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As the Trump administration continues to roll out its sweeping tariff policy, the North American energy industry is working to address the effects of the President’s tariff strategy. The Trump administration intends to “unleash American energy,”¹ in part by imposing tariffs designed to remedy what the administration views as unfair trade practices and increase U.S. domestic energy production. The currently imposed and threatened tariffs will inevitably impact the energy industry and its consumers. The particularly relevant tariffs can be defined in two broad categories: (1) sectoral tariffs, in this case, imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, and (2) the country-specific and “reciprocal tariffs” that the Trump administration has imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

On April 8 and 9, 2025, President Donald Trump issued five Presidential Actions (four Executive Orders and one Proclamation, collectively “Presidential Actions”) for the purposes of ensuring adequate and reliable energy generation, meeting growing energy demand, and addressing the national energy emergency declared on January 20, 2025 (EO 14156).

This update is a summary of the Energy-related Executive Orders that have been issued this week by the Administration.

A series of recent actions undertaken by President Biden, near the end of his term, and President Trump, in the early days of his presidency, have called into question a key issue under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (“OCSLA”) — whether the President can revoke a previous President’s withdrawal of areas of the United States Outer Continental Shelf (“OCS”) from oil and gas leasing.

For more than twenty years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”), and later, the United States‑Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”), have facilitated cross-border trade and investment among the United States, Mexico, and Canada through the elimination of virtually all financial barriers to trade.

In a landmark judgment handed down on 20 June 2024, R (Finch) v Surrey County Council and others [2024] UKSC 20, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has ruled that “Scope 3” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions resulting from the eventual use of hydrocarbons produced from a proposed oil development should have been assessed in an environmental impact assessment (EIA) process carried out by a local authority.

Hydrogen can play a vital role in the transition to a carbon-neutral economy, and momentum for it has never been stronger, especially since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Both governments and companies see the enormous potential of low-carbon hydrogen for storing energy, for powering a wide array of applications, and for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, among other important uses.

The purpose of this White Paper is to provide general guidance to transaction participants and practitioners in their consideration of the application of 17 C.F.R. Part 246, adopted jointly by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and five other federal agencies (the “Agencies”) in October of 2014 (the “CRR Rules”) pursuant to Section 15G of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), as added by section 941 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, to a typical issuance of secured notes by a newly formed special purpose vehicle that owns or will own, among other things, a portfolio of proven, developed and producing hydrocarbon wells (a “Structured PDP Well Financing”).