By Steve Haner

Once inaugurated, President-elect Donald Trump is expected to immediately mount a major effort to roll back the anti-hydrocarbon fuel agenda of the Biden-Harris years. The positive impact on Virginians will be limited because of our own similar anti-hydrocarbon laws at the state level. 

The centerpiece of Trump’s multiple energy campaign promises is expansion of production of American oil and gas, with the hope that greater supply will drop the retail cost. World markets might have a say in how much prices change, but should those prices drop, Virginians would benefit.    

Trump has also promised to dismantle the network of interlocking regulations which it took President Biden only three years to jam through a friendly Congress and a compliant federal bureaucracy. Many of the key regulations are already fully adopted and repealing them must follow a process. Most are subject to litigation seeking to prevent their implementation, and the litigation battle would continue but reverse, with plaintiffs seeking instead to demand their implementation.  

A good example is the set of new standards for electric power plants, a 2.0 version of the Clean Power Plan which former president Barack Obama imposed, and which Trump repealed and replaced in his first term. A changed leadership at the federal Environmental Protection Agency would be expected to start to dismantle or dilute the regulations. Lawsuits to stop them will be replaced by lawsuits demanding they remain.  

This is a situation where a change in the wind in Washington might or might not directly benefit Virginia. The current integrated resource plan for Dominion Energy Virginia calls for the construction of several new natural gas plants, which would have to be built in compliance with the new emissions limits. Under the rules, Dominion’s fleet of existing gas and coal plants would need modifications, in some cases huge investments, to remain in operation into the next decade. 

Those costs to Virginia consumers could be avoided or limited if the EPA rules are repealed or watered down. But Virginia’s own Virginia Clean Economy Act is the real impediment to Dominion’s proposed generation plan, calling for the eventual elimination of all coal and gas-fired plants. Neither Trump nor a Republican Congress can repeal or amend VCEA.   

Not every state has adopted a state-level ban on such plants, and Virginia is part of a multi-state electricity transmission network. Repeal of Clean Power 2.0 would likely preserve hydrocarbon generation in other parts of the PJM Interconnection area and thus help our utilities maintain reliability. But our own power plants might still disappear. 

Trump will certainly seek to repeal the auto emissions regulations Biden adopted. They do not ban hydrocarbon motor fuel vehicles but impose fleet-wide emissions standards that force the market toward electric vehicles.  Biden’s rules extend to motorcycles, trucks, work vehicles not used on the roads and railroad locomotives.  

Right now, vehicles and vehicle dealers in Virginia are governed by those EPA rules. Virginians will benefit if they are indeed repealed. But the 2021 General Assembly had voted to impose California’s emissions rules on autos and light-duty trucks, which were then adopted in Virginia by regulation.  Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has taken the position that those regulations are expiring because the California rules were later revised, and Virginia never adopted the revision.  

There is every reason to believe the Democrats in the majority at the General Assembly have the votes to return to the California vehicle emissions regime. Youngkin would veto that in 2025, but in the long run the issue will be decided by the 2025 elections for a new House of Delegates and new governor. With Democrats back in full control, Virginia could in 2026 rejoin California’s energy death march and Virginians would still be stuck with an EV mandate. 

One easy step for a new president is reversing his predecessor’s executive orders. Biden issued a major 2021 order to dictate energy policies within the federal government’s own agencies, which Trump can kill quickly. Given how many of those agencies have large operations in Virginia, their demand for non-hydrocarbon electricity and for 100% EV purchases and natural gas-free buildings was going to have a Virginia-centered impact. 

Trump is also expected to repeal the executive order, issued by Biden in 2021, demanding the massive investment in offshore wind turbines, with a goal of 30 gigawatts of promised (but seldom delivered) wind electricity.  Dominion’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project (CVOW) met almost 10% of that promise by itself. It is the largest of the Biden-approved projects and one of the furthest along with construction.   

Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is subsidizing CVOW and innumerable other wind, battery, solar and alternate fuel programs around the U.S., with billions in subsidies and tax benefits already committed. Given how many industries have deeply invested to participate in this energy transition, a full repeal is unlikely. Several Republican members of Congress (including Virginia’s Jen Kiggans) have indicated an unwillingness to totally reverse course on that legislation.  

A project as far along as Dominion’s CVOW would likely retain the benefits it was promised under the IRA. Removing them would greatly increase the ultimate cost to consumers for building and maintaining the turbines. But substantial changes to the IRA or restraints on its future project subsidies might steer the utility away from the two additional Atlantic wind projects and multiple solar and battery projects it is also planning.  

Those additional wind and solar projects proposed for Dominion and other Virginia energy providers are mandated by the VCEA state law. If the IRA goes away or is amended to remove future subsidies from non-hydrocarbon projects but the VCEA-mandated projects proceed anyway, it will cost ratepayers much more. Ultimately, Virginia’s voters need to demand a change in direction in Richmond to match the return to sanity in Washington.   

First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy.