January 10th, 2025

• Stay up to date on all things energy by visiting the TEA Newsroom.
• America needs Affordable, Reliable, Clean energy security.
• Speaker Johnson vows to end Biden EV policies.
• President Biden urged to pardon climate activists.
• DNR plans to lease Michigan forest for a solar farm.
• Norway doubles down on oil and gas.
• Will solar’s strong run continue under Trump?
• Biden expands wind, solar tax credit to other energy sources.
• Massive lithium discovery could transform the U.S. energy landscape.
• Newsom’s response to wildfires under scrutiny.

The issue: Artificial Intelligence demands for energy in 2025 will put natural gas squarely in the energy spotlight. More data centers and huge plants built by tech giants Google, Microsoft and Amazon will increase the demand for the remainder of this decade and beyond.

Why it matters: President-elect Donald Trump has announced a $20 billion foreign investment from Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani to build new data centers across the U.S. Trump is rightfully enticing international investors to come to America and invest in our energy infrastructure as we build more data centers.

Soaring power demand could fuel a carbon boom. The erosion of burdensome regulations surrounding the energy sector, which is anticipated under the Trump administration, is also expected to benefit the industry.

For example, the new administration is expected to get rid of restrictions surrounding liquified natural gas (LNG) export permits and pipeline projects. Remember, regulations equate to an added cost of doing business.

Consider: AI operations require data centers to run continuously, which means the demand for power is constant. This can lead to higher peak power demand across the grid.

In the United States, data center power demand is expected to reach its peak demand by 2030, which is 11.7% of the country’s total power demand. Thus, it could threaten grid reliability.

• Technology companies, which have long been major drivers of renewable energy growth, have started to use gas to meet their power demands.
• In November, Meta announced a plan to power a massive new data center in Louisiana with a $3.2 billion expansion of natural gas generation.
• Power demand is rising in states like Texas, Ohio and Virginia.
• Some renewable sources will experience an increase, but ultimately natural gas-powered plants are the answer.

This will allow natural gas production to flourish as the Affordable, Reliable and Clean energy source. The ARC Energy Security and the stove top natural gas emissions standard for clean must become a staple for American homes and businesses. Clean energy without it being affordable and reliable is not a viable option.

Bottom line: America’s number 1 energy source, natural gas, is more than ready to meet the rising electricity demand for AI and data centers. This would be the equivalent of an 8-lane highway to prosperity for some states and local economies.

The issue: Outgoing President Joe Biden is deliberately undermining his successor, president-elect Donald J. Trump, with his final climate decrees.

Why it matters: Biden is weakening American energy production on his way out of office. He’s attempting to do much more harm to U.S. producers and consumers through more regulations, which lead to higher costs. With two weeks left in office, Biden is trying to permanently codify his extreme net-zero policies ahead of Trump being sworn into office.

Consider:

• These include permanently forbidding new oil and gas leases, enacting more appliance bans and closing off more public lands to multiple uses.
• Biden’s midnight executive order to pre-emptively block new bidding and exploration of offshore oil and gas leases across 625 million acres is egregious — threatening jobs, our national security and, ironically, conservation.

• Business and energy groups blasted the plan to restrict oil and gas drilling of U.S. coastal and offshore waters.

• Over the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration targeted at least 15 common household appliances under the guise of achieving net-zero climate targets.

One industry analysis estimates that consumers will pay $450 more on average when purchasing new water heaters thanks to the regulations. And that will impact low-income and senior households, which are most reliant on the models targeted by the Department of Energy.

President Trump is expected to enact a bold energy and conservation agenda to boost domestic production of reliable energy without imperiling conservation efforts. But Biden’s last-minute meddling could derail expected reforms. Trump immediately responded this week, saying he’d undo the lame-duck drilling ban. Louisiana has already threatened legal action.

Bottom line: Voters soundly rejected four more years of the green-at-all-costs agenda, yet Biden is still trying to ram it through in his final days. It’s time for this nonsense to end.

Welcome back to CSE! Since the last edition we sent out before Christmas, gas prices haven’t changed much at all. The current national average for a gallon of gasoline is $3.06, which is just one cent higher than it was on December 20th. Looking back at the year that was, the highest recorded average gas price was $3.67 in April, and the low came in early December at $3.01. With an incoming President promising to drill, baby, drill, we will see much lower gas prices can get!

Hearing On Interior Secretary Nomination: On Tuesday, January 14, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources will have a hearing to examine the expected nomination of Doug Burgum, to be Secretary of the Interior.

FERC Open Meeting: On Thursday, January 16, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold an Open Meeting of the Commission.

“This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices. Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.”

— Karoline Leavitt, President-elect Trump’s Press Secretary.