Leading US oil industry group lobbies president-elect for lighter regulation
At a recent event in Washington, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, Jack Gerard, took the opportunity to list deregulation, increased access for offshore drilling, and more support for pipeline construction as priorities for the president-elect’s administration.
Speaking at a recent forum, he claimed that Trump was faced with a “once in a generation opportunity” to use the industry as a means of generating jobs, reducing income inequality, and improving national security by increasing gas and oil production.
Reduce Regulation
In his speech, Mr. Gerard posited that: “We must break from the recent past [and] re-examine the regulatory onslaught of the last few years that has proposed or imposed some 145 regulations and other executive actions on our industry, and instead work to implement smart energy regulations.”
Mr. Gerard’s outspokenness was arguably spurred by the recent election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Seen by the industry as an opportunity to build a policy environment more complementary to its objectives than has previously been the case, this sentiment has been supported by numerous comments from Mr. Trump.
Indeed, the president-elect has been vocal in asserting that the administration should do more to spur gas and oil production and has named several industry executives, investors, and supporters to his team. These include the chief executive of Exxon, Rex Tillerson, and future secretary of state Scott Pruitt, who has long been an outspoken ally of the oil industry.
Future of US Oil
One of the key focuses cited by Mr. Gerard was the lifting of restrictions on off-shore drilling, which is currently banned in 94 per cent of US federal waters; all excepting a section of the Gulf of Mexico.
Plans to relax these restrictions were made in March 2010, but following BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster these were hastily abandoned. Since this time, tentative moves towards allowing drilling on the Atlantic coast have been banned, and further permanent blocks placed on most of the Arctic waters north of Alaska, as well on the US Atlantic coast from Maine to Virginia.
In the opinion of Mr. Gerard, however, opening up these areas is to be encouraged, and could create up to 800,000 jobs, and raise $200 billion in government revenues whilst reducing energy costs for the ordinary person.
In his words: “That’s the kind of progress the American people made clear they want to see in the months and years ahead from their elected leaders, from municipal governments to federal agencies.”
The impact this could have on the oil industry remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure: such changes could signify significant market upheaval for those with an eye to their investment strategy.