Trump to declare a national energy emergency, ending Biden’s “electric vehicle mandate”

President-elect Donald Trump is set to declare a national energy emergency on Day 1 of his return to power, part of his administration’s plan to ramp up domestic energy production. The order will focus on unlocking Alaska’s resources as well as ending what a Trump White House official called “the electric vehicle mandate.”

Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday at noon EST, wants to increase domestic oil and gas production in order to bring down prices for U.S. consumers, the official said. Energy prices influence every part of the economy, ranging from the prices that consumers pay at the pump to the cost of items that require fossil fuels for production, the official noted.

The president-elect is also planning on signing a memorandum on inflation, noting that higher prices were “by design” under the Biden administration, the official added. 

The national energy emergency will “unlock a variety of different authorities” that will enable the U.S. to quickly build again to produce more natural resources, create jobs and prosperity as well as strengthen national security, the incoming official said. 

Trump, who has long opposed clean energy and EV subsidies, has said that the U.S. needs to “drill, baby drill” — in other words, increase traditional oil and gas production in order to reduce energy prices for Americans. Even so, U.S. crude oil production reached a record last year, even as the Biden administration also directed billions in incentives to shift toward clean energy through tax credits for electric vehicles and home improvements to reduce energy usage.

“Within the unleashing American energy executive order, the president will put an end to the electric vehicle mandate,” the incoming Trump official said. “I’ll also add that he’ll put an end to efforts to curtail consumer choice on the things that consumers use every single day, whether it be shower heads, whether it be gas stoves, whether it be dishwashers and the like.”

The U.S. produced more than 13.4 million barrels a day in October 2024, or about 17% higher than when Trump ended his first term in January 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That marks the highest monthly domestic crude production going back to 1920, the agency’s data shows.