American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2018 - 116

ConventionCoverage: Texas Alliance of Energy Producers

Speakers Hail EPA Administrator Pruitt
WICHITA FALLS, TX.-In a pair of
wide-ranging addresses, the keynote speakers at the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers annual convention, April 24-25 in
Wichita Falls, agreed on one thing: the
importance of Environmental Protection
Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.
During the April 25 membership breakfast, Harold Hamm, chairman and chief
executive officer for Continental Resources, called Pruitt "the best hope this
industry has."
The luncheon keynoter, Texas Governor
Greg Abbott, recalled that Pruitt was
Oklahoma attorney general at the same
time Abbott was Texas attorney general.
"Together we brought about a dozen challenges to heavy-handed regulations EPA
tried to impose on the states," he related.
"We finally have someone leading EPA
now who understands its limitations and is
working with us so that you and our state
can be far more productive," Abbott praised.
Hamm called Pruitt the oil and gas
industry's most important champion in
Washington, saying, "He has done more
to remove onerous regulations than anybody."
But by doing so, Hamm said Pruitt
had made himself "enemy number one
with the liberal contingency." He said
liberals had drawn on Saul Alinsky's
fourth rule in Rules for Radicals, that
ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
"Certainly that is what they have turned
on Scott Pruitt. They are waging a war of

The state of Texas needs its oil and gas
industry to succeed so the state itself
can be more successful, Governor Greg
Abbott tells the Texas Alliance of Energy
Producers annual meeting, April 24-25
in Wichita Falls, Tx.

public opinion," he said.
Whether President Trump will resist
the calls to fire Pruitt, Hamm said, "Time
will tell. But if he gets burned, look out.
You will not see another EPA administrator
put in during Trump's term."
Succeed Together
Governor Abbott praised the oil and
gas industry for "empowering the Texas
economy for the past two years." He
added, "We need you to succeed because
when you succeed, the state is better able
to succeed. Our goal is to try to find
ways to help you, knowing that when
you are making more money, the state of
Texas is making more money."
He referenced a 10-day economic development trip he took in March to India,
during which the first shipment of liquefied
natural gas arrived from Cheniere Energy's
Sabine Pass facility. Pointing to anticipated
growth in LNG exports, Abbott advised,
"Companies are lining up in my office to
be on the receiving end of energy produced
in Texas."
To aid in that, he said, "We are working
to expedite the pipeline permitting process
so we can get the oil and gas from the
Permian Basin to the Gulf Coast."
Observing that Texas exports $96 billion in goods and services to Mexico
each year, Abbott said he had been working
to convince the Trump administration
how important it was to renew the North
American Free Trade Agreement. "Every
clue I get looks like NAFTA should be
coming to final negotiations in the coming
weeks," he advised the Alliance.
But while Abbott expressed confidence
in the NAFTA negotiations," he warned
that another challenge loomed in Mexico's
July presidential election, where the frontrunner, leftist Andrés Manuel López
Abrador, "has expressed overt hostility to
Texas, to the United States, and to opening
the oil and gas sector in Mexico."
"So, while we may be successfully
navigating the NAFTA challenge, we are
going to need to get ready to deal with
another challenge, and that will be the
new administration that may be taking
office in Mexico," he expressed.
Finally, Abbott acknowledged the oil
and gas industry's need for an adequately
trained workforce. He pointed to the Texas
Industry Cluster Innovative Academies,
established in 2016, which provides grant

116 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

funding to high schools to provide training
in skilled work trades "to give high school
students learning opportunities in highdemand occupations, including energy."
Target Federal Regulations
Hamm recalled that when he last spoke
to the Alliance, in April 2013, he predicted
U.S. energy independence by 2025. "Today, we know it can happen by about
2020," he updated, observing that since
2008, the United States has gone from
being 30 percent dependent on energy
imports to less than 8 percent.
Turning to federal regulations either
outdated by America's new energy abundance or actually impeding it, Hamm began with the corporate average fuel economy standards set under President Obama,
terming them "EPA at its worst."
He showed how U.S. highway fatalities
had declined from 45,000 a year to only
30,000, thanks to automobile safety improvements. But, he said, as manufacturers
have begun building smaller, lighter vehicles to meet CAFE mandates, highway
deaths have climbed back to 40,000 a
year, which he suggested was at least
partly responsible for burgeoning public
demand for large sport utility vehicles
and pickup trucks.
Hamm pointed to the irony of the U.S.
Northeast importing LNG from Russia
SEE HAMM PAGE 123

Outdated federal fuel economy standards
and the Securities and Exchange Commission's "ﬁve-year rule" are among the
regulations Continental Resources Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Harold
Hamm said he was working to change,
during an April breakfast address at the
Texas Alliance of Energy Producers annual meeting.
American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2018
