From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Justin Trudeau’s imminent exit from office may mark the beginning of the end of a 10-year war on Canada’s energy sector, and by extension, Canada’s economy.

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, currently supplying 6 per cent of global production. Canada is the fifth-largest producer of natural gas, supplying 5 per cent of global demand. The energy sector (oil, gas, electricity) constitutes more than 10 per cent of Canada’s total gross domestic product (GDP). In 2023, the latest year of available data, the energy sector provided, directly and indirectly, almost 700,000 jobs or 3.5 per cent of all jobs in Canada. And Canadian energy exports totalling $200 billion comprised 28 per cent of all Canadian exported goods.

But however vast and vital Canada’s energy sector is our wellbeing, Prime Minister Trudeau worked tirelessly to restrain, restrict, diminish and ultimately “phase out” Canada’s fossil fuel industries. Here are some of the highlights of his war on Canada’s energy sector.

In 2017, Trudeau introduced Bill C-48, which restricts oil tankers off Canada’s west coast and limits the ability of Canada’s oilsands sector to export product to new markets, keeping Canada’s energy resources trapped in a discount-price U.S. market. Also in 2017, much to the fury of many Albertans, Trudeau announced his intention to phase out oilsands production, the foundation of Alberta’s prosperity.

In 2018, Trudeau introduced Bill C-69, which tightened Canada’s environmental assessment process for major infrastructure projects and made the process of obtaining government permission for major energy projects more costly, time-consuming and arbitrary, thus increasing uncertainty across the energy sector. And he introduced the carbon tax despite strenuous opposition by Canada’s energy sector and energy-producing provinces.

In 2020, Trudeau launched his broadest and most intense regulatory crusade against Canada’s energy sector, introducing Bill C-12, which committed Canada to reach “net-zero” emissions of greenhouse gasses by 2050. Net-zero means Canada cannot emit more greenhouse gases via energy production and consumption than is taken out of the air by natural processes and the ecosystem. This would require vastly reduced production and consumption of fossil fuels in Canada, with consequences for the energy sector’s productivity and employment potential moving toward 2050.

In 2023, Trudeau attacked fossil fuel use in the transportation sector by mandating that all new cars sales be electric vehicles by 2035. And he released draft “clean electricity regulations” to phase out the use of fossil fuels in electricity generation by the year 2050.

During his time as prime minister, Trudeau attacked Canada’s energy sector, with eliminationist language and onerous regulations meant to essentially phaseout a major supplier of economic productivity and employment in Canada, to the great detriment of Canadians.

Hopefully, the next prime minister will reject Trudeau’s anti-energy agenda and have the will and ability to rescind the many damaging laws and regulations that that the Trudeau government has inflicted on a vital sector of the Canadian economy.

Kenneth P. Green

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Shares of big Danish offshore wind developer Orsted dropped by 17% Monday, the same day President Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 47^th president of the United States. The two events are not merely coincidental with one another.

To be sure, Orsted’s loss of market cap was caused by several factors, including both the general slowing of the offshore wind business, and Orsted’s own announcement that it will incur a $1.69 billion impairment charge related to its Sunrise Wind project off the coast of New York. Company CEO Mads Nipper  attributed the charge to delays and cost increases and said the project completion date is now delayed to the second half of 2027.

But there can be little doubt that the raft of energy-related executive orders signed by Trump also contributed to the drop in Orsted’s stock price. As part of a Day 1 agenda consisting of a reported 196 executive orders, the new president took dead aim at reversing the Biden Green New Deal agenda in general, with a special focus on wind power projects on federal lands and waters.

In addition to general orders declaring a national energy emergency and pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords (for a second time), Trump signed a separate order titled, “Temporary Withdrawal of All Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf from Offshore Wind Leasing and Review of the Federal Government’s Leasing and Permitting Practices for Wind Projects.” That long-winded title (pardon the pun) is quite descriptive of what the order is designed to accomplish.

Section 1 of this order withdraws “from disposition for wind energy leasing all areas within the Offshore Continental Shelf (OCS) as defined in section 2 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. 1331.” Somewhat ironically, this is the same OCSLA cited in early January by former President Joe Biden when he set 625 million acres of federal offshore waters off limits to oil and gas leasing and drilling into perpetuity.

As with Biden’s LNG permitting pause, the fourth paragraph of Section 1 in Trump’s order states that  “Nothing in this withdrawal affects rights under existing leases in the withdrawn areas.” However, the same paragraph goes on to subject those existing leases to review by the secretary of the Interior, who is charged with conducting “a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.”

Observant readers will know that the parameters of this order as it relates to offshore wind are essentially the same as a proposal I suggested in a previous piece here on Jan. 1. So, obviously, it receives the Blackmon Seal of Approval.

But we should also note that Trump goes even further, extending this freeze to onshore wind projects as well. While the rationale for the freeze in offshore leasing and permitting cites factors unique to the offshore like harm to marine mammals, ocean currents and the marine fishing industry, the rationale supporting the onshore freeze cites “environmental impact and cost to surrounding communities of defunct and idle windmills and deliver a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, with their findings and recommended authorities to require the removal of such windmills.”

This gets at concerns long held by me and many others that neither the federal government nor any state government has seen fit to require the proper, complete tear down and safe disposal of these massive wind turbines, blades, towers and foundations once they outlive their useful lives. In most jurisdictions, wind operators are free to just abandon the projects and leave the equipment to dilapidate and rot.

The dirty secret of the wind industry, whether onshore or offshore, is that it is not sustainable without consistent new injections of more and more subsidies, along with the tacit refusal by governments to properly regulate its operations. Trump and his team understand this reality and should be applauded for taking real action to address it.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.