As former President Donald Trump returns to the campaign trail after last week’s Republican National Convention, questions linger about how much he would be able to implement his energy agenda if elected, and how much he would oppose low-carbon technologies.
In his speech in Milwaukee last week, Trump slammed federal funding for electric vehicle chargers, vowed to lower energy costs and “drill, baby, drill.”
“We will end the ridiculous and actually incredible waste of taxpayer dollars that is fueling the inflation crisis. They’ve spent trillions of dollars of things having to do with the green new scam,” Trump said.
But Trump’s full position on technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) and solar power are not fully clear, and could depend on whom he picks as his top energy advisers if elected.
What actually would change if Trump gets a second term depends on other players — Congress, trade groups, states, businesses and activists — who might have reasons to push back on his agenda because of benefits from current funding.
Take Congress. To strike a major blow at low-carbon tax credits — a major plank of the Inflation Reduction Act — Trump would need majorities in both congressional chambers, which could put Republicans with significant IRA-funded projects in their states in a difficult spot.
Another avenue for Trump would be to try and remake President Joe Biden’s regulations at the Department of Energy and other agencies.
Yet “you have to go through a regulatory process to change rules that were created with a regulatory process,” pointed out Albert Gore, executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, a trade association for companies in the EV ecosystem.
Here’s what is known about Trump’s views on three technologies shaping the energy sector:
Electric vehicles
In his convention speech, Trump reiterated that he would “end the electric vehicle mandate on day one” and save the U.S. auto industry from “complete obliteration.” But Trump could face challenges if elected in attempting to fully undo Biden’s EV agenda.
He would face a complex set of pro-EV policies and laws that now have beneficiaries in many deep-red congressional districts. Through many instruments — the bipartisan infrastructure law, the IRA, EPA and Department of Transportation regulations — Biden created a governmental ecosystem with the goal of slashing transportation emissions in half in the next decade, while also creating the conditions for a home-grown EV manufacturing industry.
In pledging to end the electric vehicle “mandate” — a vow that is also in the GOP’s recent platform — Trump is targeting final emissions rules issued by EPA and DOT earlier this year, analysts say. EPA regulates the pollution emitted by vehicles, and DOT, through the National Highway Transportation Administration (NHTSA), sets emissions standards for automakers’ vehicle fleets.
The final EPA rules set tighter greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars in March, and NHTSA did the same in June.
The rules do not mandate that traditional, internal-combustion-engine vehicles be replaced with EVs, but would in effect require automakers every year to make more of their vehicles electric.
Gore said the EPA emissions regulations may have staying power because they have been endorsed, with reluctance, by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), the main trade group for American automakers, whose position on Biden’s EPA rules has evolved.
Last summer, AAI called then-proposed EPA regulatory targets “neither reasonable nor achievable.” In March, as EPA’s rules were finalized, the group said that changes made by the Biden administration to soften the rules were ‘the right call.‘”
Another Trump target could be the same one that created controversy in his first term: ending EPA’s waiver to California to set its own — much more stringent — emissions rules. Trump may be newly motivated to try again, as the Golden State’s regulations now include a ban on internal combustion engines in passenger vehicles by 2035.
“There’s a lot of vulnerability there,” said Aaron Viles, who leads advocacy campaigns at the Electrification Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes EV adoption.
If he gets a second term, Trump is also expected to attack EV tax credits under the IRA, which could be revisited if Republicans win control of Congress and follow through on promises to revisit the tax code.
The credits can be divided into two buckets — for consumers and for producers. Changes to each would have different impacts.
The consumer incentive gives car buyers a tax credit of up to $7,500 if they opt for an EV. Many analysts say this credit could be in danger because it has few fans among legislators in red states, where EV adoption is low. But even without help from Congress, Trump could change the eligibility rules to make the credit harder to get.
Tax credits targeted at EV manufacturing could be harder for Trump to change. An overwhelming majority of the tax credits, which incentivize production of batteries and their precursors, will go to Republican states where EV factories are being stood up.
“I think when push comes to shove that congressional Republicans aren’t going to do something that harms their own constituents directly,” said Nick Nigro, the founder of Atlas Public Policy, which studies EVs in the policy arena.
In April, Trump said he could refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress toward projects he doesn’t like, according to an interview with Time magazine.
But as for cash that’s out the door already, “that stuff’s fairly secure,” said Viles of the Electrification Coalition.
Overall, analysts say, Trump may be able to apply the brakes on government support for EVs, but is unlikely to slow down adoption of EVs themselves — especially in markets outside the U.S., where American automakers need to compete.
“The transition to electric vehicles can’t be stopped globally. It is happening,” Nigro said. “The control the federal government has now is how fast and how the benefits of the transition are realized in the U.S.”
What Trump may do is “push a lot of those benefits to Europe and China by stopping the effort here,” Nigro added.
Solar power
Unlike electric vehicles and wind power, Trump has not focused on solar energy during his campaign.
“It’s really surprising” that Trump hasn’t said much about solar, said Sanjay Patnaik, director of the Center on Regulation and Markets at the Brookings Institution. “It’s hard even for us (analysts) to predict what will happen.”
Agenda47, the Trump campaign’s official policy platform, calls for policies such as cutting subsides that could affect solar, but does not detail plans to limit development of the resource in the U.S. The same document attacks wind energy multiple times. The Trump campaign declined to provide a statement about the former president’s views on the issue.
Project 2025 — the conservative Heritage Foundation’s policy road map for a second Trump administration — calls for large funding cuts at the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which supports renewable projects. That office oversees the Solar Energy Technologies Office, which directs training and investment to accelerate solar energy deployment and manufacturing across the U.S.
Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025. Ellen Keenan, a Heritage Foundation spokesperson, said Project 2025 does not speak for any candidate or campaign.
But budget requests from Trump’s first administration often echoed the road map, and some of his former policy advisers wrote it. Trump’s 2019 budget request called for cutting EERE’s budget by $2 billion.
While those cuts did not become law, they would have a better shot of getting through in some form if Republicans take over both houses of Congress. During Trump’s administration, DOE’s loan office — which on Thursday announced an $861 million conditional loan to build solar and storage projects in Puerto Rico — also largely went dormant.
Nick Loris, vice president of public policy at conservative energy firm C3 Solutions, said U.S. solar deployments will likely slow if Republicans manage to phase out clean energy tax credits from the IRA.
He argued that some of Trump’s known policy positions — such as corporate tax cuts and permitting reform — might actually help solar companies, however. “In many respects, it’s going to be a mixed bag where some policies help the deployment of solar and some hurt the deployment of solar,” he said.
On one issue — tariffs — there is some overlap between Trump and the position of Biden and presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
The first Trump administration expanded Obama-era tariffs on solar energy equipment, giving a boost to domestic manufacturers that are critical to the fastest-growing source of new electricity generation on America’s grid. It’s unclear how Harris might handle the issue if elected president, but many analysts think her overall policy on clean technologies would mirror Biden’s. Trump — who once called himself “a Tariff Man” — has indicated that he will expand levies on an array of Chinese goods.
Patnaik called solar tariffs a “common thread” between Trump and the Biden administration.
Where they differ, he said, is how their protectionist stance aligns with the candidates’ other goals, like slashing emissions. The administration’s stance on solar tariffs is “ultimately not aligned” with its solar generation goals, said Patnaik, adding that levies may slow solar deployments in the long term and hinder America’s ability to cut emissions and fulfill commitments under the Paris climate accord. Trump, on the other hand, plans to exit the Paris agreement.
“Solar tariffs will be increased by Trump,” he said.
Patnaik predicted that Trump will be under enormous pressure from Republican lawmakers from red districts to keep solar investments in place. Some of the IRA’s provisions, like tax credits for solar, would likely survive under Trump, he said.
However, during his convention speech, Trump pledged to redirect funds from the “green new scam” to roads, bridges and dams. That counters some assertions from congressional Republicans that he might leave funding from the IRA in place.
Solar generation has been a boon for many rural areas since the passing of the IRA and the 2021 infrastructure law.
According to projections from the Solar Energy Industries Association, the IRA’s credits and subsidies will allow for an additional 155 gigawatts in solar capacity to be added to the grid by 2033 when compared with a scenario with no IRA, as well as $144 billion in added private investment across the solar industry.
Mike Carr, president and CEO of the trade group Solar Energy Manufacturers of America, said that if critical parts of IRA’s solar incentives were repealed, it would be “crossing the Rubicon.”
The federal government, he added, would have ultimately “broken faith with a critical industry.”
Carbon capture and storage
There are differing opinions on how Trump might handle CCS, a technology that traps emissions from facilities before they enter the atmosphere.
On his website in 2023, Trump called carbon capture an “untested” technology when criticizing EPA’s final rule to cut emissions from power plants finalized in April.
At the same time, Republican supporters who have been floated as potential energy advisers in a second Trump administration — like North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — are big backers of CCS. This month, POLITICO reported that Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) called for Burgum to be an “energy czar” in a second Trump administration.
Ryan Fitzpatrick, senior director of domestic policy for the climate and energy Program at Third Way, said he did not think a second Trump administration would be helpful to carbon capture, as one of its “underlying” principles is fighting climate change.
He expressed concerns that Trump could cut budgets for DOE and EPA programs that support the carbon capture ecosystem — like those for CO2 transport infrastructure and storage — and create a “staff brain drain” from the federal government.
During his administration, Trump proposed sharp cuts to DOE carbon capture and storage research. In 2019, for example, he proposed slashing the annual budget for the technology in half to roughly $69 million from nearly $200 million.
Project 2025 also calls for ending carbon capture initiatives in DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. It mentions CCUS, which refers to carbon capture, utilization and storage and includes using CO2 as a feedstock in product manufacturing or in enhanced oil recovery.
“CCUS programs should be left to the private sector to develop,” the document says. “If the office continues any CCUS research, that research should be focused more on innovative utilization.”
Kenny Stein, vice president of policy at the conservative Institute for Energy Research, said he didn’t think Trump would make a push against the technology, but “I would not expect any regulatory help for CCS, as far as mandating CCS or setting emission standards so low that CCS is effectively required.”
If elected, Trump is also expected to try and block EPA’s rules, which identify CCS as a “best system of emission reduction.”
Referencing Project 2025, Stein said the technology could create a split “between what conservatives and small government folks might want and what the Trump administration is probably going to pursue.”
Despite his proposed DOE cuts, the former president provided a major boost to the CCS industry during his administration.
In February 2018, Trump signed the bipartisan budget act into law. The funding law included a provision that raised the value of the 45Q tax credit, increasing the amount developers can receive for stored carbon dioxide.
The 45Q tax credit provides a monetary value per metric ton of CO2 that is stored — either through enhanced oil recovery, permanent geologic storage or in products like fuels and chemicals. It’s considered one of the chief available tools to finance CCS projects in the U.S. The incentive was expanded further as part of the IRA, which Biden signed in August 2022.
Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said “with the help of Congress, the lucrative energy subsidies in the IRA — including for CCS — could be clawed back or fully repealed.” Fisher served in the first Trump administration and clashed with DOE leadership over a coal plant bailout plan.
However, Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, said carbon capture has historically enjoyed bipartisan support and her organization has “seen success working among both parties and both administrations.”
The coalition is planning to communicate with both the Trump and Harris campaigns about its priorities around carbon management, similar to what it did in 2020, Stolark said. The group includes more than 100 companies, unions and environmental policy organizations that support commercial-scale deployment of carbon management technologies.
“I think we, in communicating with the campaign, would just again make the case that we have been a leader in deploying the technology — the U.S. is kind of in the driver’s seat when it comes to deploying the technology — and that is important to retain that position,” she said.
Reporter Jack Quinn contributed.
