WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s oversight of an increasingly unreliable US power grid requires swift action, he said this week, but there is no easy fix for one of the grid’s most complex and troubled areas: long-distance transmission lines.

Trump’s National Energy Emergency declaration and executive orders detail a long list of interconnected problems dogging an electric grid vulnerable to fuel shortages, soaring demand, and an increasing number of wild weather events.

“There’s clearly a recognition of the need to increase energy production broadly in the United States and do it with whatever resources necessary,” said Spencer Pederson, a top executive at the Nat­ional Electrical Manu­facturers Asso­ciation.

Trump’s initial moves could help to some degree: The emergency declaration directs agencies to scour their books for laws and regulations that could be used to speed approval and permitting for projects like transmission, and overcome regulatory obstacles that have long hampered big projects.

The executive orders, part of a slew of actions Trump signed his first day in office to accelerate broader energy production, seek to streamline permitting procedures that historically have taken years or even decades.

Morgan Stanley, in a note this week to investors, said Trump’s actions “could improve the speed of transmission infrastructure permitting and environmental reviews.”

Big obstacles remain. Pederson noted a shortage of large electrical transformers and skilled workers, and added that the US grid’s overseas supply chain is still adjusting to being reoriented away from China, a move that began during the first Trump administration.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2025