Crude Oil

January 21, 2025

US President Trump revokes orders withdrawing acreage from oil and gas leasing

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HIGHLIGHTS

Revokes orders protecting Alaskan lands from leasing

Revokes order seeking 50% zero-emission vehicles by 2030

Pulls back several Biden-era orders on climate

US President Donald Trump revoked a slew of Biden administration executive orders Jan. 20, including those that withdrew acreage from oil and gas leasing and set targets for zero-emission vehicles.

Trump issued the executive orders soon after being sworn into office, promising to do away with Biden-era policies he criticized as detrimental to domestic energy production.

Trump revoked Biden's Memorandum of March 13, 2023, which protected 16 million acres of offshore and onshore acreage, including permanently withdrawing 2.8 million acres of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea north of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska as off-limits for future oil and gas leasing.

Trump also revoked two orders issued by Biden on Jan. 6, 2025, restricting oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of US coastal waters. Citing the authority of Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, Biden issued the two presidential memoranda to protect all waters off the east and west coasts of the US, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, from all future oil and gas leasing.

That move will likely be contested in court, as multiple policy analysts believe it may require congressional action.

Biden's executive order from Aug. 5, 2021, seeking to have zero-emission vehicles makeup 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030, was also revoked by Trump. That order included a schedule for the "development of fuel efficiency and multi-pollutant emissions standards through at least model year 2030 for light-duty vehicles and for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles starting as early as the model year 2027," the White House said at the time.

Trump also retracted several Biden-era executive orders focused on climate change, including the Jan. 27, 2021, order that launched the government-wide approach to reducing "climate pollution in every sector of the economy."

The so-called Executive Order Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad also made the climate crisis a central focus of US foreign policy and national security planning. Specifically, the order said that the nation would work multilaterally toward sustainable climate policies and build resilience to climate change's impacts.

The January 2021 order put the US on course to adopt economywide emission reduction targets as part of Biden's move to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change. As expected, Trump issued a separate executive order Jan. 20 directing the US ambassador to the United Nations to formally kick off the yearlong process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.

In another move, Trump revoked a December 2021 executive order calling on the federal government to use its purchasing power to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, with 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030.

The rescissions also apply to the Biden administration's Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk from May 2021. The order focused on government strategy around managing and mitigating the financial risks tied to climate change, in part by prioritizing federal investments and providing clear climate disclosures.

Quashes Biden's revocation of Keystone XL

In an illustration of the regulatory ping-pong between Democratic and Republican administrations, Trump also revoked the January 2021 Biden order that called for the reversal of a slew of environmental and energy policies set forth under the first Trump administration. The new Trump reversal also quashed Biden's revocation of the Keystone XL Permit.

The original 1,870-mile Keystone project, which would boost deliveries of Canadian crude to the US, was started in 2010, but after years of back-and-forth, President Biden eventually turned it down in 2021.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said at an industry event Sept. 12 that the Alberta government would lend its support to restart the 830,000 b/d Keystone XL and the 525,000 b/d Northern Gateway crude oil pipeline projects.

Total Western Canadian crude export capacity, including rail, increased to 4.8 million b/d in 2024 from 4.4 million b/d in 2023 and is expected to rise to 5.2 million b/d in 2025, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data.

On Jan. 20, Trump also axed an executive order issued in April 2023 directing the White House Office of Management to modernize its policies for cost-benefit analysis in agency rulemaking. The White House Office of Management and Budget subsequently issued revised guidance in November 2023, boosting the value of the social cost of carbon for proposed regulatory actions with at least $200 million in annual economic impacts.