Offshore Energy (Jan. 22, 2025) – Trump’s return to the White House has brought significant shifts in the domestic and global political landscape in many spheres, including the energy domain, ensuring the promise of a boost in American offshore energy remains unwavering. Before Trump stepped back into the White House, Milito emphasized the critical legislative agenda ahead, identifying the funding of the federal government and passing key legislation, such as permitting reform, as areas that should be the 47th U.S. President’s top priorities, as mandating offshore oil and gas and wind lease sales is crucial to ensuring more certainty and keeping these investments and projects within the United States.
While Trump agrees with Milito on the oil and gas boost, he is not a fan of bolstering offshore or onshore wind power. Quite the contrary, the new U.S. President made it abundantly clear that his energy policies would end leasing to massive wind farms that “degrade our natural landscapes and fail to serve American energy consumers,” according to the White House, which added: “The President will unleash American energy by ending Biden’s policies of climate extremism, streamlining permitting, and reviewing for rescission all regulations that impose undue burdens on energy production and use, including mining and processing of non-fuel minerals.”
By declaring an energy emergency to use all necessary resources to build critical energy infrastructure, Trump has certainly done what he said he would do including withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, putting the America First Trade Policy in action, and setting off an offshore wind freeze, reminiscent of former President Joe Biden’s LNG pause, thanks to a temporary withdrawal of all areas on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) from offshore wind leasing until the presidential memorandum is revoked, which is not likely to come until a review of the federal government’s leasing and permitting practices has been carried out for wind projects.
