With former Vice President Joe Biden close to taking office, the Texan oil and gas industry is preparing for a future of more regulation.
“I clearly think a Biden government will affect the future of domestic manufacturing and our recovery,” said Ed Longanecker, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association. “The industry will survive under Biden, but there are thousands of small businesses that don’t have the same resources to monitor and comply with the tightened regulations. This makes us more dependent on foreign oil and threatens our energy independence. “
First and foremost, Longanecker and many other people in the industry are concerned with fracking. It’s a popular myth, led in large part by repeated allegations by President Donald Trump, that Biden wants to end all hydraulic fracking in the United States. The truth is that he proposed that only new fracking operations be banned in federal states. Biden’s reluctance to commit to a stricter approach to the controversial practice associated with poisoned drinking water and increased earthquakes in North Texas cost him support for his party’s left wing, even when he was Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif .) Added. , a Green New Deal architect, on his ticket.
The idea that fracking made America’s energy independence independent is largely a myth, but there is no doubt that it increased energy exports and increased industry profits. Even Biden’s relatively innocuous proposal is seen as a threat to the profits that oil and gas have made in recent years. Longanecker said a state fracking ban would affect 20,000 jobs.
Jobs are certainly on everyone’s lips right now as the state’s unemployment rate is around 8% thanks to the economic downturn. The Texan oil and gas industry has lost 100,000 jobs since its peak in 2014, affecting large numbers of families as well as the state’s tax revenues.
Longanecker claims that Biden’s proposal to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy threatens to make the losses worse and more permanent, indicating the small number of jobs created by the expansion of wind power – “only 650 new jobs in the US last 10 years “. We couldn’t confirm that number, but we found a report from E2 that said Texas is currently creating around 10,000 clean energy jobs annually. It remains to be seen whether this would be enough to mitigate the loss of oil and gas jobs.
Another fear concerns global politics. Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal) has been largely viewed as a step backwards in world peace. However, according to Longanecker, it was a boon to the oil industry. If Biden re-entered the deal, Iranian oil would flow back into the market, which would likely prompt long-time Iranian adversary Saudi Arabia to increase production as well. This would lower the price per barrel even further.
“If Biden re-joins the nuclear deal with Iran, more oil from Iran will find its way into an already flooded market,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine that Saudi Arabia would hold back if its enemies were selling oil.”
The industry is also not interested in resuming the Paris climate agreement. Longanecker points out that America’s oil and gas have already spent $ 300 billion on carbon-reduction practices and are world leaders in that regard, with carbon production falling 12% since 2005. Biden’s proposal to increase tax breaks for companies involved in carbon capture is one of the few bright spots the industry sees working with him, but they don’t want to rejoin the global deal as they do believe that other countries are not losing their weight.
“Why should we be bound by the agreement if others do not pull the same weight,” asks Longanecker.
Of course, not everyone paints such a rosy picture of US efforts to reduce CO2 emissions as Longanecker and others do. National Geographic rates several countries, including India, as being far tougher than the United States to meet their climate change goals. The Climate Action Tracker believes that America’s actions, particularly under the Trump administration, despite claims of voluntary and effective compliance by the energy industry, are absolutely insufficient to address the problem of climate change.
It is clear that the Texan oil and gas industry expects more regulation, less support and implications from a Biden presidency, which will have an impact on the number of employees and bottom line. Given that Republicans continue to have control of Texas, including U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-Austin), how much impact can Biden actually have on the state in this area? Regardless, the energy industry is preparing to settle down.
