OPINION:
President Trump has always been a man in a hurry, and thank goodness for that.
His predecessor left behind a cost-of-living crisis, complete with skyrocketing energy costs from throttling reliable domestic energy production. Mr. Trump has been moving at light speed to fix the problem.
With Iran’s attacks on the Strait of Hormuz roiling global energy markets, the United States is now far better prepared to endure this turmoil thanks to Mr. Trump’s sense of urgency.
Still, the regulators need to catch up, or we’ll have a worse energy crunch.
Right out of the gate in his second term, Mr. Trump hit the ground running with his promise to “Drill, baby, drill” via executive orders to unleash American energy production. These actions slashed the regulatory red tape that had been choking domestic oil, gas and electricity development, helping stop the rampant cost increases.
He also rolled out America’s AI Action Plan to fast-track permits and maintain America’s technological leadership. He got the big hyperscalers to commit to a ratepayer protection pledge so families aren’t hit with skyrocketing utility bills, and he used smart reciprocal trade deals to bring home billions of dollars in energy investments.
Mr. Trump has been making great progress, but all that momentum will stall if the bureaucrats don’t match his pace, especially those at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Although FERC isn’t exactly a household name, it holds enormous regulatory power over pipelines, liquefied natural gas, hydropower and the electric grid itself.
In short, FERC can either turbocharge America’s energy dominance and help us endure war with Iran or gum up the works with endless delays. Enter Chair Laura Swett, the Trump-appointed leader at FERC. She is already showing she is the right person for the job by pushing the electric transmission system operator PJM to connect those massive artificial intelligence data center loads to the grid faster while safeguarding ratepayers.
Ms. Swett’s streamlining and simplification of regulatory compliance also has greatly reduced National Environmental Policy Act review times compared with the slow-walking days of President Biden. Now she is eyeing real reforms to FERC’s “blanket” certificate program, which lets certain energy infrastructure upgrades skip the full regulatory obstacle course for quicker approvals.
Whether this blanket program tweak becomes a genuine game changer or just cosmetic tinkering depends on the fine print, and we all know Mr. Trump expects big, bold results, not half-measures.
Right now, the blanket program has arbitrary “cost caps.” Stay under the cap, and you get fast-tracked approval, bringing much-needed natural gas supplies online sooner and driving down consumer prices. Go over the cost cap, even for legitimate reasons, and you’re stuck in the bureaucratic slow lane, like at the DMV.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, chair of the National Energy Dominance Council, is spot-on in urging FERC to raise those caps. It’s a smart, necessary step, but Ms. Swett can and should go further with some truly innovative fixes.
One of the best ideas floating around is eliminating the cost caps altogether for compression facilities at existing stations.
When it comes to natural gas, compression is the unsung hero of the pipeline world. It’s what gets the fuel to your home, a power plant, a restaurant or anywhere else. Big compression upgrades can push more than 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, enough to heat and power millions of American homes and businesses.
In an era of increasing power demands from AI, a manufacturing renaissance and American families needing larger amounts of energy, getting more compression online fast would deliver lower prices and greater supply reliability.
Without the ability to pump the natural gas where it’s needed, you can’t add much supply to the system.
Unfortunately, compression upgrades aren’t cheap. Adding capacity to an existing station can easily blow past current caps and force full, time-consuming reviews.
That makes zero sense. These aren’t new greenfield pipelines carving through private lands and sparking endless landowner fights. Compression expansions happen on property that the energy companies already own. The footprint is established, environmental impacts are well-known and minimal, and community disruption is next to nothing.
Ditching the cost caps for compression fits perfectly in the Trump era of commonsense, pro-growth government reforms. It’s urgent and practical, and it delivers results without reinventing the wheel.
That’s what America needs now: speed, creativity and zero tolerance for bureaucratic foot-dragging. Mr. Trump is leading with vision and velocity. Ms. Swett has a golden opportunity to match it. The energy emergency is not waiting, and we shouldn’t be either.
• Stephen Moore is a former Trump senior economic adviser and a co-founder of Unleash Prosperity.
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