Heinrich, Kaine Unveil Legislation to Terminate President Trump’s Sham Energy Emergency

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) unveiled legislation to terminate the national energy emergency President

Donald Trump declared to benefit Big Oil. The legislation is privileged, meaning that the Republican Senate will be required to vote on this proposal in the next two to three weeks.

“While Donald Trump focuses on repaying the corporate polluter executives who donated to his campaign, it is the American people who will pay the price of his sham ‘energy emergency.’ His autocratic and unlawful attacks on clean energy investments will kill American jobs, raise costs on families, weaken our economic competitiveness, and erode American global energy dominance. Trump should end his destructive crusade on clean energy and start putting the interests of working people first,” said Ranking Member Heinrich.

 “The United States is producing more energy than at any other point in history. So why would Donald Trump spend his first day in office declaring a national energy emergency, and then halt crucial investments from the Inflation Reduction Act that are creating jobs, lowering energy costs, and supporting American leadership in the clean energy industries of tomorrow?” said Senator Kaine. “Because Trump will do anything for Big Oil. I’m proud to introduce legislation to terminate this sham emergency, which is nothing more than a shameless power grab to suspend environmental regulations and make it easier for massive fossil fuel corporations to take Americans’ private property for their own gain.” 

In the hours following his inauguration on January 20, 2025, President Trump signed a slew of executive orders, including the national energy emergency order, to withdraw support for renewable energy—despite its benefits to America’s economy and environment—and grant his administration new powers to promote fossil fuels at the cost of bedrock environmental laws. Specifically, the emergency will benefit Big Oil by giving his unelected cabinet officials the power to oversee the accelerated approval of fossil fuel projects, including oil drilling rigs and pipelines, and explore the use of eminent domain to take Americans’ land for the “siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation” of non-solar and non-wind-related energy production.

Full text of the legislation is available here.