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The Trump administration has eliminated or suppressed critical data in dozens of federal agencies. Currently, the administration’s actions are colliding with a new realm: the energy industry.
For decades, the Energy Information Bureau, an independent agency within the Department of Energy, has provided important reports on everything from oil and gas to the future of alternative energy. The EIA data, which relies on oil companies’ CEOs and government policymakers, is called the “gold standard” by Daniel Yergin, vice-chairman of S&P Global and eminence grease of the oil world. Sources from Project 2025 and above described the EIA as historically providing “independent and unbiased analysis.”
Last month, the EIA released a signature report: US annual energy outlook. Based primarily on data collected during Joe Biden’s administration, the report predicted rapid growth of alternative energy and a decrease in the US’s dependence on coal, oil and natural gas. Agency officials were afraid that the findings would rank supporters of “drills, babies, drills” in the Trump administration, according to multiple EIA sources. So, instead of promoting the publication of the report with an hour-long webcast and PowerPoint presentation, it has been spotlighting the key findings like in recent years, and the agency has released it without it. And in the later stages, the EIA removed the analytical narrative (53 pages in draft format). This is usually the center of the report. Instead, the agency posted links to tables and charts full of hundreds of data, as well as a seven-page explanation of how to do so.
That didn’t stop the energy sector from hiding its findings. In a press release on the same day the report was released, a department spokesman attacked the EIA report because it was characterized by “a disastrous path to America’s energy production under the Biden administration” and “it was not reflected in policy changes launched by Trump, which aimed to ensure America’s future.
Currently, I personally notify the EIA that it has been published closely following the 2025 International Energy Outlook. The previous edition of the International Outlook, released every two years, contained 70 pages detailing global trends. Paradox: It opens the field to comparable publications from the International Energy Agency based in Paris. (Unlike US institutions that only consider policies in which the forecast was formally adopted, it does not have been adopted by international policies and includes several policies that are considered “voluntary.”)
Angelina LaRose, assistant manager of the EIA’s Energy Analysis Bureau, condemned the decision to resign from so many staff experts in an internal email on April 16th announcing the cancellation of previously unreported international reports. More than 350 EIA staff members left as a result of shootings or resignation. “At this point, we can assume we don’t release IEO this year,” she writes. “This was a difficult decision based on the loss of key resources.”
Similarly, Larose ordered “all practical deck” type efforts” before more EIA analysts depart, and “try to maintain as much institutional knowledge as possible” about the models and procedures used to develop the international report.
Failure to publish the report will be considered a result. Amy Myers Jaffe, a well-known energy consultant and research professor at New York University, is called an essential part of EIA reporting and analysis. “These are global markets,” she said. “The only way to know which policies will work or not is to have accurate EIA data. Everyone benefits from that analysis, whether you are in the private or public sector.”
EIA is the collection and reporting of objective data on energy production and consumption to address what was established almost half a century ago amid the energy crisis of the 1970s and became an urgent need. Now, its regular mail tracks oil and gasoline prices, electricity rates, natural gas and crude oil exports, auto fuel consumption, wind and solar energy generation, coal production, and nuclear power production.
Its US Energy Outlook project will project long-term trends based on multiple scenarios and customarily provide a detailed analysis that discusses important takeaways from data reams. In 2025, that baseline “reference incident” predicted how the market would operate through 2050 under the laws and regulations as of December 2024, before the Trump administration’s efforts to promote fossil fuels. In addition to eight “side cases” based on economic growth, energy pricing and supply fluctuations, EIA also modeled two “alternative policy” scenarios. These predicted impacts regulate Biden-era laws and regulations that reduce carbon footprints from existing power plants and promote the adoption of electric vehicles.
According to the draft content page obtained by Propublica, the deleted stories highlighted predictions in reference cases. “Coal production approaches zero.” And there is a “decrease” in domestic consumption of oil and natural gas.
The decision to abandon the report’s traditional, explanatory narrative was announced to EIA staff in an internal email on March 10th, after the documents were nearly completed after months of work. After discussing with [EIA] The front office is shifting gears for materials that will be released at this year’s AEO.
The omission of the analysis section has led readers to sort the data themselves. “The annual outlook story is “very important. It’s important to be able to see the results, interpret it, and explain to the audience what you think the insights are,” said Joseph DeCaloris, an EIA administrator under Biden and is now a North Carolina engineering professor.
EIA employees said they believe the change was created from the fear that the agency would become Trump’s target by highlighting unwelcome discoveries and predictions. “There was concern that the stories we gave would be considered ideological,” said Emily Schaal, an EIA statistician who worked on the US report. Another EIA employee said, “A fewer people are angry just by throwing away numbers.”
Asked about the decision, EIA spokesman Chris Higginbotham said the agency’s leadership abandoned the analysis because “we determined that it was paramount to prioritizing AEO results to the public as soon as possible, rather than waiting longer to complete a written market analysis.” He added, “We do not make decisions about data or analysis with the aim of affecting the outcome or avoiding pushback.”
Regarding the EIA’s international report, Higginbotham said it is “continuedly committed to maintaining its long-term energy modeling capabilities.” He argued that staff cuts would not compromise the agency’s work. “We are committed to meeting EIA quality standards,” he said. “And we don’t publish any data or analyses that don’t meet those criteria.”
Meanwhile, the EIA has cancelled or delayed other data reports and projects. According to current and former EIA employees, these moves combined with disruption and departures have destroyed morale.
Shall was one of those who were working on the uproar. After completing his PhD in Mathematics, 28-year-old Sharl joined the EIA as a statistician in June 2024, working remotely from Michigan and was expected to remain at the agency for many years. Instead, she was one of about 30 probation employees, and was suddenly fired on February 13, just weeks after the new administration. The lawsuit challenged the firing of six agencies, filed by a union representing government workers, urged federal judges to order reinstatement, and Shahl returned to the EIA in mid-March.
“Everyone at the EIA was experiencing a month of torture,” she told Propublica. Employees were dealing with confusion, uncertainty and fear of layoffs. In early April, Shall accepted a new postponed offer of resignation, with plans to depart on April 19th.
On April 11, hours before the midnight deadline for the resignation program, the EIA’s deputy administrator moderated all hand meetings with top deputies, where they read a prepared statement urging employees to take their offers. The two managers then assured them they had done “excellent work” in a meeting with Doge officials, according to four people who attended the All Hands Meeting.
Shall was furious. After the session ended, she slammed the two bosses with angry emails and shared it with everyone still in the EIA. “Doge doesn’t care what we do. It treats us like every other institution. With light empty,” she writes. “Shame you for giving up on lining up without perceptible effort to fight, ashamed of you asserting that you lead in the darkness.
The following Monday, Shall was summoned to a virtual meeting with the supervisor, where she was presented with a formal responsive letter of “professional and rude emails” and informed her that she had notified her that she was on administrative leave one week before the scheduled departure. This episode became a heroic story among her remaining colleagues. (A spokesman for the EIA declined to comment on the episode. Neither Doge nor the White House responded to requests for comment for this article.)
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The EIA, whose supervisor is the president’s appointee, is usually chosen from among non-political academic or industry figures and poised to acquire new leadership. Trump’s candidate is Tristan Abbey, a Tampa Energy Consultant, a self-proclaimed “sink tanker” for a conservative group who called us “generational opportunities” in exporting natural gas. The 39-year-old Abbey served as the National Security Council energy staff during the first Trump administration. His financial disclosures have reported $103,083 in “Senior Fellow Fees” since 2024 from the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation and $435,833 in revenue from consulting businesses, including Thiel Capital. (Abby worked for the investment company of Trump-friendly billionaire Peter Thiel before entering the government.) Abby’s consulting company also has an occasional side business focusing on publishing books written by philosophical and mathematics explorers and historical figures.
The monastery enjoyed a friendly confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. He testified that he would leave his “policy role” behind, confirming his commitment to the EIA to provide “non-partisan facts.”
The monastery praised the EIA as “the world’s best energy data agency,” but also said “there is an urgent need for revitalization.” He presented an ambitious must-read list that appears to be at odds with the current administration’s wholesale cuts. The EIA declared that “we must clear the deck of unfinished projects”, “we will adopt and maintain the best talent”, and “develop the most powerful analytical features”. Among his top priorities, Abby testified: “Expanding global energy data collection and analysis.”
Doris Burke contributed to his research.
