Buckle up, energy world. 2026 is going to be a wild ride.
Energy is already dominating national policy discussions as the administration eyes expanded U.S. influence in resource-rich areas including Venezuela and Greenland. There’s plenty to come on the homefront, too. Key priorities for the Trump team this year: boosting domestic fossil fuel production, driving down electricity costs, speeding up energy permitting and slashing Biden-era environmental rules.
The high-profile players behind Trump includes his Cabinet bosses: Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former oil executive leading the charge for boosting oil production in Venezuela; Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose agency is driving to increase fossil fuel production on public lands; and EPA boss Lee Zeldin, whose team is racing to scrap the last administration’s climate and environmental rules.
Behind the scenes, an army of political appointees is working inside the White House and across federal agencies to try to make Trump’s vision of “energy dominance” a reality.
“President Trump has assembled an incredible team across multiple agencies to successfully unleash American energy and lower energy prices for American families and businesses,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.
Moving ahead, Rogers said, the administration “will continue to aggressively implement President Donald Trump’s energy dominance agenda because cheaper energy can unleash unprecedented growth in every facet of our economy.”
Here are 18 Trump energy and environmental officials to watch this year:
White House
Jarrod Agen, executive director, National Energy Dominance Council
The Burgum confidant and leader of Trump’s new White House council is a key player in managing the energy industry’s relationships with the administration and coordinating energy policy across the government. The council is central to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” efforts and in the administration’s efforts to use energy in diplomacy, Agen said in a December interview previewing the year ahead.
Blake Deeley, deputy executive director, National Energy Dominance Council
Deeley’s resume includes stints working for coal-state Republicans on Capitol Hill, at the trade group American Clean Power Association, and in the first Trump term at the Interior Department and the White House.
John Reiten, deputy executive director, National Energy Dominance Council
Burgum brought Reiten to the White House energy council after Reiten worked for him in the North Dakota governor’s office. Reiten served as a senior policy adviser for then-Gov. Burgum and also served briefly in early 2025 as state director for Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.).
Nick Elliot, senior policy adviser, National Energy Dominance Council
Elliot hopped to the White House from the Energy Department in September. At DOE, he served as director of the grid deployment office, guiding that shop’s approach to expanding the grid. He previously worked at Brookfield Renewable, Telysium Energy and Morgan Stanley.
Brittany Kelm, senior policy adviser, National Energy Dominance Council
Kelm is leaning on her “10 years of private sector oil and gas experience in downstream, midstream, and upstream” as a policy adviser in the White House council, she says on her LinkedIn profile. After working at companies including Shell and Valero Energy, she’s now at NEDC “leading on domestic and international energy policy for oil and gas, LNG production and exports, pipeline and critical infrastructure,” her profile says.
Marc Marie, DOJ environment attorney on detail to the White House
Marie, who joined the Justice Department in July 2025 as senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, is on a White House detail working on deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s team. Marie has an energy portfolio in Miller’s office, according to sources close to the administration.
Marie served in the Interior Department’s solicitor’s office and in DOJ’s environment division during Trump’s first term. He was president of the Center for Environmental Accountability, a nonprofit that criticized Biden-era environmental policies. Marie also worked for the Energy Freedom Fund — a fossil-fuel promoting group founded by Alex Epstein — and for the conservative policy group Americans for Prosperity.
Emily Underwood, White House senior policy strategist
Trump in January appointed Underwood, a former law professor at the University of Chicago, to serve on Miller’s policy team focused on economic affairs. She’s a key player on the White House team influencing economic and energy policy, according to sources who work with the administration.
Katherine Scarlett, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality
Scarlett, a former Capitol Hill aide confirmed in September as CEQ’s chair, is leading the administration’s work to overhaul federal permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. This month, Scarlett declared that “NEPA’s regulatory reign of terror has ended,” as the White House rescinded CEQ’s NEPA rules.
Justin Schwab, general counsel of the Council on Environmental Quality
One key player on Scarlett’s CEQ team is Schwab, who served as EPA deputy general counsel in the first Trump administration and later founded CGCN Law, a practice focused on environmental, energy and administrative law. He joined the CEQ team early in 2025.
Justice Department
Adam R.F. Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general, Environment and Natural Resources Division
With no Trump nomination yet to serve as DOJ’s top environmental attorney, Gustafson is filling the role in an acting capacity. He joined DOJ in early 2025 after stints as Boeing senior counsel and as deputy EPA general counsel during Trump’s first term. Gustafson and his team are in the middle of hot-button legal issues, including climate lawsuits against the oil and gas industry, the fight over the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration detention facility in the Everglades and the fight over Trump’s plans for a White House ballroom.
Energy Department
James Danly, deputy energy secretary
Danly, a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chair, is at the center of DOE’s efforts to realign the agency’s structure and its policy work alongside the Trump administration’s dramatic shift on energy priorities. He has praised the Energy Department’s pursuit of “energy abundance” under Trump. He’s a former partner at Skadden and a former U.S. Army officer who served two tours in Iraq.
Audrey Robertson, assistant secretary of energy
Robertson is the head of DOE’s Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation. She was initially nominated to lead the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, but that office was scrapped during a DOE reorganization last year. Robertson previously served on the board of Liberty Energy, the company DOE boss Wright led before joining the Trump administration.
Alex Fitzsimmons, acting undersecretary
The Trump administration elevated Fitzsimmons last year during a leadership shakeup. Wright announced in October that Fitzsimmons was replacing Wells Griffith, who was sidelined. Fitzsimmons is “spearheading DOE’s energy dominance mission,” he says on his LinkedIn profile. He previously served as DOE’s chief of staff in the early days of the second Trump administration and as leader of the department’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response.
Interior
Kate MacGregor, deputy secretary
MacGregor, on her second tour as deputy Interior secretary, is a former utility executive who’s widely viewed as a powerful behind-the-scenes force guiding the Interior Department’s agenda in Trump’s second term. She’s got connections and experience in industry and a lengthy track record on Capitol Hill; she spent a decade as a staffer to House Republicans.
Karen Budd-Falen, associate deputy secretary
Burgum picked Budd-Falen, a conservative attorney who served in the Reagan and first Trump administrations, to serve as Interior’s acting deputy while MacGregor awaited Senate confirmation early this year. She’s now working on the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul the Endangered Species Act, a law she said was used as a “Sword to tear down the American economy, drive up food, energy and housing costs and wear down and take out rural communities and counties” during congressional testimony in 2011.
At Interior, Trump’s “momentous American Energy Dominance Agenda is being driven by top energy experts who are unleashing our country’s vast energy potential and restoring our nation’s leadership on the global stage,” said Interior spokesperson Aubrie Spady.
EPA
David Fotouhi, deputy administrator
Another veteran of the first Trump administration, Fotouhi is a key player in EPA’s efforts to unravel Biden-era climate regulations, including the pending effortto roll back the agency’s so-called endangerment finding. EPA’s deputy administrator has historically functioned as the agency’s chief operating officer. Fotouhi also brings legal expertise to the job; he served as EPA’s acting general counsel and principal deputy general counsel during Trump’s first term.
Travis Voyles, associate deputy administrator
Voyles is another member of Zeldin’s inner circle at EPA with a track record working in state government, on Capitol Hill and in Trump’s first-term EPA. Voyles has been involved in the discussions about repealing the endangerment finding and he’s on a committee set up to approve new agency hires.
Aaron Szabo, assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation
Szabo’s office is working to scrap Biden-era climate and vehicle regulations. The Trump EPA team plans to “keep its foot on the gas in 2026, ending burdensome regulations,” he wrote in a recent op-ed.
“President Trump and Administrator Zeldin are leading an unmatched team at EPA that has already helped Unleash American Energy Dominance, bringing down the cost of living FAST and making the American economy the best in the world,” EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said of the agency’s team.
