(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump’s energy dominance policies could face challenges after sweeping election victories by Democrats at both the state and national levels, energy market experts say.
When the new Congress is seated in January, incoming Democratic majorities are expected to push efforts to increase oversight of methane emissions, limit drilling on federal lands and in offshore areas, and tighten environmental permitting requirements on new plants and equipment.
Trump declared an energy emergency during his first hours in office in January 2025, invoking the National Emergencies Act to accelerate fossil fuel development. In a flurry of executive orders since then, the president has made U.S. energy dominance one of his primary economic objectives, framing it as a matter of national security.
Tom Pyle, president of the Washington-based American Energy Alliance, told The Center Square that attempts by newly elected Democratic majorities to roll back those executive actions will be neutralized by Trump’s veto pen.
“They can do Congressional Review Act resolutions on his rulemakings,” Pyle said — referring to the fast-track legislative tool Congress can use to overturn federal rules adopted since the president took office. “They can pass them, but they’ll be vetoed.”
Pyle noted that while a Democratic majority can leverage committee leadership positions to launch investigations and issue subpoenas, the president’s veto will still leave the Trump administration’s core deregulatory agenda – and the sweeping legislative victories won through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year – largely intact.
“It’s one thing to make a bunch of campaign promises. It’s another thing to deliver on them,” Pyle said. “Democrats will have a very difficult challenge if they intend to try to undo the very policies that President Trump has enacted that make it easier to produce energy, easier to move it around this country.”
Pyle said election results at the state level are a reason to worry. “The story of the night is Texas — it really was a wipeout,” said Pyle. “Texas Democrats will need to tread very carefully because oil and gas is their bread and butter. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats in Texas treat the industry there,” said Pyle.
Ed Hirs, an energy fellow and energy economist at the University of Houston, said the Democrats’ control of Congress will have little effect on U.S. energy production. He said it is global markets and prices — not Washington politics — that really drive American energy production.
America had energy dominance under President Biden, too, and had approached it during the Obama years, Hirs said. Now, with energy prices high because of geopolitical events, the nation’s oil and gas production is at a new record level, said Hirs.
“Trump has ensured the energy dominance of the United States, perhaps inadvertently, by undertaking this war against Iran,” Hirs told The Center Square. “We are now facing several years of having higher oil and LNG prices, which will benefit the United States, for sure.”
While gross national product will be higher, gasoline prices will be, too, said Hirs. “But prices are higher because of the war, not because of market conditions,” he said.
Hirs added that high global crude oil prices have begun to depress consumption in the United States. “U.S. consumption of crude and refined products dropped by more than 2% last year because of those higher prices,” said Hirs.