*

Biden-era clean energy subsidies would likely survive

*

Reduction in offshore wind leasing likely

*

Solar, wind energy costs have dropped sharply

*

Oil, gas output already at record highs

(Adds clean-energy stock movement in paragraph 2)

By Richard Valdmanis

Nov 6 (Reuters) -

Donald Trump's return to the White House will refocus the

nation's energy policy onto maximizing oil and gas production

and away from fighting climate change, but the Republican win in

Tuesday's presidential election is unlikely to dramatically slow

the U.S. renewable energy boom.

Investor fears of a reversal under Trump sent clean-energy

stocks down sharply on Wednesday. The MAC Global Solar Energy

index was down 10% in midday trade, while shares of

top renewable project developer and owner NextEra Energy

slid 6.2%.

A Biden-era law providing a decade of lucrative subsidies

for new solar, wind and other clean-energy projects would be

near-impossible to repeal, however, thanks to support from

Republican states, while other levers available to the next

president would only have marginal impact, analysts say.

"I don't think a Trump president can slow the transition,"

said Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston. "This

is well under way."

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are the

fastest-growing segments on the power grid, according to the

Department of Energy, driven by federal tax credits, state

renewable-energy mandates, and technology advancements that have

lowered their costs.

President Joe Biden in 2022 signed into law the Inflation

Reduction Act guaranteeing billions of dollars of solar and wind

subsidies for another decade as part of his broader effort to

decarbonize the power sector by 2035 to fight climate change.

Before the election, Trump slammed the IRA as being too

expensive and promised to rescind all unspent funds allocated by

the law - a threat that, if accomplished, could pour cold water

over the U.S. clean energy boom.

But dismantling the IRA would require lawmakers, including

those whose states have benefited from IRA-related investments

such as solar-panel factories, wind farms and other projects, to

vote to repeal it.

"The jobs and the economic benefits have been so heavy in

red states, it's hard to see an administration come in that

says, 'we don't like this,'" said Carl Fleming, a partner at law

firm McDermott Will & Emery, who advised the Biden White House

on renewable energy policy.

Many of Trump's allies also benefit from the IRA through

their investments in clean-energy technologies, Reuters has

previously reported.

Fleming said Trump could, however, slow things down around

the margins by hindering federal agencies that deliver IRA

grants and loans, or by reducing federal leasing for things such

as offshore wind.

"You could see a new administration come in and they can

very quickly begin to cut budgets or restrict budgets or

restrict the freedom of agencies to do certain things that are

tied to funding," he said.

"But I think that's a smaller subset of the larger

renewables market that's really relying on those, so I don't

think it would have a shocking effect."

The Biden administration has rushed to ensure it spends the

majority of available grant funding under the IRA before a new

president arrives, Reuters has previously reported.

One way Trump could slow the transition is through executive

action by changing public lands leasing, analysts said. The

Biden administration had sought to expand lease auctions for

offshore wind in federal waters, along with solar and wind on

land.

"I think you would see more preference given to fossil-fuel

extraction on public lands and waters," said Tony Dutzik,

associate director and senior policy analyst at Frontier Group,

a non-profit sustainability think-tank.

That could have an outsized impact on the offshore-wind

industry, which aims to site projects in federal waters. Most

onshore solar and wind projects are located on private property,

as is the vast majority of oil and gas drilling.

Trump has said he intends to end the offshore-wind industry

"on day one," arguing it is too expensive and poses a threat to

whales and seabirds, a dramatic policy reversal after his first

administration supported offshore-wind development.

Bernstein Research said Trump is likely to enact a

moratorium on new offshore-wind lease sales.

Meanwhile, U.S. fossil-fuel production is likely to look

much the same under Trump, experts said. The U.S. has already

become the world's largest oil and gas producer, under the watch

of Biden, thanks to a drilling boom in fields such as the

Permian Basin under Texas and New Mexico.

The production boom started under former President Barack

Obama and has continued through the Trump and Biden

presidencies. Even so, Trump's campaign has sought to claim

credit, saying his efforts to slash regulatory red tape during

his 2017-2021 term paved the way, and arguing he could further

expand U.S. fossil-fuel production in a second term by rolling

back Biden's climate initiatives.

"Presidents can make a lot of noise about plans for U.S. oil

and gas, but ultimately it's individuals and companies

responding to prices of a global commodity that make the

decisions on when to drill," said Jesse Jones, head of North

American upstream at Energy Aspects.

Dan Eberhart, Trump donor and CEO of oilfield-services

company Canary, LLC, said he supports Trump's encouragement of

increased oil-and-gas drilling, saying it could further lower

energy prices for businesses and consumers.

He added he would also welcome a move by Trump to once again

withdraw the United States from international climate

cooperation, like he did in his first term, arguing other big

greenhouse-gas emitters were not doing enough.

"The Paris accord was aspirational and meaningless if China

and India don't participate," he said, referring to a landmark

U.N. deal in 2015 to limit global warming.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Ulmer in Washington and

Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Timothy Gardner,

Marguerita Choy, David Evans, Andrea Ricci and Rod Nickel)