President-elect Donald Trump has made most of his cabinet appointments, and they confirm much of what we’d already guessed about the energy policies we can expect from his administration.

For secretary of state, he chose Rex Tillerson. Unusually for a top diplomat pick, Tillerson is an engineer and businessman, and most famously the CEO of ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM). He also has close ties to Vladimir Putin and the Russian oil industry. The only choice that might have caused more angst among environmentalists would have been Charles Koch.

For secretary of energy, Trump chose former Texas governor Rick Perry, who graduated from my alma mater Texas A&M with a degree in animal science (albeit with mediocre grades at best.) As governor, Perry presided over a huge increase in Texas oil and gas production, but the state saw even more growth in wind power.

Trump chose Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke for secretary of the interior, saying “my administration’s goal is to repeal bad regulations and use our natural resources to create jobs and wealth for the American people.” Zinke is a strong supporter of fossil fuel development. Greenpeace responded to his nomination by calling him a “climate change denier” whose “real constituency is the fossil industry and coal companies.”

Finally, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Trump chose Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who has been one of EPA’s loudest critics (as well as a climate change skeptic.) Pruitt has sued the EPA a lot over various carbon emissions and water pollution regulations affecting Oklahoma. His likely goal will be to erase much of President Barack Obama’s environmental legacy.

Of these four men who will drive Trump’s energy policies one is an engineer, one graduated from Texas A&M and one is from Oklahoma. Those are all affiliations I share as well, so I like to think I have a tiny bit of insight into how these men will approach their jobs.

The first observation is that Trump clearly doesn’t give a damn what critics think. There was no attempt to build bridges with any of these picks. So his administration may not show much restraint in trying to upend eight years of Obama’s energy policies. These men are of one mind when it comes to domestic energy development, and they all recognize the crucial role that oil and gas production play in the U.S. economy.

Thus, I expect attempts to roll back regulations opposed by the fossil fuel industry. The Clean Power Plan will be a target for backers of coal mining, and the oil and gas industry will look to scale back various emission regulations. The oil industry also has its eye on the Renewable Fuel Standard that requires refiners to blend biofuels into the nation’s fuel supply. This law was actually passed under President Bush, but is nearly universally opposed by the oil industry. Repealing it will be an uphill struggle given bipartisan Midwestern support for ethanol, but there may be some reforms limiting the costs to the refiners at the margin.

New federal lands will likely be opened up to oil, gas, and coal development. The Obama Administration is scrambling in its final days to put more of these lands off limits to energy companies, but Trump’s entire team will be united in pushing to reverse these restrictions.

All the same, the success of the oil and gas industry over the next four years will depend far more on energy prices, which are largely out of Trump’s control. In fact, OPEC’s recent agreement to curb oil exports will have a much bigger impact than anything Trump might accomplish, in my view.

As I’ve noted previously, the current administration’s record of opposition to controversial pipelines will soon be history, replaced by the Trump team’s wholehearted support for pipeline construction. Since that support is conditioned on the outcome of the next presidential election, many new pipeline projects may be pursued over the next four years. I think it is going to be a very good stretch for the midstream companies.

The coal industry’s outlook is somewhat better than it was, but it still isn’t good. Perry has been a supporter and an advocate for carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS). But those technologies are an economic long-shot in my view, and state regulations along with abundant natural gas will provide huge headwinds for the coal industry regardless of how hard the administration tries to help.

Nuclear power may also get a boost after facing eight years of political ambivalence under President Obama. Perry was an advocate of nuclear power in Texas. Texas is home to two nuclear power plants, and while Perry was in office, Texas opened one of the nation’s few facilities that accept low-level nuclear waste.

Trump’s advisors are reportedly also considering reviving a Republican-backed plan to store spent nuclear reactor fuel rods under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. But the impetus for that controversial proposal appears to be the planned retirement of nuclear capacity rather than plans to build new plants

Renewables will continue to grow, but in my view they won’t grow at the same pace with Trump in office. Wind and solar energy are far less likely to get preferential treatment from the energy team Trump has assembled, but state and local incentives, declining cost curves, and continued pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions will likely keep renewables growing.              

Conclusions

Trump has assembled one of the most industry-friendly energy teams ever seen on the national stage. The next four years look extremely favorable for domestic energy producers. The big winners will likely come from the oil and gas industry, although OPEC’s influence in that arena is still large. Midstream companies seem destined to thrive as Trump pushes for more infrastructure and seeks to jump-start stalled pipeline projects like Dakota Access and the Keystone XL. The short-term prospects of coal have improved while the outlook for renewables has dimmed somewhat, but longer-term trends still favor solar’s spread and coal’s obsolescence..  

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