A new Trump executive order titled “Protecting American Energy from State Overreach” directs U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to “identify all state and local laws … burdening the identification, development, siting, production, or use of domestic energy resources that are or may be unconstitutional, preempted by federal law, or otherwise unenforceable” within 60 days. [emphasis, links added]
The EO makes special reference to climate “extortion laws” in California, New York, and Vermont, and most particularly to legal barriers to producers of hydrocarbon energy — coal, gas, and oil — directing A.G. Bondi to recommend “Presidential or legislative action” necessary to stop their enforcement.
Such actions already cued up by the White House during the administration’s first 100 days include closing climate departments, halting offshore wind leases, cutting green energy funding, and imposing tariffs on renewable equipment imports from China.
Legal regulations and monetary impediments imposed on hydrocarbon energy producers have been costly, in turn passing these economic burdens on to consumers.
In May of last year, Vermont passed a Climate Superfund Act holding “fossil fuel extractors” or “crude oil refiners” responsible for “costs due to climate change” and seeking millions of dollars in damages for greenhouse gas emissions produced from 1995 through 2024.
The law was premised upon assertions that the state’s 2023 floods resulted from climate change caused by oil company emissions, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Great Vermont Flood of 1927, the worst in the state’s history, happened when global CO2 emissions were only 10% of current levels.
New York followed Vermont’s example last December with its Climate Change Superfund Act, which will impose a huge tax on fossil fuel producers, seeking to collectively fine them an estimated $3 billion annually beginning in 2028.
Maryland has joined Vermont and New York in blaming fossil energy companies for climate change in passing a “Responding to Emergency Needs from Extreme Weather Act” this month to “make polluters pay,” with like measure efforts to enact “superfund” laws seeking monetary damages for energy that their citizens, industries, and economies depend on underway in California and Massachusetts.
Although Oregon voters rejected a similar proposed superfund statute this month, it is among more than two dozen, also including California, Washington and 10 Northeast states, that have passed cap-and-trade laws that require companies that emit CO2 to buy allowances in trading markets, then deliver them to state governments based on their emission levels.
Fortunately, such acts of legislative overreach are finally encountering legal pushbacks from environmental realists along with industries that green zealots are attempting to destroy.
Last February a coalition of 22 state attorneys general along with several industry associations filed a lawsuit against New York officials responsible for implementing and enforcing their superfund law on constitutional grounds that neither Congress nor any state can pass an “ex post facto law” that imposes criminal liability for past actions that weren’t restricted at the time.
Among other charges, the states argue that New York’s attempt to interfere with the economic interests of sister states violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause by infringing on “equal sovereignty.”
And since New York is not home to the majority of companies targeted by the Act but rather imports 85% of its energy needs from elsewhere, the plaintiff states also charge that its law violates Commerce and Foreign Commerce Clauses “by discriminating against out-of-state energy producers and imposing excessive penalties that burden interstate commerce, while benefiting local New York interests.”
Whereas some of these suits have been defeated, most are still in process or appeal, and to date, none have been awarded monetary damages against the fuel companies.
As swing state Virginia remains bound by a 2020 law mandating a 100% switch to renewables by 2050, massive increases in state electricity demands posed by huge new state AI data centers can be expected to present a harsh reality check on puny, unreliable green energy capacities.
Add to this real environmental considerations; [for example, the Trump admin] halted plans last week for a sprawling Long Island wind farm called Empire 1, claiming that the permits were “rushed” by the Biden White House without proper research.
The project has drawn criticism from Nassau County officials who argue that marine life and the local fishing industry will be harmed, and that the island will be strung with power lines running through dense residential areas.
President Trump’s executive order issued during the first day of his return to office sums up this ultimate reality:
“When States target or discriminate against out-of-state energy producers by imposing significant barriers to interstate and international trade, American energy suffers, and the equality of each State enshrined by the Constitution is undermined.”
“Similarly,” the EO states, “When States subject energy producers to arbitrary or excessive fines through retroactive penalties or seek to control energy development, siting, or production activities on Federal land, American energy suffers.”
It continues: “These State laws and policies weaken our national security and devastate Americans by driving up energy costs for families coast-to-coast, despite some of these families not living or voting in States with these crippling policies.”
In short, when American energy suffers from regulatory overreach and penalties, we all do.
Top image via ABC News/YouTube screencap
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