.
Limiting the filibuster is essential … it doesn’t have to be killed off … just return it to its olden days when it simply required extended debate of critical lawmaking, but did not provide an absolute veto of lawmaking by a minority of Senators.
For instance, the GOP needs to rewrite the Clean Air Act to specifically define carbon dioxide as a non-pollutant. Easy enough to do and that will completely destroy EPA’s ability to regulate CO2.
Second, as part of the CAA amendment, remove EPA’s unlimited authority to grant states the right to set stricter pollution limits. Pollution is never just a local matter – it always has profound effects on interstate commerce. EPA only has the authority because the CAA allows that. So remove it.
The NRC’s grossly bloated nuclear licensing scheme needs to be blown apart and replaced with something much simpler and faster. It’s now a carryover from the days when we had little experience with running large scale utility reactors, and it is totally unfit for licensing small modular reactors that can be ganged together as needed, safely, to produce large amounts of nuclear generated electrical energy.
Congress also must un-delegate the Executive branch’s power to issue or refuse to issue oil drilling permits on Federal lands. There needs to be clear rules on how to do it, and put those rules in the law, and do not allow future Presidents to hinder energy production based upon a political whim of the day.
So on and so on.
We are far past the time when a newly-elected administration can come in and clear out the trash in the executive branch. Congress has to start doing their job of enacting the laws. The role of the executive is only to enforce those laws enacted by Congress.
A key method to reassert Congress’s sole Constitutional authority to make law is to reform the Congressional Review Act. Right now, a proposed or existing rule can only be overturned if both Houses of Congress vote to do so, then the President can veto and thus require a 2/3 vote in both Houses to overturn the rule. In other words, no rules ever get overturned by Congress.
Reform the act to require that a negative vote by either House of Congress is required to overturn a rule, and the President would have no authority to veto it. This is clearly what our founders expected, that administrations would be entirely subject to Congress’s power to make law, and could merely enforce Congress’s law.
With this minor change in one law, Congress could completely eliminate vast numbers of the 200,000+ Federal regulations now on the books, and prevent later Presidents from overruling Congress.
Duane-Enjoyed reading your post. If only all or at least a few of your ideas could become a reality, the USofA will be far better off. Your post should be read by those in positions of political clout..
Regards,
MCR
Wow, good move trump, adding to the USA federal bloat with a conservatively tinted virtue signaling bureaucracy …..
The council must have members with engineering and operations experience in distribution, transmission, generation and regional transmission operations (PJM, etc)!!
These members will, must show how each part of the electric system, maintains reliability, frequency/voltage stability, and the ability to serve instant changes in customer demand, as well as the long term forecasts for new generators/transmission lines necessary for future/forcasted load additions. The same goes for distribution if EVs and electrification are mandated.
Members should be included that can demonstrate actual costs and accommodations for each sector of the delivery system for the various types of generators—without subsidies, or threats of extreme regulation. It is essential that grid and distribution costs be known for the required back-up/make-up/protection systems/dependency for the intermittent/unpredictable generators of (wind, solar, battery storage).
Please no more unknowledgeable, non-technical education, and other political appointees.
Running through legislation to reform the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act would be preferable. Changing Carter era executive orders might have an effect, but those procedures have become a self licking ice cream cone for activists to block anything they oppose, which is nearly anything.
The National Energy Council should be used to debunk the notion that increasing CO2 emissions are bad for the environment or bad for humanity. It should present and market the science that says NOTHING bad has happened to the environment or humanity as CO2 and temps have increased over the past 40 years. Nothing. Nothing bad has happened. What’s the problem?
It should present the evidence that EVERY SINGLE DIRE FORECAST HAS FAILED. Every single one. And it should ask the question: Why should we believe any of the future dire forecasts?
It should present the evidence that shows that increased CO2 and increased temps have benefited humanity. While more people may be dying from heat, ten times as many are being saved from cold. The increased CO2 has benefited plant life and the environment. The earth is literally greener because of increased CO2. There is more plant life on the plant because there is more food for plants – CO2.
This is what the council should do.
Now that’s some good news. Abundant, accessible and inexpensive energy is the key to a prosperous nation.
What does the National Energy Council portend for the corrupt and self-serving DoE?
It’s time to return to coal, which in modern plants is a clean source of energy.
The US has massive reserves of good quality accessible coal. By using more coal, we can free up natural gas at lower prices for existing plants in the US and also free up gas for LNG exports.
Couldn’t agree more!
Coal is by far the cheapest form of stored energy, and places like the USA and Australia, and many other places, have it in abundance.
It is also FAR less polluting than the manufacture of solar and wind turbines…
… both of which require a lot more mining, and lots of toxic chemicals for processing.