Inside the White House Energy Dominance Council

Politico

3 days ago

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In the months since President DONALD TRUMP returned to office, a little-known but deeply influential body inside the White House has been quietly driving one of Trump's biggest policy ambitions: Making the United States 'energy dominant' by providing affordable, reliable energy to Americans while still generating enough electricity to power the boom in artificial intelligence.
This Energy Dominance Council, first announced in November with Interior Secretary DOUG BURGUM as director and Energy Secretary CHRIS WRIGHT as deputy, is modeled after the national security and economic councils. It is tasked with coordinating the federal government — from the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture to the State Department — toward achieving those goals.
The goal is to expedite projects, said RICHARD GOLDBERG, the senior counselor who helped conceive of and stood up the council. The council has been working with private enterprise to dramatically reduce the time it takes to get a project off the ground — from years, he said, to days.
It's part of a larger administration drive to cut the red tape it believes stymies innovation.
But environmental groups and renewable energy executives have taken the White House to task for refusing to include wind and solar power projects, two of the fastest and cheapest ways to increase energy production, in their energy dominance plans. That approach could haunt the administration, critics warn, as electricity prices rise, in part because of the high demand for power from the data centers used to fuel AI.
Trump's focus on keeping oil prices down could also cause the White House to stumble on the president's promise to boost production — oil companies are laying off employees and the number of barrels the United States is producing is starting to fall after reaching a record high in March.
West Wing Playbook sat down with Goldberg to discuss the council's mission, structure, and how it's navigating the challenge of meeting America's growing energy demand. He just wrapped up his service as a special government employee.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Let's start with the big picture. What is the Energy Dominance Council, and how does it work inside the White House?
It's the first time in history that we've created a dedicated energy dominance council that is tasked with carrying out the president's objectives to make America energy dominant. That means everything that is required to have enough energy to provide reliable and affordable energy for all Americans, have enough energy to win the AI arms race against China, have a US-led energy supply chain that hooks allies to the United States and unhooks people from our adversaries, and having enough energy to promote peace stability while managing threats and having maximum flexibility in times of conflict.
How is the council structured? Who's actually doing the day-to-day work?
The council is less than 10 very committed patriotic Americans working out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It's run by an executive director who's a deputy assistant to the president, and supported by two deputies who are special assistants to the president. They are managing projects on a daily basis.
We have a dedicated policy lead just working oil and gas issues all day long. There's a policy lead working on power issues and all that power encompasses, and that includes nuclear power, coal power and electricity to power AI and what that means as far as maintaining and preserving, strengthening the grid today. A policy lead on mining and critical minerals was a very important addition that the president made to the council's mandate.
How are you executing on that vision for the president?
The message is the Energy Dominance Council is open for business. You just have to call and say, you have a project, you have something that we're working on that is a new build, a new mine, a new dig, a new connection, a new pipeline, a new export terminal, you name it, and that it will contribute to energy dominance in the following ways. It will make sure we are adding reliable baseload energy to our grid in the following ways.
This is the focal point of the entire U.S. government to say, what do you need from the U.S. government to make your project happen in 14 or 28 days instead of five or 10 years or 30 years? Is it permitting assistance? Is it financing assistance? Is it other regulatory reviews that have become so burdensome over many years?
What financing tools are available to companies seeking federal support?
The Energy Department's loan program is well known, but there's also the Department of Defense's defense production authorities, the Export-Import Bank, the Development Finance Corporation and others. The council helps projects navigate this web. We've also ramped up investment in critical minerals, including taking the unprecedented step of having the U.S. government take equity in strategic mining projects like Mountain Pass [the only operating rare-earth mine in the United States].
What's the Council's emergency plan if we do see energy prices spike or grid failures this summer?
We're working to prevent that from happening in the first place. There are only two major reasons why that might happen right now. One is you keep closing down coal plants that are keeping the grid stable in certain areas of high demand, you have states that just keep pushing forward on wind and solar with state support of some kind and connecting it to the grid and making their grid over reliant on it. Or you have one of these hyper scalers try to connect into an existing grid with just more power needs than you know could possibly happen.
But the president is not going to allow that to happen, I'm very confident. If he sees any knuckleheads getting in the way that could cause it to happen, he's going to look at any possible authority that he has to break the log jam.
In the event that energy prices do spike, do you think the administration would review its stance on wind and solar?
I think it's important to understand that we have been put on a trajectory, on the grid and on prices by policy decisions made for many years embracing intermittent and unreliable sources of energy. And so when we start seeing stress in the grid today, this is a grid that the president inherited.
I understand the political strategy from the wind and solar industry to look at an immediate moment of crisis or a rise in price or anything like that that could ever happen and say, 'Oh, it's because you're de-prioritizing wind and solar.' That's not why it's happening, and it's not the solution, we will absolutely see higher prices and grid failures if we reverse course. We need heavy baseload energy pumped into the grid to not just win the air arms race, but keep the lights on today.
I've heard some buzz recently on geothermal. Where is the administration on this form of energy?
It has potential. DOE is looking at this and working on this. It is absolutely part of the council's mandate and focus. You know, we just finished putting the finishing touches on having a challenge coin for the council and geothermal is represented on the coin.
Europe promised to spend $750 billion over three years on purchases of U.S. energy. Does the U.S. have enough oil, gas and other energy commodities to meet that price tag?
The answer is we have availability of supply today to increase sales abroad, increase exports across Europe and the Asia Pacific as well. And we have a supply curve that will continue to increase over the years ahead to both provide for the U.S. consumer and the increased demand that we're seeing across the globe for us. We need to continue to build out both the export infrastructure and help our potential customers abroad make sure that they're building out their infrastructure for import facilities and floating regasification units. We have American companies involved in all of that that can help.
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POTUS PUZZLER
Which former president was really weirded out by fish?
(Answer at bottom.)
Agenda Setting
RUIN THE BRUINS: The White House is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, our JUAN PEREZ JR. reports. The move comes after the administration last week froze nearly $600 million in funding to the school.
University of California President JAMES B. MILLIKEN said in a statement the school was reviewing the proposal but that a settlement of that size would 'devastate' the university.
SELL SELL SELL?: Trump is considering selling stock in mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac later this year, our KATHERINE HAPGOOD reports. The details of a potential public offering would value the two companies at around $500 billion and involve selling 5 to 15 percent of their stock. It is unclear whether Fannie and Freddie will remain under government conservatorship.
'The president is weighing all his options,' a senior administration official said today. The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
EDITED HISTORY: The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History today revealed an updated version of its impeachment exhibit that now includes context about Trump's impeachments, WaPo's JANAY KINGSBERRY and MAURA JUDKIS report. The change comes after a placard with Trump's name was removed from the exhibit following a Smithsonian review of the museum's content prompted by the White House.
'The updated display now reflects all presidential impeachments,' the Smithsonian said in a statement. 'Adhering to principles foundational to our role as the nation's museum, we take great care to ensure that what we present to the public reflects both intellectual integrity and thoughtful design.'
WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT
ANOTHER IRS SHAKEUP: Trump is replacing his Internal Revenue Service commissioner just two months into his tenure, Nicole and our BRIAN FALER report. BILLY LONG is expected to instead be named to an ambassadorship.
It is unclear who will next lead the IRS, which has had six different leaders this year. Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT will serve as the agency's acting commissioner, said the White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss personnel moves.
Knives Out
EASIER SAID THAN DONE: The MAGA movement is escalating its calls to arrest Trump's opponents, from the Texas Democrats who bolted from the state to derail a redistricting vote to former President BARACK OBAMA. But those screaming the loudest appear likely to wind up disappointed, our KYLE CHENEY reports.
It's a familiar refrain for Trump's second term: The far right lusts to see prominent Democrats or Trump adversaries hauled off in handcuffs, only to be let down when their revenge fantasies run into reality.
'They voted for that and now they realize they can't have retribution because it's not legally sound,' said GENE ROSSI, a white collar criminal defense lawyer who spent three decades at the Justice Department.
SWISH SWISH, TISH: Speaking of political retribution, the U.S. attorney's office in Albany has issued at least two subpoenas to New York Attorney General LETITIA JAMES in recent days, our NICK REISMAN, JOSH GERSTEIN and ERICA ORDEN report.
The subpoenas are an escalation of the Trump administration's scrutiny of James, who has positioned herself as a ferocious opponent of the president. One is focused on James' successful civil fraud case against Trump's businesses. The second stems from her high-profile fraud case against the National Rifle Association.
In the Courts
NOT SO FAST: A federal appeals court panel today threw out U.S. District Judge JAMES BOASBERG's bid to pursue criminal contempt for Trump administration officials he says defied his orders in March by sending 130 Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador, Kyle and Josh report.
D.C. Circuit Judges GREGORY KATSAS and NEOMI RAO — both Trump appointees — overturned an order Boasberg issued in April initiating the potential contempt proceedings. The ruling can be appealed further. But if it remains in place, it appears to sharply diminish — but not completely rule out — the possibility that lawyers or other officials in the administration could face contempt charges over their conduct during the high-profile deportation showdown.
What We're Reading
Nobody Is Making Deals in Trump's Washington (Jim Secreto for POLITICO Magazine)
I Helped Bury Stories About Trump. I Regret It. (Cameron Stracher for NYT Opinion)
Veterans' Care at Risk Under Trump as Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals (ProPublica's David Armstrong, Eric Umansky and Vernal Coleman)
Could the U.S. Have Saved Navalny? (WSJ's Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson)
POTUS PUZZLER
Former President GROVER CLEVELAND found fish more mysterious than humans, saying, 'No one has yet been wise enough to explain their ways or account for their conduct.' (Source: White House Historical Association)