Trump 2.0: Executive Orders, Industry Impacts, and the Future of Engineering

As promised, President Trump kicked off his second term at full speed, signing a record-setting 26 Day One Executive Orders (EO). Billed by the White House as the President's "America First Priorities," these orders ran the gamut from TikTok to trade, cost of living to the Paris Climate agreement, energy to immigration, and beyond. Several of these orders raised legal challenges before the President's signature had dried. It remains to be seen just how much of this demonstration of executive power will survive review, but there is within the orders themselves significant insight to be gleaned into how Trump 2.0 will govern.

On the positive side for our industry, President Trump signed an EO that seeks to streamline the environmental review process to facilitate more efficient permitting of energy projects. Additional EOs re-open exports on liquid natural gas (LNG), as well as the mining of minerals critical to supporting nuclear energy projects.

However, there are EOs that raise concern, such as one that halts the development of offshore wind projects. Even more problematic, the President signed an EO that seeks to pause spending on projects funded through the Inflation Reduction Act and IIJA. While we believe the intent was to halt so-called "Green New Deal" programs from the Biden Administration, the order is broadly written and temporarily shut down traditional transportation and other critical infrastructure projects overnight. Thankfully, this error was corrected, and we are hearing that reimbursements are flowing again as of this morning. We are staying on top of this with our partners at AASHTO and other organizations representing water, aviation and other infrastructure sectors to address any remaining uncertainties with the scope of this order.

We will continue to analyze and report on the scope of executive actions and will report further to our members in the coming days. We plan on scheduling a call with ACEC members in early February to go over specifics of these actions, with additional calls during the first 100 days of Trump's presidency. In-between calls, stay up to date with postings to the Last Word blog.

In related news, late yesterday, President Trump was joined by SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle Corporation Chairman Larry Ellison to announce the creation of a joint venture called Stargate that would invest half a billion dollars in AI infrastructure over the next four years. The Stargate project will begin with the construction of a data center complex, which is already underway in Abilene, Texas, with more physical campuses to come. Interestingly, the ACEC Research Institute's latest Engineering Business Sentiment Survey for Q4 2024 showed a +5-point increase in optimism among engineering executives for the design of datacenters, with a healthy +75 net rating.

Any serious discussion about the future of our industry will have to include AI and the role it will play as both its use and capability expands. In March, our team will host a virtual bootcamp focused on AI strategy for small firms. For these smaller firms, AI is a chance to level the playing field and unlock new avenues for innovation by automating routine tasks and providing data-driven insight. AI is going to change the face of our industry. But recognizing the source of potential disruption is more than half the battle in weathering it. More info about our upcoming AI bootcamp can be found here.

As the world around us continues to change, our industry and firms must be prepared to adapt. That is the impetus behind the Research Institute's Firm of the Future initiative. Over the last 18 months, the Institute has been working with ACEC member firms to tackle big questions around what our industry is going to look like in the coming years.

The Institute recently released a video on the next phase of Firm of the Future, which will focus on 36 key uncertainties that need to be addressed over the next decade, particularly around workforce and emerging technologies. In the coming weeks, the Institute will launch a new page on its website to serve as a clearinghouse for all Firm of the Future materials. In the meantime, this video is a great primer on both the hows and whys of the initiative. Watch it here.

Speaking of the future, we are a little less than a month away from Engineers Week, whose theme this year happens to be "Design Your Future." Scheduled to begin February 16, E-Week serves both as a celebration of the bold visions that engineers make reality, and as a call to action urging our industry to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible. We have created a webpage housing E-Week resources, including suggestions for ways your firms may participate. You can access that webpage here.