The First 100 Days of a John Curtis Presidency: What the Record Suggests

Hero image: 2019 Utah State Capitol — via Wikimedia Commons.

01 The scenario: a climate Republican with a chainsaw agenda

This is a scenario analysis, not a prediction that the person will become president and not an endorsement or criticism of the person. This article does not predict that John Curtis will become president. It examines how the Utah Republican's documented positions and record could translate into executive priorities if placed in presidential office.

Curtis is the rare first-term senator whose agenda is already half-executed before any hypothetical presidency begins. His Fix Our Forests Act has a White House statement of administration policy supporting it; his emissions-rule repeal was signed into law in his first Senate year; his energy items map almost entirely onto agency authorities. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days that begins with forest and wildfire executive action — because that is the part of his agenda a president could do alone.

The record below draws on his official releases, the White House SAP, congress.gov records, and contemporaneous reporting. Where the evidence runs out, this article says so.

02 The record: who John Curtis is

Curtis has represented Utah in the Senate since January 2025 — his first term runs to January 2031. He was mayor of Provo, Utah (2010-2017), then represented UT-3 in the U.S. House (2017-2025), where he founded the Conservative Climate Caucus. He defeated Trent Staggs for the 2024 GOP nomination. He has said his LDS faith led him to prioritize environmental issues, and he holds subcommittee chairmanships on both Foreign Relations and Environment & Public Works. His committees: Commerce, Science & Transportation; EPW (Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Innovation & Safety subcommittee); and Foreign Relations.

Deseret News profiled him in September 2026 as “a Republican to watch in a closely divided Congress,” quoting his view that governing “works best when it's not chasing the algorithm.”

03 Forests and wildfire: the agenda a president could just start

Curtis is lead sponsor of the Fix Our Forests Act (S.1462), a comprehensive forest-management and wildfire-response bill that advanced after “months of negotiations to find consensus on how to holistically respond to the wildfire crisis.” The White House statement of administration policy of Aug. 10, 2026 states: “The Administration supports S. 1462.” He visited a Utah wildfire site urging passage and wrote a Wall Street Journal letter, “On This We Can Agree: Let's Stop Wildfires.” He also leads the bipartisan Wildfire Emissions Prevention Act, removing regulatory burden on proactive forest management.

Here the unilateral-versus-Congress line is unusually favorable: much of the Fix Our Forests agenda — Forest Service and BLM fuel-reduction project prioritization, NEPA categorical exclusions by agency rule — can be done administratively. A president could adopt most of it by directive; the bill would codify and speed it. A reasonable inference is day-one prioritization orders to the Forest Service and BLM, with S.1462 sent to Congress as fast-track legislation that his own White House SAP office had already endorsed in its prior life.

04 Energy: nuclear certainty and co-location

Curtis introduced the Co-Location Energy Act with Sen. Hickenlooper (D-CO), allowing wind and solar projects to co-locate on existing federal energy leases — “already-disturbed federal lands with the consent of the” leaseholder. At an EPW hearing on EPA and NRC nominees he called for “regulatory certainty” to promote clean nuclear energy in Utah.

NRC licensing-reform direction is executive-branch; co-location permitting through BLM policy is administrative, with his bill streamlining the statute. A reasonable inference from these positions is a first 100 days directing the NRC toward licensing certainty and the BLM toward co-location-friendly permitting — with the bills as congressional backstop.

05 The emissions-rule repeal: a precedent he has already set

On June 25, 2025, his office announced: “TRUMP SIGNS CURTIS BILL REPEALING BURDENSOME BIDEN-ERA EMISSIONS RUL[E]” — a CRA-type repeal signed into law in his first Senate year.

The digest flags that the exact rule name and bill number were not captured from the truncated source; this article does not guess them. What the record does establish: Curtis has already participated in the CRA-rollback of an EPA emissions rule. A reasonable inference from these positions is a presidency comfortable using executive rulemaking and CRA-type repeals against predecessor regulations — the EPA rollback itself being executive, even though the CRA vehicle is legislative.

06 Climate Republicanism: the posture, not the program

Curtis founded the Conservative Climate Caucus in the House; E&E News by POLITICO reported he “wants to be Trump's climate guy.” He has shared his personal climate “journey” at a Utah Valley University event (May 2026) and uses the Mountain West's wildfire proximity to argue for bipartisan climate and forest work.

For a first-100-days exercise, this is posture rather than program: no document in the digest commits him to a specific federal climate target. A reasonable inference from these positions is a presidency that frames decarbonization through innovation, nuclear, and forest management rather than through mandates — but there is not enough public evidence to determine what emissions target, if any, he would set, and this article does not invent one.

07 Foreign relations and the subcommittee gavels

Curtis holds subcommittee chairmanships on both Foreign Relations and Environment & Public Works, and questioned EPA and NRC nominees at their confirmation hearing — early-career leverage over the exact agencies a president directs.

Which Foreign Relations subcommittee he chairs was not captured in the fetched announcement; there is not enough public evidence to name it, and this article does not. The digest also notes a Sept. 10, 2025 bill with 12 cosponsors referred to Senate Finance whose subject was not captured — it is not cited further here.

A reasonable inference from these positions is a presidency that arrives fluent in EPA and NRC confirmation dynamics, and treats the nuclear-regulatory relationship as a first-100-days personnel priority.

08 What the record cannot tell us

Curtis's digest is rich on forests, wildfire, energy, and climate posture — and silent on the rest of a presidential agenda. There is not enough public evidence to determine his positions on immigration, taxes, or healthcare; the research pass found no documented positions, and this article does not assume them.

The Deseret News coverage was seen only via search snippets, so profiles referenced here carry that limitation.

What the record suggests is the most executable first 100 days in this series so far: a president whose flagship wildfire bill already has executive-branch endorsement, whose energy agenda runs through agencies he has overseen since 2025, and who has already watched one of his repeals get signed. The open question is scale — whether a Curtis presidency would treat climate-adjacent management as the whole agenda or merely its opening chapter, and the public record does not answer that.