Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday that he is one of “Three Musketeers” of energy.
Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt “are three individuals that do believe that the future of America is inextricably intertwined with the energy industry,” he said in opening an energy conference at his agency.
“Some call us the Three Musketeers for whatever reason that might be,” Perry added.
Perry, Zinke and Pruitt will host a panel discussion later Thursday afternoon after hearing from industry representatives.
The Energy Department event will close with a speech by President Trump, which lobbyists suggest will focus on the role of natural gas exports in his America First energy agenda.
Energy expert Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit, opened the first panel by saying the U.S. has moved away from the “age of vulnerability,” which is where it stood during the Mideast oil embargoes of the 1970s, to a new place of energy abundance, especially for natural gas production.
“We are not merely self-sufficient” with natural gas, Yergin said. “We are by far the world’s largest producer of natural gas and an increasingly important exporter.”
He said crude oil production also is surging, driven by the use of hydraulic fracturing and the shale energy boom of the last decade.
Yergin said the U.S. still imports crude oil, but those imports are much fewer than in the 1970s. In addition, the U.S. is able to export oil, and is doing so at an ever-increasing rate.
