President Trump signed a memorandum boosting domestic petroleum production.
The memo expands upon his January 2025 order finding that the nation’s “inadequate energy production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy.” The 2025 executive order “emphasized that our Nation’s current inadequate and intermittent energy supply leaves us vulnerable to hostile foreign actors and poses an imminent and growing threat to the United States’ prosperity and national security.”
The new memorandum declares that “ensuring resilient domestic petroleum production, refining, and logistics capacity is central to United States defense readiness.”
“Petroleum fuels the Nation’s Armed Forces, industrial base, and crucial infrastructure,” the memo says. “Without immediate Federal action, United States defense capabilities will remain vulnerable to disruption.”
Similar memos were issued for coal supply chains, liquified natural gas, energy-related infrastructure, and grid infrastructure.
Last week, Trump issued several pipeline permits to support the flow of oil between the United States and Canada.
“The Border facilities herein described, and all aspects of their operation, shall be subject to all the conditions, provisions, and requirements of this permit and any subsequent Presidential amendment to it,” the permits read. “The permittee shall make no substantial change in the Border facilities, in the location of the Border facilities, or in the operation authorized by this permit unless the President has approved the change in an amendment to this permit or in a new permit. Such substantial changes do not include, and the permittee may make, changes to the average daily throughput capacity of the Border facilities to any volume of products that is achievable through the Border facilities, and to the directional flow of any such products.”
