In a bold move to safeguard American energy independence, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach.” Announced on April 8, 2025, this action reaffirms the administration’s commitment to unleashing the nation’s vast energy resources while pushing back against what the White House calls “ideologically driven state interference.” For those of us who’ve long watched the battle in both Trump terms between federal energy priorities and state-level climate agendas, this EO signals a seismic shift—and a welcome one.
According to the White House fact sheet, the order targets state laws and policies that “impede the development of American energy resources.” It directs the Attorney General to identify and challenge state actions that overstep their authority, particularly those that threaten the production and distribution of reliable, affordable energy. The administration points to a laundry list of culprits: state lawsuits against energy companies for alleged “climate change harm,” nuisance tort regimes that could saddle producers with crippling damages, and regulations that choke off access to oil, gas, and coal.
The timing couldn’t be more critical. With energy prices still a sore spot for American families—thanks in part to years of regulatory strangulation under previous administrations—Trump’s EO aims to cut through the red tape and restore what he’s long called “energy dominance.” The fact sheet doesn’t mince words: states have been weaponizing their legal systems to punish energy producers, often under the guise of climate action, while ignoring the real-world consequences of higher costs and reduced reliability. Sound familiar? It’s the same playbook we’ve seen from blue-state governors and activist attorneys general for over a decade.
What’s in the EO? Beyond tasking the DOJ with a legal counteroffensive, it prioritizes federal authority over energy policy, ensuring that states can’t unilaterally derail projects vital to national security and economic growth. Think pipelines, drilling permits, and power plants—the backbone of a grid that’s been teetering under the weight of renewables-first fantasies. and the explosion of data centers. The order also signals a broader intent to protect American workers and consumers from what the administration deems “radical environmental agendas” that sacrifice jobs and affordability on the altar of green ideology.
This isn’t just a policy win—it’s a rebuke to the climate alarmism that’s fueled state-level overreach. How many times have we documented the shaky science behind lawsuits claiming fossil fuels are the root of all evil? Or the hypocrisy of states demanding clean energy while leaning on out-of-state coal plants to keep the lights on? Trump’s EO doesn’t just defend energy companies; it defends reason over dogma.
Of course, the usual suspects will cry foul. Expect the environmental lobby to spin this as an attack on states’ rights or a giveaway to “Big Oil.” But let’s be real: when states sue energy producers into oblivion or block infrastructure with endless litigation, they’re not protecting their citizens—they’re flexing political muscle at the expense of the rest of the country. The White House argues this EO restores balance, ensuring that energy policy serves the nation, not a patchwork of activist governors.
The stakes are high. America’s energy sector isn’t just about keeping the heat on in winter; it’s about jobs, competitiveness, and standing up to foreign producers who’d love to see us falter. Trump’s first term showed what deregulation could do—record-low energy prices and a boom in domestic production. This EO builds on that legacy, promising to roll back the state-level roadblocks that crept back in during the Biden years.
Will it work? The devil’s in the details, and the legal battles ahead will be fierce. State AGs won’t go down without a fight, and the courts will have their say. But for now, this Executive Order sends a clear message: the Trump administration is back, and it’s not here to play defense. For those of us who’ve championed affordable energy and questioned the climate crusade, April 8, 2025, might just be a day to mark on the calendar.
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Many of the States are going to be bound up in so many law suits they won’t be able to get them all heard or be able to afford them. California approved $50M to for legal fights with Trump and I don’t think it is going to be enough 🙂
Yes, that struck me as wonderful news. Trump is just itching to tackle them, and can half-justify it financially, since the feds are likely to save more from cancelling stupid CA initiatives than they spend fighting them. And Newsom is trying to position himself as a moderate Democrat, but he’d have to ditch that greasy hairdo to have a chance of convincing anybody outside California.
It is a subsidy to the woke, leftist lawyer clique, because federal money is being withheld from government-tit-sucking NGOs by DOGE cost cutting.
The real victims of this are the public, and the real culprits are the statists who only object to who is pulling the levers, not that the levers exist. Perhaps most astonishing to me is how much of the authority Trump is invoking has been in place for so long — not just, say, 50 years ago when the EPA was created, but the Alien laws from 1798. These people just cannot see how easily their lawfare weapons can be turned against them at the next election.
I suppose I should be grateful that all this lawfare is now tied up in so much regulation that about as soon as one administration finally pushes through the slow-as-molasses courts to undo the previous administration’s changes, the next election comes along and installs a different administration to undo their changes and unchanges. But it mostly strikes me as such an incredible waste. Why not just forbid government from interfering to start with and avoid all this back and forth which comes to the same thing?
It is funny, in a sad way, how both Biden and Trump have drawn so much attention to this and ended up almost neutralizing each other. All we need now is Kamala in 2028 and JD Vance in 2032 to keep this four year switcheroo going.
/rant
That’s why Congress needs to follow suit and codify this and other EOs through legislation. I know, the GOP majority is razor-thin, and Congress moves at a painfully slow pace, but if the majority in the House wants to actually do something, this would be a great start.
The Republicans needs to pass Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”, which will benefit Americans greatly, and will benefit the Republican Party by showing they can get things done, which will help them add to their majorities in the House and the Senate, which will enable them to get even more good things done for the nation.
The Constitution only grants limited powers to the federal government.
Thanks to 150 years of progressive governments, that old document is more or less meaningless when it comes to limiting the powers of the federal government. (Or as I sometimes like to call it, the feral government)
Presidency only. The other branches have done their best to increase benefits while abdicating responsibility for my whole lifetime.
The Supremacy Clause, found in Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, states that the Constitution and federal law supersede state laws. Except for Texas, all electric grids within the U.S. are connected interstate, thus transfer electric power via interstate commerce. It’d be interesting if the Fed’s threatened to shut off the transfer of electric power to any state that didn’t accept the precedence of Federal regulation.
It seems like the Interstate Commerce Clause might legitimately come into play?
Afraid I’m not a lawyer, but seems like it should.
It is always good to know some history
In those days, the French, UK, Spain, etc., a “Coalition of the “willing”, were losing their lucrative colonies, so they sent subversive spies to undermine our new US government.
.
That government wisely finally a law, to stop the undermining in 1798
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In 1812, the UK armed forces invaded Washington, to recover “the Colonies”, all as part of our “special relation”.
Recent history
Argentina and other countries were purposely undermining the US when they emptied out their jails and asylums and crime/poverty/disease-infested neighborhoods.
.
US-hating Soros and Co-conspirators paid NGOs to round up these people into caravans with slogans, and feed, clothe and transport them to the US border, all with assistance of drug/people traffickers/Mafioso in Mexico, that are paying off corrupt politicians.
Just yesterday, multiple vans with human cargo were waved through by corrupt border “guards”, in dysfunctional California, after they received bribes from drivers; all on video
This time, all were finally caught after decades of dirty deeds
If only you did “know some history”, https://www.history.com/articles/war-of-1812
Thank you for the detailed history
Trump needs to find a way to decouple California standards from being forced on the rest of the nation. That would go a long way toward restoring the ability of auto and truck manufacturers to design and build vehicles to meet the needs of the consumer based on science and not politics.
EPA are minimum requirements
States are allowed to impose stricter measures
There still are many states aligning with California
Cutting off the federal money will stop almost all of it
Wind, solar, battery, etc., projects are financially dead because of high tariffs, etc.
New England needs more gas.
New York State and some New England states have been colluding to prevent more gas from Pennsylvania
Trump needs to sign an EO to immediately start construction of a new gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New England, plus new gas/oil storage systems near existing and new CCGT power plants.
“and some New England states” Where’s Zorzin?
Suppliers don’t want a “Calfornia product line” and a “the other 49 states product line”. In some cases it’s just better business to sell one product line as similar as possible for both markets – meaning it’s economical to design for the more stringent California market and option out parts for other states only when convenient.
__________________________________________________________________________
Pretty much the money quote that needs to be repeated.
Trump is a monkey that has been given a hand grenade. I don’t get why you celebrate this idiot. Okay, the general collapse of capitalism is not something you can stop anyway but this cretin is just hastening it.
Get lost stinking troll.
Poor Nickie.. the renewables scam is over.
Wind and solar will now MASSIVELY increase in price, because they are imported from China and the EU.
Coal and gas will now be unburdened from what has been 🙂
Fair trade, reciprocal tariffs…. real capitalism.
An American President that will fight for America first.
It is things like Bidenomic and the rampant idiocy of all the far-left agendas that need to be assigned to the dustbin of time.
Another socialist who only sees what its professors tell it to see.
Trump is making a fool out of you and capitalism is doing great, it’s socialism that has failed everywhere it’s been tried.
Wrong, as always. The sight of capitalism, that was a deciding factor. My professors were engineers and mathematicians.
Yeah, like in China 😉
‘Trump is a monkey that has been given a hand grenade.’
As opposed to, say, the turnip or bowl of jello, that supposedly ‘headed’ the prior administration?
I don’t think anyone from the bipartisan bs mill would be doing any good here. But Trump is objectively worse than most of them. And please don’t tell me that you think with a clear conscience that Trump is doing fantastic. This guy is clearly an embarrassment.
Do you have a concise and coherent definition of the ‘bipartisan bs mill’ or are you just rambling on?
Anything related to the current US political setup. You’d better know the parties you think to be sooooo antagonistic are hardly distinguishable from afar. They do essentially the same with some surface level differences (like in the rhetoric, where Democrats are ostensibly bombing poor people in Asia for woke values, Republicans are doing that for whatever other bs). Well, Trump is a new quality for sure but a kinda logical continuation (albeit by a huge leap) of an already existing general tendency of dumbing down. Here I’d like to remind you the “from afar” part, US Americans look stupid and ignorant and the situation is seemingly deteriorating.
Maybe Mr. Trump needs to make an EO with scientific backup, declaring that CO2 is not a poison, it doesn’t control the temperature of the earth, it is essential to life and the earth needs more of it.
I would definitely like to see that! 🙂
Trump needs to declare CO2 a benign gas. Then it will be up to the crazed Climate Alarmists to prove their scary CO2 case, which they can’t do, and which will make them even more crazed.
Benign?
CO2 is an absolutely essential gas/ingredient for creating green flora.
Net zero by 2050 to reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact
He ought to do it just to troll the left. The usual suspects would go nuts. And he could do it stating basic scientific facts from 6th grade science…
“Seeing as how Carbon Dioxide is the basis of photosynthesis and that photosynthesis is the basis of all life on earth, and that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases the rate of plant growth, and increases the efficiency with which plants use water, it is decreed that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but a gas essential to life and the federal government is hereby instructed to take an all of government approach to increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Furthermore, it is recognized that the so called greenhouse potential of carbon dioxide is logarithmic and that further additions of carbon dioxide have only a minimal if any effect on the temperature of the earth with water vapor vastly overwhelming any carbon dioxide warming potential.”
This line includes a link to an EPA press release that is now 4 weeks old.
The EO was signed by Donald Trump on “Day 1” (20/1/2025).
Lee Zeldin was confirmed by Congress on the 29th of January. He missed the “30-day deadline”, but at least the process has now been launched.
The path will be long, tortuous … in both the “winding” and “filled with legal objections / lawsuits” senses … and resisted by mid-level bureaucrats in various “agencies” throughout the Administrative Branch of the US government, but the first step (of “the thousand mile journey” ?) has been made.
Yes, it is frustrating that “we” cannot get “instant” results, but as I believe they say in legal circles : “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine”
Patience, grasshopper. Patience.
Trump can direct DOJ to target state laws and regulations and actions that violate the supremacy clause of the Constitution. But he cannot target states that sue his administration. Every person – including every state – in the US has a first amendment right to petition the government, which is what a lawsuit is. Trump will be sued and lose if his administration actually carries out that part of the EO.
Interesting to note how many people oscillate between State and Federal ‘supremacy’, depending on the issue at stake and which party holds the reins in DC.
This was welcome news yesterday! I would encourage skeptics of climate alarm, and opponents of the vestigial “climate” agenda in some states, to sharpen their understanding of the core issue of attribution.
No one “knows” that incremental CO2 has anything at all to do with the reported warming trend, which is then mistakenly blamed for making extreme weather events worse. These state actions against fossil fuel producers and fossil-fuel-based power generation and transport are all based on flimsy attribution. This unsound circular assignment of cause and effect begins with the “forcing” + “feedback” framing of the scientific investigation of climate system response to rising concentrations of CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. Reject the false framing.
It will be essential for the Trump administration to vigorously refute this unjust blame game, on sound scientific grounds. Skeptics can help by vocally exposing the utterly circular nature of all the model-based “climate” investigation. The valid null hypothesis is that incremental CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. have NO SIGNIFICANT EFFECT on any trend of any climate variable. That null hypothesis has not been falsified, and cannot be falsified by any means available to us.
There. Thank you for listening.
Story Tip:
For the last several days, about half the time when I try to join wattsupwiththat.com, I get diverted to a red screen with the headline
“This site has been reported as unsafe”
Hosted by threatsweep.xyz
Microsoft recommends that you don’t continue to use this site
Microsoft Defender Smart Screen
At least so far, I have been able to work my way around this “warning”.
It is essential that the identities and employers of the individuals who enact these “unsafe” tags on web pages be publicly disclosed.
Who gets the authority to hand down judgements about what’s “unsafe” and on what basis?
Perhaps Microsoft’s AI?
I suspect it is related to one of the advertisements.
I think there is a method to his madness. Continually head faking and jerking people / things around … just to see if he gets a bite. Unfortunately doing so whiplashes the entire economy WHICH IS NOT A GREAT THING.