Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke credited President Trump on Friday with spurring on the oil and natural gas boom that began nearly a decade ago, and said the administration’s deregulation and tax reform agenda helped it along.
“And the numbers will show you, we produce today about 10.3 million barrels [of oil] a day in this country. And for the first time in 60 years, we are a net exporter of liquid natural gas. And that’s President Donald Trump,” Zinke told the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Record oil production and the U.S. shift to becoming a net exporter of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, last year all occurred under Trump’s watch. But the market shift that enabled it was well under way before Trump entered office.
The policy that enabled record oil production was worked out through Republican and Democratic spending bill deals during the previous administration that removed the 40-year ban on oil exports, which has helped boost oil production from fracking by opening up a global market for the fuel.
Oil prices have risen during Trump’s time in office, which has made it more profitable for drillers to increase production. Oil and fuel prices have also gone up under the president’s watch.
The LNG market has occurred primarily as a function of a market that spurred development of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that began nearly a decade ago. And even though Zinke is looking to get out of the way of industry on public lands, much of the shale revolution occurred on private lands.
Zinke also touted that people are paying less for gas at the pump under the new administration and the president’s tax bill.
“Does everyone like the tax bill that Donald Trump produced?” Zinke asked to applause. “As good as the tax bill is, when America pulls up to a pump, and they fill their car up, under the previous administration it was 2 bucks, 4 bucks, 6 bucks, a $100 dollars to fill a car,” he said.
“American energy has delivered,” he continued. “Now it’s $60. That’s $40 you have in your pocket — every American that would fill up at a pump station— that you wouldn’t have. So, America economy is run on made in America energy and it should be.”
The Energy Information Administration in its latest fuel price report released earlier this week does not jibe with Zinke’s assessment. The analysis arm of the Energy Department showed that although gasoline pump prices were down from a week ago, they were 26 cents higher than during the same time last year, a month after President Trump was sworn into the Oval Office.
“The U.S. average regular gasoline retail price dropped 5 cents from the previous week to $2.56 per gallon on February 19, 2018, up 26 cents from the same time last year,” the EIA’s Week in Petroleum report read.
Likewise, the nation’s average diesel fuel price dropped nearly 4 cents to $3.03 per gallon on Feb. 19, which is still a whopping 46 cents higher than a year ago, the report stated.
