Trump Vowed Fewer Regulations and Lots More Oil. He’s Delivered on One.

The president’s energy strategy is projected to generate more pollution, but so far production has not risen significantly and price drops have been modest, analysts say.

Never before has a president swept into the White House pledging such a rapid expansion of oil and gas drilling in the United States as Donald Trump.

But nearly a year since Mr. Trump ordered his administration to unearth the nation’s vast reserves of petroleum — or, as he called it, the “liquid gold under our feet” — analysts said fossil fuel production wasn’t much higher than the record levels that existed during the Biden administration.

The price of a barrel of oil has tumbled from roughly $75 when Mr. Trump took office to below $60. His tariffs have raised the cost of steel and other commodities that oil companies require for wells and other equipment. Oil production is up, but largely because of improved efficiency, and it has not translated into more jobs for either the industry or the overall economy.

Prices at the pump dipped briefly earlier this year but nowhere near by half, as Mr. Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail. And the administration has taken other actions, like ordering that expensive coal-burning power plants remain open, canceling permits for offshore wind projects and encouraging exports of natural gas overseas, that in combination may have helped to raise electricity and natural gas prices for American consumers.

“The ‘Drill, baby, drill’ agenda has not materialized,” said Kenneth B. Medlock, an energy economist at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.

And yet the uncertain investment climate for fossil fuels comes as the industry’s political influence has soared this year.

A sweeping domestic policy bill that Mr. Trump signed into law this summer is already yielding nearly $6 billion in tax breaks this year for the country’s biggest oil and gas companies, a New York Times analysis of investor statements and public records shows.

At the same time, Mr. Trump is working to repeal dozens of environmental regulations that added costs for fossil fuel companies. He has opened up millions of acres of ecologically sensitive land in Alaska to drilling, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s coastal plain, and is poised to deliver millions of acres of offshore ocean waters for new drilling as well.

The Trump administration on Monday asked a federal court to strike down limits on soot released by power plants and industrial facilities and on Tuesday said it would delay by three years a requirement that coal-fired plants clean up toxic coal waste.

The president has struck deals requiring countries in Europe and Asia to purchase American liquefied natural gas for years to come. He has hobbled wind and solar projects and electric vehicles that were cutting into oil’s market share. And his administration has blocked other nations from imposing climate rules that could drive up costs for American oil and gas companies.

And last week, as nations gathered in Belém, Brazil, for a United Nations summit to tackle climate change, Mr. Trump hosted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in the White House. Prince Mohammed’s oil-rich country has worked closely with the Trump administration to thwart international climate agreements — even as Saudi Arabia has an ambitious plan to diversify its own economy away from oil by 2030.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, credited Mr. Trump’s agenda with lowering gasoline prices and improving energy security. Nationwide, the average gasoline price was $3.069 per gallon on Monday, according to AAA, compared with $3.056 a year ago.

“There is no disputing the fact that President Trump’s energy dominance agenda is the reason Americans are paying less at the gas pump,” Ms. Taylor said in a statement. She blamed Democrat-governed states that want to increase their renewable energy — particularly California — for pushing up average gas prices around the nation.

“It’s time for radical Democrats to abandon the Green New Scam experiment and embrace President Trump’s successful energy dominance agenda,” she said.

Dustin Meyer, senior vice president of policy at the American Petroleum Institute, credited Trump administration policies for the slight increase in oil production — to about 13.9 million barrels a day, compared with the previous record achieved under the Biden administration of 13.4 million barrels a day — despite the falling price of crude. The effect of leasing more public land and waters to drilling and eliminating regulations might not be seen for a few more years, he said.

“At the highest level, the administration’s understanding of the value proposition of American energy development is a notable departure from the previous four years,” Mr. Meyer said.

Mr. Trump’s critics argued that his policies had driven up prices and eliminated clean energy jobs while putting the country’s air and water at risk.

Household electricity bills have gone up 11 percent nationally since Mr. Trump took office, and more than 158,000 clean energy jobs in wind, solar and other clean energy manufacturing have been lost or have stalled since the administration eliminated Biden-era grants and subsidies, according to Climate Power, an environmental nonprofit group.

The repeal of climate regulations and canceled funds for clean energy could pump between 22 billion and 32 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by 2055, according to an analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund. That’s more than four times the current emissions produced annually in the United States.

And it could mean an additional 340,000 premature deaths, 490,000 hospital and emergency room visits and up to $6.7 trillion in higher energy and health care costs, the study found.

“We’re only just beginning to see what havoc this agenda is going to wreak,” said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, an environmental law firm.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump made a bold pitch to oil executives and lobbyists at a chopped-steak dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate: Donate $1 billion to his White House bid, and they would save more than that in taxes and legal expenses if he returned to the White House.

In fact, Mr. Trump’s tax and policy law is projected to deliver at least $18 billion in government subsidies and tax breaks for oil, gas and coal over the next decade.

The biggest U.S. fossil fuel companies, including some of Mr. Trump’s top donors, are already reporting hundreds of millions of dollars apiece in tax savings, according to a review of investor calls and federal financial disclosures.

Cheniere Energy Inc., a major exporter of liquefied natural gas based in Houston, has told investors it expects more than $200 million in reduced taxes as a result of the law and an additional $400 million from changes the Trump administration is making to the corporate alternative minimum tax. Jack Fusco, the chief executive officer of Cheniere, donated $250,000 to Trump 47, a joint fund-raising committee that collected high-dollar donations to the president’s campaign.

Devon Energy Corporation, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company, reported that the tax law could save it more than $1.3 billion over three years. Richard Muncrief, Devon’s chief executive officer, and his wife, Gail Muncrief, donated $150,000 apiece to the Trump 47 political action committee.

And Occidental Petroleum told investors it expected $800 million in benefits, overwhelmingly from subsidies in the new law for capturing carbon and storing it so that it doesn’t reach the atmosphere. Vicki Hollub, Occidental’s chief operating executive, donated $400,000 to the Trump 47 committee.

A spokesman from Cheniere confirmed the benefits the company was expecting to realize but declined further comment. Devon and Occidental did not respond to requests for comment.

Lukas Ross, deputy climate and energy director at Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, called the savings “the payday that Donald Trump promised in Mar-a-Lago.”

And yet, energy experts said the past year had hardly been rosy for the industry.

Oil companies may be saving billions on the tax law, but they could stand to lose just as much from Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which have increased costs for materials like aluminum and steel that are needed for drilling equipment.

Bob Ryan, who heads an analysis firm Ryan Commodity Insights, said the oil industry “had higher hopes” when Mr. Trump was inaugurated. But the first year of Mr. Trump’s presidency has been “too confusing to be positive” for most companies, he said.

It’s the price of oil that determines whether companies invest in new drilling.

“Market conditions still rule,” said Joseph Majkut, director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The overall market is creating pressure for companies because of lower prices in oil, and we’re starting to see investment slow down,” he said.

One major bright spot for fossil fuels is liquefied natural gas. The Trump administration has signed off on several new and expanded L.N.G. export facilities this year, including what would be the largest terminal on the Gulf of Mexico. Companies produced a record amount of gas this year, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that gas exports will have more than doubled by the end of Mr. Trump’s term.

Industry leaders have said they believe the next three years could be a “golden age” for gas.

And yet more exports could mean a smaller domestic supply, leading to higher utility bills, experts said. Earlier this month, the Energy Information Administration found that natural gas prices were set to rise a further 16 percent in 2026, “primarily because of increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports amid flat production growth.”

David Victor, a professor of public policy at the University of California San Diego, said Mr. Trump had delivered little, other than the destruction of climate policy.

“The ‘Drill, baby, drill’ agenda has caused a lot of harm to the climate agenda,” Mr. Victor said. But, he added, “I would say it has generated marginal benefits for the oil and gas industry and had almost no impact on consumers.”

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