Make America Build Again: Energy Infrastructure Permitting

Overview:

• The Trump Administration (R) is pursuing energy infrastructure permitting reform as a prerequisite for 'energy dominance' policy objectives.
• We believe consensus expectations overestimate the level of reform that the Administration can deliver based on what is politically achievable.
• Incremental reform is our base case outcome with oil and gas seeing the largest improvement. The use of untested 'emergency' authorities to push permitting timelines forward is the largest risk.
• This report translates three energy permitting reform scenario outlooks into policy-driven implications for 23 companies.

The TD Cowen Insight

Energy permitting reform is a key Trump Administration (R) goal. With tools limited to executive and regulatory actions, we are cautious on the scope and depth of achievable reforms. Preferred technologies (i.e., oil and gas) likely see the largest permitting timeline improvements while the focus on electric transmission declines. The push to use emergency authorities to accelerate timelines raises elevated risk of judicial defeat.

Our Thesis

The second Trump Administration (Trump 2.0) is stressing the need to reform the dysfunctional energy infrastructure permitting process. Reform is seen as a baseline requirement to achieving wider 'energy dominance' policy objectives and is focused on reducing the scope of permitting analysis and slashing permitting order timelines. This push has resulted in a blizzard of policy announcements upending decades of permitting precedent.

We are cautious on the limits of what Trump 2.0 can achieve in this space and see incremental progress (not breakthrough reform) for preferred energy technologies as the most likely policy outcome.

What Is Proprietary?

This report is the product of dozens of policy conversations across the political spectrum. We filter this information along with historical permitting data into digestible policy insight.

Benefits Expected for Oil and Gas Infrastructure Projects

We anticipate oil and gas infrastructure projects will see the largest permitting improvement (benchmarked against prior administration), while federal push for electric transmission is likely to take a step back. Tools to pursue reform are primarily limited to regulatory and executive actions – which are powerful but remain subject to judicial review and fail to provide long-term certainty. Reforms built from regulatory action could see another 180-degree pivot in January 2029 if a Democrat is elected President.

What To Watch?

It is our base case that permitting reform via legislation is unlikely and challenging in 2025 but possible in 2026. If Republicans can successfully attach reform text to a wider reconciliation bill (we don't see this as possible), then those reforms would carry greater long-term certainty.

Trump 2.0 quickly declared an 'energy emergency' and is pushing agencies to issue expedited orders pursuant to emergency authorities. We believe permitting orders issued under this untested framework face elevated risk of judicial defeat.

Stock Conclusions

We assess 23 covered companies against three permitting reform scenarios:

• Positive Reform,
• Incremental Progress and
• Extended Uncertainty.