From Houston Public Media:
Donald Trump gave speeches saying that America’s energy potential remains untapped — a problem he says is “totally self-inflicted.” Jason Bennett is an energy specialist at Houston-based law firm Baker-Botts.
“When he talks about energy, he’s really talking about jobs. And I think he understands, as a lot of people do in the energy business, that oil and gas and mining — these are good sources of high-wage middle-class jobs.”
Trump has been proposing scrapping regulations that he says are “outdated, unnecessary or bad for workers.”
“And the EPA is a lot more active under President Obama and I think that everyone expects, really, that President-elect Trump’s administration over the course of time will look less to sort of shutting down the industry and regulating it, and more on promoting it and trying to develop it.”
President Bush was friendly to the oil industry, but production fell during his two terms. President Obama increased regulations, but Forbes magazine says the rise in oil production is the largest in history.
Bennett says benefits from new policies would be immediate, but others might take longer. “Investment in the energy business is a long cycle. To start construction in these large-scale facilities — let’s say a refinery — would take a number of years to build.”
But Bennett says new energy policies will lead to energy expansions.
