It’s clear that environmental and energy policies that will emerge under President-elect Donald Trump will look very different from those of the Biden administration. During his early morning acceptance speech on Nov. 6, Trump characterized the Republican sweep as a “mandate” for change, and environmental advocates fear he will be emboldened to reverse policies and funding now in place to address environmental justice inequities and looming impacts of climate change—which he has described as a “hoax.”  

Trump supporters say he will be more open to an all-of-the-above approach to energy sources—as outlined in the Project 2025 publication developed by conservative interests and often referenced by Trump, in which a refusal to acknowledge climate change is a key feature. “One hallmark of the first Trump administration was to not pick winners and losers on energy technologies,” said Mark Menezes, former deputy secretary of energy in 2020-2021 and now president and CEO of the U.S. Energy Association, on a Nov. 6 Bracewell Policy Resolution Group webinar. That could be good news for proponents of a variety of nascent and established technologies, including nuclear, hydrogen and fusion, he said. 

Additionally, the Trump administration is likely to make an early-term priority of reversing the current pause on U.S. LNG export terminal construction and be more hands-off in terms of regulating energy programs, with more oversight returned to states. “What I would expect of this incoming Trump administration is to look for where restrictions exist that do not allow choice by those that need … affordable energy,” Menezes said.

Bipartisanship Needed

Multiple sources say the voting numbers were a symptom of a broad philosophical shift not defined by traditional categories of race or ethnicity, but more by class and educational background. Some suggest the Harris campaign failed to connect with more populist, working class voters more concerned about the economy than other issues, and these voters showed up in large numbers. 

Democratic House of Representatives member Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.), who easily won her re-election campaign Tuesday, said: “There's a lot of deep soul-searching that we need to be doing as a party, I would say.” 

With slim margins in both the House and Senate, Budzinski said that lawmakers will be forced to work in a bipartisan way on issues where they can find “common ground … focusing on the areas where we can work together.” A top priority with bipartisan support will likely be environmental permitting reform, she said. 

Maria Lehman, U.S. Infrastructure Market Leader for GHD, vice chair of the White House National Infrastructure Advisory Council and American Society of Civil Engineers president emeritus, noted that passage of the Water Resources Development Act funding was unanimous in the Senate and virtually so in the House. “Infrastructure is still high on the agenda," she said. “The major difference is we won’t have the tailwinds we had, but we wont’ have headwinds.”

Trump campaign rhetoric regarding gutting what’s left of environmental and clean energy funding in the Inflation Reduction Act will be met with congressional pushback based on its support by a number of red-state legislators, with one design firm executive noting statements by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that law revisions would be done “with a scalpel.”

The executive pointed to the extreme level of campaign misinformation spread related to Biden administration energy and environmental policies and impacts on corporate bottom lines. “Engineers are about the facts,” the executive said. “When people don’t have them, it’s bad.”

Environmental Policy Fallout

Environmental advocates note that the climate crisis is real and will not wait for anyone. “Existing policies aren’t enough to help the United States meet its 2030 goal to cut emissions in half below 2005 levels, let alone deliver additional reductions by 2035,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement. “President-elect Trump ran a brutish campaign that disregarded or misrepresented scientific facts, while promising to boost fossil fuel companies’ fortunes,” she said.

Still, the groups say they seek a kernel of hope in the fact that many states have established decarbonization goals and targets, and that the infrastructure projects funded through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act are popular not just in Democratic-leaning blue states, but also in solidly Republican red ones. "There were so many red districts that got money,” one industry executive told ENR, noting that Texas is a leader in U.S. onshore wind and solar energy construction.

“There is no denying that another Trump presidency will stall national efforts to tackle the climate crisis and protect the environment, but most U.S. state, local, and private sector leaders are committed to charging ahead,” Dan Lashof, U.S. director of the World Resources Institute, said in a statement. 

Nathaniel Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said that the clean energy economy is here to stay. “Thanks to policies with bipartisan support that are channeling investment into clean tech innovation and deployment, we are on the cusp of a more prosperous future: one where abundant zero-carbon energy sources like wind, solar and nuclear enhance America’s security, where investments in clean energy manufacturing create good jobs, and where the technologies that will power the economy of tomorrow—small modular reactors, clean hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel, advanced batteries and so many others—are invented and deployed here in the U.S. and exported around the world.”

Some clean energy groups issued statements that seek to credit progress made during the last Trump administration, and couch sector needs in benefits to U.S. energy security and manufacturing dominance. The American Clean Power Association “looks forward to working with the Trump-Vance administration to unleash American-made energy, deliver reliable power to the grid, grow the economy and enhance our national security," it said in a statement. “Our industry grew by double digits each year under the first Trump Administration and has accelerated this rate of progress since. Private sector clean energy investment is bringing jobs and economic opportunity to small towns and rural communities across the nation, while hundreds of new factories have come online in states that have seen far too many good jobs move overseas.” 

Oceantic Network President and CEO Liz Burdock, who leads the leading advocacy group for the U.S. offshore wind industry—a main Trump target—nonetheless congratulated his “historical political comeback” in a statement. She said eight years ago, the first Trump administration “laid out the fundamental framework for our modern offshore wind industry and oversaw seven federal lease sales that netted $456 million for the federal treasury. Industry responded by making the first supply chain investments that are now creating jobs in Texas and South Carolina,” she said.

Meanwhile, environmental groups chagrined with the election's outcome say they will rev up their potent legal arsenals, vowing to fight attempts by the incoming administration to roll back environmental protections as was done in the previous Trump term. 

Said Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen: “We will see Donald Trump in court."