Election Implications 2017
The Results You’ve Been Waiting For
by Jesse Mullins
Might not have any pull quotes this time. There’s not a lot of “mainbar” text, and the sidebar perhaps doesn’t need pull quotes, but if you find that pull quotes work, feel free to grab some from the text and insert them where needed. Or ask me to do so on the proof. But at the moment I’m not assuming it will be necessary.
It wasn’t this magazine’s calculated intent to end this four-part series with maybe the brightest political news the Basin has seen in two years, if not in eight years, but such is arguably the case, given the results of November 8. And it’s not an unwelcome turn of events for us here, and we expect for most out there. But it was hardly anything that one could have thought of as projectable.
And yet here we are.
When Donald J. Trump pulled off his against-the-odds pursuit of the White House, the difference between that reality and the what-might-have-been alternative couldn’t be more dramatic.
As a candidate that, in the early going, many surely passed over as someone who wasn’t to be taken too seriously, or as someone who seemed merely a dark horse / celebrity / status-seeker kind of candidate, Trump proved to be nothing but surprises all the way. And it’s understandable if many of us paid little attention to his policy position, including his energy policy positions, until he’d sewn up the Republican nomination. Because the whole thing seemed too… unreal.
But once he became the Right’s man, the Republican constituencies who were by them married to him could do nothing in the way of objecting to whatever energy policy their man might have, and fortunately—for those who fall within our camp of being fossil-fuel-minded—his policies, once we contemplated them, proved very fortunate indeed. One is tempted to say serendipitous. We’re not sure Trump had measurably more support from the oil and gas sector than any of the other leading Republican primary contenders, while that race was still active. But in retrospect, could any of the others have laid out a more pro-oil-and-gas position that Trump has? To show you just how bullish he is on hydrocarbons, we have published the main points of his energy policy in a sidebar that accompanies this article.
Before we get to that, we share two recent views on what Trump’s victory means for oil and gas.
Expect A Significant Rollback On Regulations
Richard Levick, contributing writer for Forbes, stated that contentious energy and environmental issues are almost guaranteed to make headlines during the Trump transition and the early days of the new administration.
He remarked: “At this writing, exactly what course the president-elect will chart on energy and environment policy remains unclear, but green advocates are urging followers to prepare for the worst.
“This much is certain: whatever energy and environmental policies Donald Trump embraces will be sharply different from those of his predecessor. Regulatory regimes governing coal and other fossil fuels are sure to be scaled back and possibly even overhauled. The reach and authority of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is almost certain to be curtailed. And the president-elect has already made it abundantly clear that he remains a skeptic about climate change and efforts to combat it.”
Levick balanced those strong words with his observation that “it’s not all doom and gloom for environmental advocates… If Trump abides by his promises on infrastructure investment—no easy task given the anti-government spending proclivities of the GOP majority on both sides of Capitol Hill—the quality of drinking water may improve, especially in cash-strapped urban areas.”
And Levick ended with this: “The contrast between the Obama and Trump administrations will be pronounced in virtually every area of policy. But the coming debate on energy and environmental issues looks to be hotter than ever.”
Pivotal Moment
U.S. Energy Association Executive Director Barry Worthington issued a statement on Nov. 9 congratulating President-elect Donald Trump and commenting on the significance of the changing of the guard.
“The country is at a pivotal moment, and the evolution of our energy policy is central to the changes we should expect in a new Trump administration,” Worthington said. “While energy wasn’t a central issue to the 2016 campaigns, President-elect Trump has promised to make sweeping changes to our energy policy. Most notably, President-elect Trump has promised to dissolve the contentious Clean Power Plan and walk away from global climate agreements, such as the Paris Accord. Absent the CPP, a number of coal plants may not have to go into retirement, and certainly natural gas will continue to provide more than 30 percent of our electricity generation. However, renewable energy development—wind and solar projects in the pipeline—will likely reach fruition. And, state authority over renewable portfolio standards will help drive some of that renewable energy expansion and technology growth. President-elect Trump will not likely push for federal incentives or subsidies for renewable energy.”
And speaking of the Republican party retention of majorities in both the House and the Senate, Worthington had this to add:
“USEA congratulates the new members of the 115th Congress. With full support from a Trump White House, we should epect the House and Senate to successfully continue its pursuit of a comprehensive energy bill, one that includes an expedited process at the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve LNG terminal applications. We should see some provisions emerge to streamline the electric transmission siting process as well. It would be the first significant energy bill in a decade. We look forward to the development of domestic energy projects under the new Congress and administration. President-elect Trump and his administration promises to be bipartisan and we look forward to working together to help meet our country’s growing energy demand and build our critical infrastructure.”
An America First Energy Plan
(This policy statement has been edited by PBOG staff for oil-and-gas, and regional, relevance, and for brevity.)
Donald J. Trump’s Vision
- Make America energy independent, create millions of new jobs, and protect clean air and clean water. We will conserve our natural habitats, reserves, and resources. We will unleash an energy revolution that will bring vast new wealth to our country.
- Declare American energy dominance a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States.
- Unleash America’s $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, plus hundreds of years in clean coal reserves.
- Become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.
- Open onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands, eliminate moratorium on coal leasing, and open shale energy deposits.
- Encourage the use of natural gas and other American energy resources that will both reduce emissions but also reduce the price of energy and increase our economic output.
- Rescind all job-destroying Obama executive actions. Reduce and eliminate all barriers to responsible energy production, creating at least a half million jobs a year, $30 billion in higher wages, and cheaper energy.
Oil and natural gas production is up significantly in the last decade. Our oil imports have been cut in half. But all this occurred in spite of massive new bureaucratic and political barriers. President Obama has done everything he can to get in the way of American energy.
Under my presidency, we will accomplish complete American energy independence.
Imagine a world in which our foes, and the oil cartels, can no longer use energy as a weapon.
President Obama’s anti-energy orders have also weakened our security, by keeping us reliant on foreign sources of energy. Every dollar of energy we don’t explore here, is a dollar of energy that makes someone else rich over there. If President Obama wanted to weaken America he couldn’t have done a better job.
A Trump Administration will develop an America First energy plan. Here is how this plan will make America wealthy again:
- American energy dominance will be declared a strategic economic and foreign policy goal of the United States.
- America has 1.5 times as much oil as the combined proven resources of all OPEC countries; we have more natural gas than Russia, Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia combined; we have three times more coal than Russia. Our total untapped oil and gas reserves on federal lands equal an estimated $50 trillion.
- We will become, and stay, totally independent of any need to import energy from the OPEC cartel or any nations hostile to our interests.
- At the same time, we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.
- We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges, and public infrastructure. Cheaper energy will also boost American agriculture.
- We will get the bureaucracy out of the way of innovation, so we can pursue all forms of energy. This includes renewable energies and the technologies of the future. It includes nuclear, wind and solar energy—but not to the exclusion of other energy. The government should not pick winners and losers. Instead, it should remove obstacles to exploration. Any market has ups and downs, but lifting these draconian barriers will ensure that we are no longer at the mercy of global markets.
Here is my 100-day action plan:
- We’re going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
- We’re going to save the coal industry and other industries threatened by [Washington bureaucracy].
- I’m going to ask Trans Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline.
- We’re going to lift moratoriums on energy production in federal areas.
- We’re going to revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling technologies. These technologies create millions of jobs with a smaller footprint than ever before.
- We’re going to cancel the Paris Climate Agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.
- Any regulation that is outdated, unnecessary, bad for workers, or contrary to the national interest will be scrapped. We will also eliminate duplication, provide regulatory certainty, and trust local officials and local residents.
- Any future regulation will go through a simple test: is this regulation good for the American worker? If it doesn’t pass this test, the rule will not be approved.
Policy decisions will be public and transparent. We’re going to do all this while taking proper regard for rational environmental concerns. We are going to conserve our beautiful natural habitats, reserves and resources. In a Trump Administration, political activists with extreme agendas will no longer write the rules. Instead, we will work with conservationists whose only agenda is protecting nature.
From an environmental standpoint, my priorities are very simple: clean air and clean water.
My America First energy plan will create real jobs and real wage growth.
According to the Institute for Energy Research, lifting the restrictions on American energy will create a flood of new jobs:
- Almost a $700 billion increase in annual economic output over the next 30 years.
- More than a $30 billion increase in annual wages over the next 7 years.
- Over the next four decades, more than $20 trillion in additional economic activity and $6 trillion in new tax revenue.
The oil and natural gas industry supports 10 million high-paying Americans jobs and can create another 400,000 new jobs per year. This exploration will also create a resurgence in American manufacturing—dramatically reducing both our trade deficit and our budget deficit.
My agenda will be accomplished through a series of reforms that put America First:
- Energy reform that creates trillions in new wealth.
- Immigration reform that protects our borders and defends our workers.
- Tax reform that brings millions of new jobs to America.
- Regulation reform that eliminates stupid rules that send our jobs overseas.
- Welfare reform that requires employers to recruit from the unemployment office – not the immigration office.
- Trade reform that brings back our manufacturing jobs and stands up to countries that cheat.
We are going to put America back to work.
We are going to put people before government.
I am prepared to kick the special interests out of Washington, D.C. and to hand their seat of power over to you.
Together, we will put the American people first again.
We will make our communities wealthy again.
We will make our cities safe again.
We will make our country strong again.
Ladies and Gentlemen: We will Make America Great Again.