Trump Invokes National Emergency to Fund Energy Projects

Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Despite some mixed signals and renewed threats, U.S and Iranian negotiators appear set to hold another round of peace talks in Pakistan this week as the end of a two-week ceasefire in the Iran war looms on Wednesday. The Strait of Hormuz reportedly remains closed and crude oil prices jumped Monday after the U.S. Navy fired on and seized an Iranian container ship. President Trump on Sunday threatened to attack Iranian power plants and bridges if a peace deal isn't reached.

Separately, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned on Monday after a tumultuous tenure marked by multiple allegations of misconduct. She becomes the third Trump Cabinet member to leave the administration since early March.

Here's what else is happening.

Trump Invokes Defense Production Act to Fund Energy Projects

Faced with rising fuel costs due to a weeks-long military operation targeting Iran, President Trump on Monday invoked wartime powers to boost energy production in the United States.

In a series of five memoranda, Trump stated that the United States faces a national emergency in energy production, as laid out in Executive Order 14156, signed on his first day in office last year. Invoking that emergency declaration and the Cold-War-era Defense Production Act, Trump ordered that funds made available through the One Big Beautiful Bill be used to strengthen energy production and infrastructure in a variety of sectors, including coal, petroleum, electricity and liquified natural gas.

"Without sufficient coal-fired baseload power, the United States will lack the stable electricity required to support defense installations, industrial expansion, and the high-energy demands of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence," Trump said in the memorandum devoted to coal. "I have declared a national emergency under Executive Order 14156, and I further determine that action to expand coal supply chain capacity and baseload generation availability is necessary to avert an industrial resource or critical technology item shortfall that would severely impair national defense capability."

The memoranda empower the Energy Department to use federal funds to make energy purchases, support related businesses and bypass delays and regulatory hold-ups. Potential projects for investment include coal-fired power plants, electrical transformer production facilities and energy grid infrastructure.

Mixed messages on fuel costs: Earlier Monday, Trump pushed back against a statement by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who told CNN on Sunday that gasoline prices may not drop back to $3 a gallon, where they were before the war with Iran, until next year.

In an interview with The Hill, Trump said Wright was mistaken. "No, I think he's wrong on that. Totally wrong," Trump said.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told The Hill that the increase in fuel prices is temporary. "President Trump brought oil and gas prices down to multi-year lows at record speed, and as traffic in the Strait of Hormuz normalizes, these energy prices will plummet once again," Rogers said.

Energy experts aren't so sure. The Strait of Hormuz appears to be more closed than open at the moment, and the energy markets tend to be sticky at the retail level. "Gas prices rise like a rocket and fall like a feather," Dan Eberhart, a Republican oil company CEO, told The Hill.

Trump Admin Opens Tariff Refund Portal

The federal government opened an online portal Monday that allows U.S. businesses to request refunds of import fees paid under tariffs imposed by President Trump but later found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which collects tariffs on imported goods, said it will begin to process requests submitted by importers and their agents through the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries system, known as CAPE.

The Supreme Court ruled in February that the tariffs imposed a year ago by Trump on trading partners around the world under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act infringed upon tax-setting powers that properly belong to Congress. The government estimates that it collected more than $166 billion through those tariffs, based on over 53 million shipments.

Companies and trade brokers can request refunds of all IEEPA tariffs, but consumers who paid higher prices as a result of the tariffs are not eligible for relief.

Big refunds ahead: As of April 14, CBP said more than 56,000 importers had registered to apply for tariff refunds, for a total value of about $127 billion, including interest.

Major U.S. retailers will be among the largest beneficiaries. According to Citi data cited by CNBC, Walmart expects to receive a refund of about $10.2 billion, while Target could get $2.2 billion and Nike $1 billion.

The refunds are expected to take time, perhaps months, and there is still some uncertainty about how the process will work. "It would seem to be very complex and, by extension, probably not something that's going to happen very quickly," Walmart CFO John David Rainey said earlier this month. "We'll certainly avail ourselves of the opportunity that we have to get a refund, but when that happens, remains to be seen."

Quote of the Day

"It's bizarre. These are jets normally associated with billionaires."

  • Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace consultant, speaking to The New York Times about aircraft recently acquired by the Department of Homeland Security.

Dipping into some of the unprecedented funding Republicans gave to DHS last year for immigration enforcement - more than $170 billion in extra funding over four years, with $75 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone - DHS spent more than $300 million last month to add five jets to its fleet, supposedly for use in deporting migrants. But two of those jets are Gulfstream G650ER luxury business jets that carry fewer than 20 people, and a third is a 737 Max outfitted with a queen bed, a bar, a kitchen, private showers and large flat-screen TVs.

Administration officials have claimed that the jets will be cheaper to operate than using charter flights to deport migrants, but some experts question that claim. John Sandweg, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Obama, told the Times that small jets are occasionally used to remove "high-risk" individuals from the country, but "the volume of those is so low that I think it's incredibly hard to justify a business case."

DHS said in February that the 737 Max would be used for deportations and for travel by Kristi Noem, the former department head who was fired by President Trump in March amid questions about her spending habits and management skills. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the $70 million aircraft would now be made available for use by Cabinet secretaries and first lady Melania Trump.

Number of the Day: 758

The National Science Foundation has only awarded 758 grants so far this year, compared to 2,327 grants doled out by the same time last year, according to data cited by The Hill's Fiona Bork in a piece detailing the uncertainty and turmoil at the research agency as President Trump pushes for more budget cuts.

"The NSF has only committed $500 million of the $8 billion it was appropriated for the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1. The NSF will lose the billions of remaining funding if it does not spend it by Sept. 30," Bork writes. She adds that the NSF has typically distributed about 11,500 grants each fiscal year, but the number dropped to 9,221 last year.

"Former NSF directors and organizations representing grant recipients warn that the dismantling of the agency, which serves as a counterpart to the National Institutes of Health, will ultimately curtail American scientific innovation," Bork reports.

Read more at The Hill.

Chart of the Day

From the 2026 federal budget chart book published by Jessica Riedl of the Brookings Institution.

federal budget chart book

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