By MICHAEL PHILLIS and JENNIFER McDERMOTT

President Donald Trump began dismantling his predecessor’s climate change and renewable energy policies on his first day in office, declaring a national energy emergency to speed up fossil fuel development – a policy he has summed up as “drill, baby, drill.”

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The declaration calls on the federal government to make it easier for companies to build oil and gas projects, in part by weakening environmental reviews, with the goal of lowering prices and selling to international markets.

Democrats say that’s a sham. They point out that the U.S. is producing more oil and natural gas than any other country and the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act boosted renewable energy at a critical time, creating jobs and addressing the climate change threat – 2024 was Earth’s hottest year on record amid the hottest 10-year stretch on record.

Democrats were expected to offer a resolution in the Senate on Wednesday to terminate Trump’s declaration, a move likely to be only symbolic given their minority status. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has already made the U.S. an even friendlier environment for fossil fuels. Congress is helping, too, with the House set to vote on a measure to repeal a Biden administration-era methane fee on oil and gas producers.

Here are some ways the Trump administration has done so:

Lifting a pause on LNG exports

The Biden administration last year paused evaluations of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals. That pleased environmentalists concerned that a big surge in exports would contribute to planet-warming emissions. The pause didn’t stop projects already under construction, but it delayed consideration of new projects.

Trump reversed that pause.

On Tuesday, oil and gas giant Shell said global LNG demand is forecast to rise by around 60% by 2040.

The United States is expected to play a major role in meeting that demand, with its export capacity expected to double before 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“I think investors have become much more comfortable that they can move towards final investment decisions without the concerns that they had over the last four years about potential roadblocks,” said Christopher Treanor, an energy and environmental attorney at the law firm Akin.

Drilling expansion

Trump has opened more land for oil and gas lease sales, shifting away from Biden’s efforts to protect environmentally sensitive areas like Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge and to prevent large swaths of ocean from being available for offshore drilling, including major areas off coasts in the Pacific, Atlantic and parts of Alaska.

Environmental groups are suing to stop Trump’s moves.

Expanding the area available for companies to lease and drill doesn’t necessarily mean that more oil and gas will be produced. When leases were made available in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, only smaller companies bid and there were no buyers for a second lease sale.

Army Corps appears ready to help projects sidestep the Clean Water Act

The Army Corps of Engineers marked hundreds of Clean Water Act permits for fast-tracking, citing Trump’s order on energy, then removed that notation in its database. The agency said it needed to review active permit applications before publishing which ones will be fast-tracked.

“They don’t seem to be backing off,” said Tom Pelton, spokesman with the Environmental Integrity Project. “They are just going to refine the list.”

Many of the permit applications that had been listed for expediting are for fossil fuel projects, but some others have nothing to do with energy, including a housing subdivision proposed by Chevron in southern California, according to the Environmental Integrity Project.

David Bookbinder, the organization’s director of law and policy, said the Trump administration is using the “pretext of a national energy emergency” to ask a federal agency to circumvent environmental protections to justify building more fossil fuel power plants. Bookbinder said there’s no shortage of energy.

Slashing the federal workforce

Pat Parenteau, professor emeritus at Vermont Law & Graduate School, said Trump’s policy changes aren’t nearly as important as the deep cuts to the federal government that eliminate vital expertise.

“I think they are going to accomplish what no other administration has been able to do in terms of crippling the institutional capacity of the federal government to protect public health, to conserve national resources to save endangered species,” he said. “That is where we are going to see long-term, permanent damage.”

Trump’s energy emergency calls, for example, for undermining Endangered Species Act protections to ensure fast energy development, even assembling a rarely used committee — the so-called “God Squad” — that could have authority to dismiss significant threats to species. That move was coupled with recent deep cuts to the Fish & Wildlife Service, which administers the law.

Parenteau said some species are likely to go extinct.

Executive orders take aim at renewables

Trump also targeted wind energy with an order to temporarily halt offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pause federal approvals, permits and loans for projects both onshore and offshore.

In another order, he listed domestic energy resources that could help ensure a reliable, diversified and affordable supply of energy. Solar, wind and battery storage were omitted, though solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity generation in the United States. Trump has vowed to end tax credits for renewables as well, which would push up prices.

Substantially slowing renewables could leave the U.S. wedded to coal and gas for far longer as coal plants are extended and new gas plants are built, said David Shepheard, partner and energy expert at the global consultant Baringa.

Shepheard said the U.S. is facing unprecedented growth in electricity demand largely to meet needs from data centers and artificial intelligence, and increasingly the deck is stacked against renewables to meet it.

A Baringa analysis found Trump’s policies will drive up emissions and put the agreed-upon international climate threshold further out of reach.

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Patrick Whittle contributed reporting.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By MATTHEW BROWN

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana man faces years in prison at his Wednesday sentencing for threatening to assault former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after becoming upset with the government for not shooting down a Chinese spy balloon that floated over the defendant’s home city.

Richard Rogers, 45, of Billings, will appear before U.S. District Judge Susan Watters after a jury convicted him last year for threatening a member of Congress and making harassing phone calls to the FBI and congressional staff in which he routinely made vulgar and obscene comments.

The threat against McCarthy carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Because Rogers has no criminal history, federal sentencing guidelines call for a shorter term, and his attorneys requested a sentence of probation.

Rogers, a former phone customer service representative, delivered the threat to a McCarthy staffer during a series of more than 100 calls to the Republican speaker’s office in just 75 minutes on Feb. 3, 2023, prosecutors said. That was one day after the Pentagon acknowledged it was tracking the spy balloon, which was later shot down off the Atlantic Coast.

Rogers testified at trial that his outraged calls to the FBI and McCarthy’s office were a form of civil disobedience. One of his lawyers said during the trial that Rogers “just wanted to be heard.”

Prosecutors asked the court to send a “strong deterrent message” that threats against public officials are not protected by the First Amendment. They asked for a sentence of two years in prison.

“Rogers’ conduct in this case contributes to a rising and concerning myth that the First Amendment somehow gives a person complete immunity from all consequences as long as their speech or conduct is framed as ‘political protest,’” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Defense attorney Daniel Ball asked for Rogers to be spared prison and sentenced to supervised release.

Threats against public officials in the U.S. have risen sharply in recent years, including against members of Congress, their spouses, election workers and local officials. Rogers’ case was among more than 8,000 threats to lawmakers investigated by the U.S. Capitol Police in 2023.

A 30-year-old Billings man was sentenced last year to 2 1/2 years in federal prison after leaving voicemail messages threatening to kill former Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and his family. Another Montana man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in 2023 for threats against Tester.

By REBECCA SANTANA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is creating a registry for all people who are in the United States illegally, and those who don’t self-report could face fines or prosecution, immigration officials announced Tuesday.

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Everyone who is in the U.S. illegally must register, give fingerprints and provide an address, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. It cited a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act — the complex immigration law — as justification for the registration process, which would apply to anyone 14 and older.

The announcement comes as the administration seeks to make good on campaign promises to carry out mass deportations of people in the country illegally and seal the border to future asylum-seekers.

“An alien’s failure to register is a crime that could result in a fine, imprisonment, or both,” the statement said. “For decades, this law has been ignored — not anymore.”

On its website, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service said it would soon create a form and process for registration.

In one of his 10 inauguration day executive orders related to immigration, President Donald Trump initially outlined plans for creating a registry and required that Homeland Security “immediately announce and publicize information about the legal obligation of all previously unregistered aliens in the United States to comply.”

It was not immediately clear how many people living in the country illegally would voluntarily come forward and give the federal government information about who they are and where they’re living. But failure to register would be considered a crime, and the administration has said its initial priority target for deportation is people who’ve committed crimes in the U.S.

The National Immigration Law Center, an immigration advocacy group, said in a posting on its website before the Tuesday night announcement that “the Alien Registration Act of 1940 is the only time the U.S. government carried out a comprehensive campaign to require all noncitizens to register.”

The organization said under that process, people had to go to their local post office to register, and the goal was to identify “potential national security threats broadly characterized as communist or subversive.”

The group warned that the registry was meant to help find potential targets for deportation.

“Any attempt by the Trump administration to create a registration process for noncitizens previously unable to register would be used to identify and target people for detention and deportation,” the organization said.

By CHRIS MEGERIAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal agencies must develop plans to eliminate employee positions, according to a memo distributed by President Donald Trump ‘s administration that sets in motion what could become a sweeping realignment of American government.

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The memo expands the Republican president’s effort to downsize the federal workforce, which he has described as bloated and impediment to his agenda. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired, and now his administration is turning its attention to career officials with civil service protection.

Agencies are directed to submit by March 13 their plans for what is known as a reduction in force, which would not only lay off employees but eliminate the position altogether. The result could be extensive changes in how government functions.

“The federal government is costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt,” said the memo from Russell Vought, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as a human resources agency. “At the same time, it is not producing results for the American public.”

Trump foreshadowed this goal in an executive order that he signed with Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur who is advising Trump on overhauling the government.

The order said agency leaders “shall promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force,” or RIF.

Some departments have already begin this process.

The General Services Administration, which handles federal real estate, told employees on Monday that a reduction in force was underway and they would “everything in our power to make your departure fair and dignified.”

The memo came as Trump prepared for the first Cabinet meeting of his second term. He planned to include Musk, who oversees the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that “all of the Cabinet secretaries take the advice and direction of DOGE.”

“They’ll be providing updates on their efforts, and they’ll also be providing updates on what they’re doing at their agencies in terms of policies and implementing the promises that the president made on the campaign trail,” Leavitt said.

Musk has caused turmoil within the federal workforce, most recently by demanding that employees justify their jobs or risk getting fired. OPM later said that the edict was voluntary.