The White House is using the conflict in Iran to justify fast-tracking policy decisions that would ordinarily require a deliberative process, setting up another test of the president’s emergency powers.
In recent weeks the Trump administration has invoked national security to boost the domestic fossil fuel sector and advance other priorities, drawing lawsuits and rankling congressional Democrats.
To some, the actions are reminiscent of the way President Donald Trump has invoked emergency declarations to justify everything from the construction of the southern border wall to the imposition of tariffs on foreign goods. In a similar way, Trump’s critics now worry his team will test how far they can push the war as a rationale for their policy choices.
“They certainly haven’t shown any signs of taking a different approach,” said Samantha Gross, director of the energy security and climate initiative at the Brookings Institution.
The US and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire on April 7 that called for the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, but as of Thursday, only a handful of ships have passed through the critical shipping route. In the meantime, gas and jet fuel costs are likely to remain high for months because of the damage to Persian Gulf infrastructure.
Orders and Exemptions
One prominent example of the administration citing the Iran war came on March 13, when the Energy Department ordered Sable Offshore Corp. to reopen a southern California pipeline that’s been closed since a 2015 oil spill.
Reopenings generally require regulatory approval and thorough testing. But Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked the Defense Production Act, citing “serious national security threats” caused by California refineries’ reliance on foreign oil, much of which travels through the Strait of Hormuz.
California promptly sued, calling the decision “a breathtaking power grab” that could open the door to more federally-ordered restarts of unpermitted and noncompliant facilities.
Separately—but on the same day as the Sable decision—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the war in Iran has disrupted global oil supplies, necessitating more oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. But ongoing Endangered Species Act lawsuits could halt those efforts, which would have “disastrous consequences for our national security,” Hegseth wrote in a letter to the Endangered Species Committee, known as the “God Squad.”
Eighteen days later the panel, which hadn’t met in 34 years, exempted all oil and gas operations in the gulf from the statute. Environmental groups responded with a pair of lawsuits, calling the exemption arbitrary, capricious, and out of compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act.
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said the God Squad “has full authority to grant exemptions” under the Endangered Species Act, and that Hegseth’s order was needed “so that America’s energy streams would not be disrupted or held hostage.”
Gross said the administration’s moves to expand fossil fuel production will do little to mitigate the current oil crisis. Oil production off the coast of California represents only a tiny fraction of global demand, and any new gulf production would take too long to make a meaningful difference, she said.
“They’re taking advantage of a crisis they manufactured,” Gross said.
Other Emergency Moves
Congress, too, has objected to the way the administration is leveraging the Iran conflict. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on March 19 that the White House was invoking emergency authorities to send some $20 billion in arms to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Jordan.
“The administration is using the veneer of an emergency declaration to bypass Congressional review on arms sales which have no direct connection to the current conflict or prospect for immediate transfer,” Meeks said in a statement. “That is not an emergency. That is an abuse of authority.”
If the Trump administration decides to expand the way it invokes the war, some targets could include rules governing the use of fertilizer—another product hit hard by shipping disruptions—and the manufacture of petroleum-derived plastics and drugs, said Tom McGarity, an administrative law professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
The White House has also suggested the war could justify a new round of import tariffs, even though the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs in February. On Thursday National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox Business the White House has the authority to slap tariffs on goods from countries that supply weapons to Iran.
A Sea Change
Whether or not lawsuits challenging Trump’s moves are successful will hinge on whether the relevant statutes allow national security or foreign policy to form the basis of regulatory actions, said Sidney Shapiro, a law professor at Wake Forest University.
“It’s not a ‘get out of jail’ card the administration can use to justify any action whatsoever,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said he expects the Gulf of Mexico case to survive court review because the Endangered Species Act provides an exemption for national security reasons if the Secretary of Defense finds them necessary.
Conversely, agencies that justify their actions exclusively on the grounds that the war in Iran is hurting affordability are “not likely to prevail,” McGarity said.
The legal framework under several emergency laws and the Stafford Act calls for presidents to make a finding of an emergency to access special authority, said Kim Lane Scheppele, a Princeton University professor of international affairs
Although courts have historically deferred to those findings, that’s changing as the judiciary has grown skeptical of Trump’s legal defenses, said Scheppele.
“Courts are starting to flip on how they assess these kinds of legal invocations,” she said. “It’s really a huge sea change.”
But that doesn’t mean the Trump administration won’t keep trying, Shapiro said.
“The rationale of the administration all along has been to act and seek permission afterward,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story:
To contact the editors responsible for this story: