Energy & Environment

Pipelines, carbon on Trump’s day-one energy list: report

President-elect Donald Trump’s team is preparing a list of early energy-related executive actions dealing with carbon calculations and pipeline permits, according to a Friday report. 

Bloomberg reported that Trump’s team has narrowed in on executive actions to suspend a government metric measuring the climate impact of rules, as well as one to end the process that gives the State Department power to review pipelines that cross federal borders. 

The latter was the process by which President Obama denied the Keystone XL pipeline in 2015. Trump has promised to support that project once he is in the Oval Office. 

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The social cost of carbon metric is an accounting system the Obama administration used to estimate the economic cost of carbon dioxide emissions. Suspending it would clear one hurdle away from Trump actions that would benefit fossil fuel interests by dampening climate scrutiny of projects and rules. 

Trump advisers also want the president-elect to sign actions that would open up areas of federal land for new drilling and set aside climate considerations when approving infrastructure projects, according to the report.

Trump made a host of promises for day-one energy actions on the campaign trail, many of them meant to clear the way for more fossil fuel development or transmission through the U.S. 

Incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday to expect several early executive orders, but he didn’t telegraph what those might be or when they might come after Trump is sworn in on Friday.