A Republican program very focused on energy, but silent on climate

The Republican Party wants to make the United States a “dominant energy power,” reducing regulations and simplifying federal permits if former President Donald Trump is re-elected.

The Republican Party’s platform committee approved the “Make America Great Again!” document on Monday. It uses the former president’s style and includes his signature capital letters. It was also developed behind closed doors, a break with tradition.

The new 16-page plan is far less detailed than the 66-page version the party released before the 2016 election. In 2020, the Republican National Committee decided not to release a platform and instead endorsed Trump’s agenda.

The platform is also far less detailed than Project 2025, a policy playbook written by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups. Trump has tried to distance himself from that effort.

“President Trump’s 2024 Republican Party platform articulates his vision of ‘Making America Great Again’ in a way that is concise and understandable to every voter,” said Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, senior Trump campaign aides.

Energy looms large in the Republican Party’s new platform, taking up much of the first chapter devoted to fighting inflation and lowering prices. Republican leaders are set to approve the document at the party’s convention in Milwaukee next week.

“Under President Trump, the United States has become the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas – and we will soon become so again by lifting restrictions on American energy production and ending the socialist Green New Deal,” the platform states.

“Republicans will unleash energy production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately reduce inflation and power American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable energy.”

The United States became the world’s top oil producer in 2018 under President Donald Trump, but it became the world’s top gas producer in 2011 under President Barack Obama. It has remained the top producer of both fuels ever since, and its output has been growing steadily since President Joe Biden took office.

The Green New Deal, a set of principles for rapid decarbonization and government involvement in much of the economy, has not become law, and Biden opposes it.

In another section, the GOP pledges to “increase energy production across the board, streamline permitting and end market-distorting restrictions on oil, natural gas and coal.”

It will also “make America energy independent again, and then energy dominant, by lowering energy prices even below the record levels reached during President Trump’s first term.”

Although the document does not provide a measure of energy independence or energy dominance, the United States has for years exported more oil, gas and energy overall than it imports.

The platform promises to reduce regulations, including reinstating Trump’s 2017 executive order that required agencies to eliminate two rules for every new rule.

“Republicans will cut regulations that stifle jobs, freedom, innovation, and make everything more expensive. We will apply transparency and common sense to rulemaking,” the platform states.

It includes plans to roll back the Biden administration’s greenhouse gas regulations for cars — dubbed Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate” — and support a variety of tariff policies on imports, including “base” tariffs on all imported goods and the “Reciprocal Trade Act,” a proposal to impose retaliatory tariffs on any nation that imposes tariffs on U.S. products.

It also proposes “opening limited portions of federal lands to allow for the construction of new homes,” an idea promoted by figures such as William Perry Pendley, who headed the Bureau of Land Management during Trump’s previous term and helped write the Project 2025 plan.

The Republican Party platform makes no mention of climate change, greenhouse gases, the environment, pollution, clean air or clean water. It briefly mentions conservation in a section devoted to restoring “American beauty.”

“Republicans will promote the beauty of public architecture and preserve our natural treasures. We will build treasured symbols of our nation and restore true conservation efforts.”

The platform also contains no promises about transferring federal lands, other than the mention of housing. The 2016 platform explicitly endorsed legislation to transfer federal lands to states, prompting Montana Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke to resign as a convention delegate in protest.