Former military chiefs and business CEOs are laying out a blueprint Thursday for what could become the energy policy of Donald Trump.
The energy security group Securing America’s Future Energy is releasing a report that lays out recommendations favoring increased offshore drilling that the Obama administration has sought to limit, while applying conservative-leaning ideas to promote the country’s natural resources and technology expertise.
The group will be hosting a conference in conjunction with the report’s release, in which Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., will be speaking. Cramer was just named as Trump’s climate and energy adviser. The report is not directly being linked to the presumptive Republican nominee, but it underscores issues that Cramer cares about, and that could feed into his advice to Trump.
Cramer co-sponsored a bill in February that looks to counter national oil companies aligned with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries from manipulating the price of oil with explicit intent to harm U.S. shale oil drillers.
The Saudis and other OPEC members have been accused of keeping production high when the price of oil is low to push their competition out of the market. Through fracking, a more expensive method of drilling than traditional ways, the United States is now a top oil and natural gas producer, beating out most of its rivals in the cartel.
Cramer will underscore the need to address the Saudi market manipulation goals with a counter strategy that seeks to protect U.S. drillers. The downturn in the price of oil, as a result of production remaining high during a year-long supply glut, has caused a number of the nation’s independent shale drillers to fall into hard times, forcing them to lay off tens of thousands of workers.
The bill, “United States Commission on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Act of 2016,” creates a special commission to analyze the harm caused by OPEC policies, while making recommendations on how the U.S. should respond.
The SAFE report, “A National Strategy for Energy Security: the Innovation Revolution,” devotes a chapter to the issue of OPEC and the threat posed by “market manipulation,” and recommends the creation of a similar commission.
The group’s Energy Security Council, co-chaired by Fedex CEO Frederick Smith and retired Marine Corps Commandant James Conway, said in an open letter that the report’s recommendations “are designed around one clear goal: to safeguard the security of the United States by reducing our dependence on oil in a manipulated global marketplace.”
“The council recognizes that market-designed and market-driven approaches are the preferred method for overcoming economic challenges. But given the importance of oil to our economy and the power that foreign governments wield over oil production levels, engagement by the U.S. government is warranted,” the letter says.
Some of the report’s other recommendations lean on ideas suggested by Republicans over the last 15 years, both during the Obama administration and the presidency of George W. Bush. They also seek a reversal of the precedent President Obama has set in placing increased limits on offshore oil and gas exploration, rather than formulating a predictable policy path for ensuring production while maintaining a high standard for safety.
Some of those recommendations include re-doing the Interior Department’s five-year oil and gas leasing program to open up new areas of the U.S. coast to expand offhsore drilling. The administration retracted its original proposal to expand drilling for the first time in the Atlantic, in the wake of environmentalists’ protest.
The report also recommends the creation of an Energy Security Trust Fund from the government revenue collected from new offshore drilling and used to fund research and development into technologies that improve competition in the transportation fuels market. The trust fund reflects a proposal made by Obama in his 2013 State of the Union speech, but the report’s version relies more heavily on oil and gas revenues.
The trust fund recommendation could get support from both Republicans and Democrats.
One of the report’s more contentious recommendations is to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which the GOP constantly pressed for during the Bush administration and which Democrats adamantly oppose. The report recommends responsible drilling and exploration in the Arctic. It will take the highest-quality expertise to tap the resources there given the cold environment. But a shrinking ice sheet is making production there more inviting and the potential rewards high, it says.
