12. Department of Energy and Related Commissions · Notable
Restore Executive Order 13834 as federal agency energy policy
Printed page 386 12. Department of Energy and Related Commissions
“A conservative Administration should follow the language of Executive Order 13834 and direct federal agencies to “reduce waste, cut costs, enhance the resilience of Federal infrastructure and operations, and enable more effective accomplishment of its mission.””
What has happened
- Attempted
DOE stayed the compliance date of the Clean Energy Rule a third time, to 2027-03-01, saying its review of the rule and of its implementation guidance "is still ongoing". Federal agencies need not design new buildings and major renovations to the fossil-fuel-reduction targets while the stay runs, but the restriction stands in 10 CFR parts 433 and 435 and no repeal has been proposed under the rulemaking whose title promises one. Still attempted: a suspension is a step, not a change to the object.
- Attempted
DOE extended its stay of the Clean Energy Rule for new federal buildings and major renovations to 2026-09-01 and said it was now reviewing the rule itself, not only its implementation guidance. The document is titled "Repeal of Fossil Fuel Restrictions for New Federal Buildings and Major Renovations of Federal Buildings", but its action is a notification of stay: the restriction remains in 10 CFR parts 433 and 435 with its compliance date suspended, and no repeal has been proposed or adopted. Attempted, as the May 2025 stay was, and for the same reason: EO 13834 has not been reinstated as federal agency energy policy, no government-wide direction in its terms was issued, and the one rule DOE has moved on is paused rather than gone.
- DOE notification of stay, published under the title "Repeal of Fossil Fuel Restrictions for New Federal Buildings and Major Renovations of Federal Buildings" (RIN 1904-AG17) — compliance date for 10 CFR parts 433 and 435, subpart B, stayed until September 1, 2026
- DOE rule: Clean Energy for New Federal Buildings and Major Renovations of Federal Buildings; Stay
- Attempted
EO 14154 section 4(a)(ix) revoked EO 14057, the order that had itself revoked EO 13834 and replaced it with federal sustainability targets. Removing the replacement is a step toward the Quote's ask but does not revive EO 13834, which remains revoked, and no new order adopting its language was issued.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Instrument: an executive order reviving EO 13834, or agency rules carrying its policy. The first does not exist; the second does, for federal buildings.
Negative search: presidential documents in the Federal Register and whitehouse.gov presidential actions, searched for 13834, Efficient Federal Operations and federal sustainability returned nothing.
Corrected 2026-09-06. On 2026-08-31 we read the April 2026 document by its title, “Repeal of Fossil Fuel Restrictions…”, and recorded a repeal. Its Federal Register action is “Notification of stay”, and a Federal Register search for its RIN, 1904-AG17, returns exactly two documents, both stays (2026-04-20 and 2026-09-02). The Status comes down from partial to attempted: the fossil-fuel restriction is suspended, not gone. The third stay is what exposed the misreading. Our automated search had not linked it to this item; the document was found by reading the titles of every new rule. Same correction on #929.
- Action
- reinstate
- Object
- Executive Order 13834
- ID
- 978