Market watchers anticipating drastic changes in energy regulations under President-elect Donald Trump should temper their expectations, according to Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners.
Book said Trump and the Republican-controlled congress have their plates full with an ambitious agenda that includes a Supreme Court nomination, tax and immigration reform, repealing Obamacare and devising a massive infrastructure spending package.
That leaves little time to roll back the Obama administration’s many regulatory initiatives aimed at reining in climate change, he said. Book sees Congress taking aim at relatively recent rules that limit coal mining near waterways and flaring natural gas on federal land.
The biggest immediate change Trump can make would be to enforce existing regulations less stringently, Book said. That could include expediting lease applications for oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
“In the end, it’s going to go further than environmentalists want, but probably not nearly as far as Republicans hope,” Book told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Thursday.
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