Donald Trump made a big show of rolling back Joe Biden’s climate policies on his first day in office, eradicating most of the government’s policy considerations for global warming and declaring a national emergency over oil and gas production — the first of its kind.
But many of the most significant changes he is calling for will take months or even years to go into effect. And his desire to use presidential emergency powers whenever possible to expedite energy generation does not contend with the reality that the United States produced more crude oil than any country ever and became the world’s largest liquefied natural gas exporter under Biden’s presidency.
Jimmy Carter was the last to use the power for some states during the energy crisis in the late 1970s. That period of time was marked by Americans waiting in long lines for gas and Carter’s iconic sweater speech, where he urged people to turn down the thermostat to conserve energy while wearing a cardigan.