Trump Administration Will Focus On Abundance Of Issues, Including Energy
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Shawn Bennett • Ohio Oil and Gas Association
ne thing is for certain. The electorate may be in but the jury is still out when it comes to what will happen during a Trump presidency. There have been many predictions, but when the rubber hits the road there is a limited amount of change that will be able to take place over the next four years.
do to help or hurt an extractive industry? In one word, regulation. In a recent survey of 600 executives by Grant Thornton/Hart Energy, more than one-half of respondents indicated that regulatory hurdles and delays were a top business risk for their companies.
I don’t believe it is any secret that President Obama abused In order to look forward we have to understand how we got his executive authority to circumvent what he perceived as here in the first place. In 2008, Obama won Ohio’s oil/gas and a congressional roadblock to passing his policy priorities. coal counties by a margin of 39,955 votes. In 2016, Trump won During his two terms in office, there were 250 executive them by a margin orders and more of 112,546 votes, a than 230 “executive swing of 152,501 memoranda” issued votes from 2008. by President Obama. Despite consisting While these orders largely of sparsely and memoranda populated areas, the ventured anywhere vote swing in those from education counties accounted to government for approximately debt, there were a third of Trump’s plenty that were a margin of victory in direct threat to the Ohio. domestic production of oil and natural That large shift was gas. due in large part to Trump’s pro coal, A Clinton presidency oil and natural gas would likely have message as well as been much of the Clinton’s very anti same. Secretary coal, oil and natural Clinton was quoted gas message. The more interesting impact was that Clinton as saying that with her massive amount of regulations there underperformed with union labor members. Trump won would not be many places left in our country to drill. Given the union vote by 52% in the state. A dramatic improvement this misguided rhetoric, our country under a President over the 37% Romney took home just four years earlier. The Clinton could expect a defacto ban on domestic oil and gas change in support can be attributed to one simple message. production. Jobs. It is very hard to vote for a candidate that wants to see the industry that has provided a significant amount of work In a recent U.S. Chamber study, they looked at what a ban for their members face an administration laser focused on on hydraulic fracturing would actually mean to the United its demise. States as well as Ohio. The results were alarming. The U.S. would be projected to lose 14.8 million jobs; gasoline and Since commodity prices and production costs are the true electricity prices would almost double while natural gas drivers of oil and gas development, what can a President prices would skyrocket to over $12 per MMBTU. Here in
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