/>iNew Executive Orders and Proclamation
On April 8, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued three significant executive orders (“EOs”) and a fourth proclamation consistent with his pledge to “Unleash American Energy.” These Presidential actions, titled (1) Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the U.S. Electric Grid, (2) Protecting American Energy from State Overreach, (3) Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry, and (4) Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Energy, seek to promote domestic oil, gas, and coal energy production. Each of these actions is discussed below.
Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the U.S. Electric Grid, EO 14262
This EO directs the Secretary of Energy to streamline emergency processes and to develop a uniform methodology for analyzing reserve margins across all regions of the bulk power system. The stated needs for the EO include aging infrastructure, increased need for electricity, and demand for energy use by datacenters.
Using Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, the EO seeks to curtail the decommissioning of generation resources or to prevent fuel-switching of generation resources in excess of 50 megawatts if the fuel-switching will reduce the nameplate capacity. While not expressly stated, this EO likely seeks to prevent oil, gas, and coal generation resources from going offline.
The EO requires the Secretary of Energy to develop the uniform methodology by May 8, 2025, at which time we will have a better sense of how the Administration intends to implement this order.
Protecting American Energy from State Overreach, EO 14260
EO 14260 aims to counter the more recent state efforts to target oil and gas companies for greenhouse gas emissions and climate change issues. For example, several municipalities, counties, and state governments have initiated litigation against oil and gas companies for alleged climate change damages, using various state tort law theories. We have previously written about these cases and, with this EO, these cases will likely take a new twist. We can expect to see the federal government intervene in these cases if they have not done so already.
The EO also seeks to challenge state laws and regulations that curtail greenhouse gas emissions or seek payments from oil and gas companies for climate change damages. The EO cites New York’s and Vermont’s climate superfund legislation, where the states seek collective payments from oil and gas companies for remediation involving climate change related damages. In addition, the EO cites to California’s carbon cap-and-trade program.
The EO directs the attorney general to identify all state and local laws and regulations burdening domestic energy production, including “any such State laws purporting to address ‘climate change’ or involving ‘environmental, social, and governance’ initiatives, ‘environmental justice’, carbon or ‘greenhouse gas’ emissions, and funds to collect carbon penalties or carbon taxes.” The EO also directs that the attorney general take all appropriate action to stop the enforcement of these state laws and to provide a report to the president within 60 days (by June 7) of the attorney general’s efforts. We will likely see the federal government initiating lawsuits against these states under various theories of the Dormant Commerce Clause and federal law supremacy related to the Clean Air Act.
Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241, EO 14261
The third EO is an effort to support the domestic coal industry. Originally issued by President Trump on March 20, 2025, EO 14241 aims to enhance coal production and use as a means of securing economic prosperity and national security, lowering electricity costs, and supporting job creation. The revised April 8 EO further outlines a series of policies and actions to remove regulatory barriers, promote coal exports, and assess coal resources on federal lands, while also encouraging the development of coal technologies. Working together, these orders seek to promote coal as a key fuel source for steel production and artificial intelligence data centers in the United States.
By previously designating coal as a “mineral” under the March 20 EO, coal will be granted various benefits specific to mineral production, including expedited environmental review and a streamlined permitting process.
The April 8 EO also grants specific powers to various federal agencies to identify and assess coal resources and reserves on federal lands, as well as to prioritize coal leasing and related activities. The Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Energy are instructed to identify, revise, or rescind any guidance, regulations, programs, or policies that seek to transition the United States away from coal production and electricity generation, or that discourage investment in coal projects, both domestically and internationally. These agencies are further instructed to promote and identify export opportunities for coal and coal technologies, and to facilitate international offtake agreements for U.S. coal. The order also specifically directs the Secretary of the Interior to publish a notice in the Federal Register terminating the Obama Administration’s 2016 “Jewell Moratorium,” which halted federal coal leasing on public lands with the intent to change the way the United States managed its coal and oil resources.
Finally, this EO expands the use of categorical exclusions for coal under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), which would allow coal-related projects to avoid NEPA’s requirements to prepare an environmental impact statement or an environmental assessment.
Due to the broad powers being granted to these few federal agencies, along with the rescinding of previous administrations’ programs designed to limit coal production and reliance nationally, we anticipate litigation from various energy and environmental groups challenging this order.
Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Energy
The fourth action, a Presidential proclamation, also addresses coal usage in the United States but specifically in the context of coal-fired electricity production.
Invoking the authority of Section 112(i)(4) of the Clean Air Act, which allows the President to exempt stationary sources from compliance with federal emissions standards, this proclamation exempts certain coal-fired power plants from compliance with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s May 7, 2024, final rule amending the preexisting Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (“MATS”) Rule that was issued to make air emissions more stringent. Citing national security concerns pertaining to the shutdown of coal-fired power plants that would cause the elimination of jobs and place the United States’ electrical grid at risk, as well as the unavailability of necessary technology to implement the MATS Rule, this proclamation issues an exemption to certain stationary sources subject to the Rule. Therefore, the Rule, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 8, 2027, will allow the stationary sources to be further exempt from the Rule’s stricter emissions requirements until July 8, 2029. All stationary sources that are specifically subject to this exemption are identified in Annex I of the proclamation.
Because there are certain stationary sources that may be excluded from Annex I and, thus, this exemption, we anticipate litigation from various companies and industries challenging their lack of inclusion in this exemption. Furthermore, it is expected that various energy and environmental organizations will file challenges to this EO in court.
Conclusion
All of these new executive actions are likely to face legal challenges from different states and energy and environmental groups. Blank Rome will continue to monitor any developments and provide updates on the legal and policy implications of these EOs.
