Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Strengthens the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid

Fact Sheets

TLDR

This executive order expedites emergency authorizations favoring fossil fuels, establishes reserve margin methodologies biased toward legacy infrastructure, mandates retention of polluting assets (particularly coal plants), contradicts energy demand narratives by omitting tech industry renewable commitments, ignores significant environmental and health impacts, and faces legal/practical challenges from state clean energy mandates and economic realities favoring renewables.

This “fact” sheet presents Trump’s grid reliability executive order as a necessary response to surging energy demand. However, critical analysis reveals significant omissions and biases:

Expedited Emergency Orders Favor Fossil Fuels:

  • The order’s reliance on Section 202© of the Federal Power Act allows fossil fuel plants to bypass standard environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This risks enabling coal/natural gas expansions without climate impact assessments.
  • Historical use of Section 202© shows it primarily benefits aging baseload plants, not distributed renewables or storage.

Reserve Margin Methodology Biased Toward Legacy Infrastructure:

  • The 30-day deadline for reserve margin analysis prioritizes historical performance metrics, which favor coal/gas plants over renewables’ proven resilience in modern grids. For example:
    • Solar+storage now matches fossil plants’ reliability during peak demand.
    • Wind generation outperformed coal during 2023’s Winter Elliot grid crisis.
  • The methodology ignores distributed energy resources, which provide 15% of U.S. peak capacity and enhance resilience.

Resource Retention Mandate Locks In Polluting Assets:

  • The 50 MW threshold disproportionately affects coal plants (average size: 547 MW vs. solar farms: 75 MW). This creates a regulatory moat for fossil fuels:
    • 72% of U.S. coal plants are over 40 years old and uneconomical vs. renewables.
    • Maryland ratepayers face $1B in costs to keep the Brandon Shores coal plant open despite market forces favoring retirement.

Contradicted Energy Demand Narratives

While the fact sheet cites 16% electricity demand growth, it omits:

  • Tech industry commitments: Google/Meta achieved 100% renewable matching for data centers in 2024; Microsoft aims for 2030.
  • DOE’s 2024 Grid Study: Found renewables+storage could meet 90% of new demand cost-effectively.

Environmental and Health Impacts Unaddressed:

  • Coal plants produce 2.1x more CO₂ than natural gas and 18x more than solar. The order’s fuel-neutral framing obscures this disparity.
  • MATS rule exemptions could increase mercury emissions by 12% annually, reversing decades of air quality gains.

Legal and Practical Challenges:

  • State conflicts: The order clashes with 23 states’ clean energy mandates, inviting lawsuits under West Virginia v. EPA precedents.
  • Economic reality: 99% of U.S. coal fleets are more expensive to operate than replacement renewables. No executive order can alter this market reality.

The referenced executive order prioritizes political symbolism over grid modernization, favoring legacy industries at the expense of economic and environmental progress.

ENHANCING GRID RELIABILITY AND SECURITY: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to strengthen the reliability and security of the United States electric grid. The Executive Order:

  • Directs the Secretary of Energy to streamline, systemize, and expedite processes for issuing emergency orders under the Federal Power Act during forecasted grid interruptions.
  • Requires the Secretary of Energy to develop a uniform methodology to analyze reserve margins across all regions of the bulk power system.
    • The methodology will assess varied grid conditions and accredit generation resources based on historical performance.
  • Requires the Secretary of Energy to incorporate such methodology into a process that assesses reserve margins on a regular basis and identifies which generation resources in a region are critical to system reliability.
  • The Secretary of Energy will then utilize that process to prevent significant generation resources from leaving the grid or converting fuel sources if it would result in a net reduction in accredited generating capacity.

POWERING AMERICA FOR GENERATIONS TO COME: This Executive Order is critical to meeting the Nation’s growing energy needs and protecting national security.

  • Rapid technological advancements, an expansion of AI data centers, and increased domestic manufacturing are driving an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, placing a significant strain on our Nation’s electric grid.
  • The Nation’s electricity is expected to rise 16% in the next 5 years—triple the growth forecasted just a year ago.
  • The Nation’s 2,700 data centers, mostly operated by tech giants like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Apple, consumed over 4% of U.S. electricity in 2022 and are expected to reach 9% by 2030.
  • An estimated 80 million transformers, averaging over 40 years old, are vital to keeping the grid running nationwide.
  • Grid reliability is essential to maintaining our national and economic security.
  • The United States’ ability to remain at the forefront of technological innovation depends on a reliable supply of energy from all available sources.

MAKING AMERICA ENERGY DOMINANT: President Trump believes it is vital for America to be energy dominant and energy secure.

  • On the campaign trail, President Trump warned, “you have a grid system in this country that’s obsolete and a disaster,” underscoring his urgency to act.
  • On Day One, President Trump declared a National Energy Emergency to ensure the integrity of our Nation’s electrical grid.
  • He is revitalizing America’s big beautiful coal industry to support grid stability and American jobs.
  • President Trump is cutting red tape and rolling back regulations that hinder coal, oil, and natural gas production.
  • He is pushing to expand domestic energy production by investing in next-generation energy technologies and accelerating energy projects by streamlining the permitting process.