A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President-elect Donald Trump wants to boost America's fossil fuel industry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: And we will drill, baby, drill. We're going to drill, baby, drill.
(CHEERING)
MARTÍNEZ: This week, we're hearing about what Trump has promised to do on his first day in office. Scrapping policies and laws that benefit green technologies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, are on that list. Duke University professor Brian Murray says some Republicans may push back.
BRIAN MURRAY: There's various different estimates out there that about 70- to 80% of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act are occurring in districts that have Republican representation in Congress and/or voted for President Trump.
MARTÍNEZ: Murray is an expert on energy and the environment. I asked him what we should expect from the president-elect.
MURRAY: Trump has said that he will reverse the IRA by deobligating any funds that were unspent and eliminating tax credits for zero-carbon energy and electric vehicles and other clean energy activity.
MARTÍNEZ: Let's get into, then, offshore wind. Donald Trump has also talked about eliminating regulations and even killing projects. How feasible would that be?
MURRAY: Trump has been openly hostile to offshore wind for years. And ways that he can tamp down on offshore wind in the U.S. would be to offer, of course, no new leases and then could eliminate the IRA tax credits, specifically for offshore wind.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, and that's one of his Day 1 pledges, to end offshore wind right away. Could he end it pretty quickly, as he claims he wants to do?
MURRAY: It's one thing to take action quickly. It's another thing to slow down the activity quickly. So there are a number of offshore wind facilities now under construction off the coasts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Virginia, and many of those will continue. However, if the tax credits are eliminated, that would need to go through Congress, and it wouldn't happen on Day 1. But if they were eliminated, that would put a lot of the private capital at risk right now, because the investors of that private capital are planning on tax credits as part of the return that they're going to have on their investment.
MARTÍNEZ: What about electric vehicles? How much would a Trump administration change what already is in mind for electric vehicle production and ownership?
MURRAY: The demand for this has really been spurred a lot by the incentives for electric vehicles. One of the greatest beneficiaries of the tax credits has been battery manufacturers. So it may not be all that politically easy for President-elect Trump to go in and say, we're just going to stop all of the incentives associated with electric vehicles if it then leads to incentives for battery production in these parts of the country.
MARTÍNEZ: So let's go to the fossil fuel industry. Donald Trump has promised to increase oil and gas production, even though the country has already set new records for oil and gas production under Biden's administration. So what can the new administration do to increase it even more than it already is?
MURRAY: Well, you're right that currently the U.S. is and has been for several years the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. It's done so, though, with some restrictions on leasing and oil and gas extraction on federal lands. And so one thing that the Trump administration could do is to reduce those restrictions. They could rapidly increase oil, natural gas and coal production on federal lands. They could also call on Congress to repeal the Antiquities Act, which was used to establish national monuments where mineral and oil and gas extraction can occur.
MARTÍNEZ: Would doing any or all of those things lead to lower energy costs for everyone else?
MURRAY: So the U.S. is a large and important producer, but it's not the only producer in global markets. Increasing global supplies will generally reduce prices and increase consumption, and that would lead to more emissions.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. Brian Murray is the director of the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability at Duke University. Brian, thanks.
MURRAY: Thanks very much for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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