There are going to be changes to environmental regulations once President Donald Trump takes office in January.

But we hope those changes don’t do much to damage the emerging green energy sector that is growing in the Jamestown area. Cummins Inc.’s fuel agnostic X15N engine is in full production at Cummins’ Busti plant after $452 million of investment in a new line to produce the engine. NFI Group has been on the receiving end of purchase orders backed by federal dollars infrastructure programs aiming to push lower emissions buses into fleets in big cities. Many of those orders are being produced at the New Flyer plant in Jamestown, including orders placed by the New York City MTA. Electrovaya, meanwhile, is nearly ready to open a lithium battery plant in Ellicott.

Green energy is becoming big business for southern Chautauqua County. So when the president says he wants to roll back existing transit programs aimed at reducing carbon emissions, it’s only logical to wonder how that will affect companies that employ local workers and inject millions of dollars into the local economy.

Both companies told investor analysts recently they aren’t too worried about a change of federal administration yet. NFI Group and Cummins both have chosen to work on a variety of lower emission engines – including lower-emissions diesel engines – so they aren’t putting all of their eggs in one basket. The last Trump administration, officials from both companies said, kept Obama-era programs that helped them advance lower-emissions products. Company officials say they aren’t worried, but the fact they had answers ready for analysts’ questions speaks volumes.

Environmental overregulation is often cited by many businesses as a hindrance, and we hope Trump and Zeldin can bring some sanity to some overreaching policies that we feel have driven up costs on both companies and on the rest of us as well. But that may have to be done with a light touch so it doesn’t hurt local workers like ours throughout the nation – and the president-elect tends to wield a sledgehammer rather than a feather.