Guest post by David Middleton
Energy Independence
The Trump Administration will make America energy independent. Our energy policies will make full use of our domestic energy sources, including traditional and renewable energy sources. America will unleash an energy revolution that will transform us into a net energy exporter, leading to the creation of millions of new jobs, while protecting the country’s most valuable resources – our clean air, clean water, and natural habitats. America is sitting on a treasure trove of untapped energy. In fact, America possesses more combined coal, oil, and natural gas resources than any other nation on Earth. These resources represent trillions of dollars in economic output and countless American jobs, particularly for the poorest Americans.
Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block America’s fossil fuel producers, the Trump Administration will encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands and waters. We will streamline the permitting process for all energy projects, including the billions of dollars in projects held up by President Obama, and rescind the job-destroying executive actions under his Administration. We will end the war on coal, and rescind the coal mining lease moratorium, the excessive Interior Department stream rule, and conduct a top-down review of all anti-coal regulations issued by the Obama Administration. We will eliminate the highly invasive “Waters of the US” rule, and scrap the $5 trillion dollar Obama-Clinton Climate Action Plan and the Clean Power Plan and prevent these unilateral plans from increasing monthly electric bills by double-digits without any measurable effect on Earth’s climate. Energy is the lifeblood of modern society. It is the industry that fuels all other industries. We will lift the restrictions on American energy, and allow this wealth to pour into our communities. It’s all upside: more jobs, more revenues, more wealth, higher wages, and lower energy prices.
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The energy-related Great Again Transition team includes four people who are highly qualified to recruit candidates who will erase the past 8 years of regulatory malfeasance…
CLIMATE
Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic to Lead EPA Transition
Choosing Myron Ebell means Trump plans to drastically reshape climate policies
By Robin Bravender, ClimateWire on September 26, 2016
[…]
Donald Trump has selected one of the best-known climate skeptics to lead his U.S. EPA transition team, according to two sources close to the campaign.
Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, is spearheading Trump’s transition plans for EPA, the sources said.
The Trump team has also lined up leaders for its Energy Department and Interior Department teams. Republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna is heading the DOE team; former Interior Department solicitor David Bernhardt is leading the effort for that agency, according to sources close to the campaign.
Ebell is a well-known and polarizing figure in the energy and environment realm. His participation in the EPA transition signals that the Trump team is looking to drastically reshape the climate policies the agency has pursued under the Obama administration. Ebell’s role is likely to infuriate environmentalists and Democrats but buoy critics of Obama’s climate rules.
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Ebell appears to relish criticism from the left.
In a biography submitted when he testified before Congress, he listed among his recognitions that he had been featured in a Greenpeace “Field Guide to Climate Criminals,” dubbed a “misleader” on global warming by Rolling Stone and was the subject of a motion to censure in the British House of Commons after Ebell criticized the United Kingdom’s chief scientific adviser for his views on global warming.
More recently, Ebell has called the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan for greenhouse gases illegal and said that Obama joining the Paris climate treaty “is clearly an unconstitutional usurpation of the Senate’s authority.”
He told Vanity Fair in 2007, “There has been a little bit of warming … but it’s been very modest and well within the range for natural variability, and whether it’s caused by human beings or not, it’s nothing to worry about.”
Ebell’s views appear to square with Trump’s when it comes to EPA’s agenda. Trump has called global warming “bullshit” and he has said he would “cancel” the Paris global warming accord and roll back President Obama’s executive actions on climate change (ClimateWire, May 27).
Leading the Trump DOE team: GOP hired gun McKenna.
The president of MWR Strategies is well known in Republican energy circles. He was director of policy and external affairs for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality under then-Gov. George Allen (R) and was an external relations specialist at the Energy Department during the George H.W. Bush administration.
His lobbying clients in 2016 include Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, Southern Company Services, Dow Chemical Co. and Competitive Power Ventures Inc., according to public disclosures.
And heading Interior’s transition effort is Bernhardt, co-chairman of the Natural Resources Department at the law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.
He served as Interior’s solicitor during the George W. Bush administration after holding several other high-ranking jobs at the department.
In addition to the EPA, Interior and DOE team leaders, GOP energy expert Mike Catanzaro is also working on energy policy for the Trump transition team (Greenwire, Sept. 14).
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Likely candidates for energy-related cabinet positions in the Trump Administration…
TRANSITION
Who’s in line for Trump EPA boss, energy czar?
Robin Bravender, E&E News reporter
Greenwire: Wednesday, November 9, 2016
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One thing Trump insiders stress: The next administration will mark a drastic departure from past iterations of the executive branch. While Trump is already relying on some veterans in the energy world, and could pick some for top government jobs, there will be plenty of fresh blood in the mix.
“When he has been on the campaign trail, when he’s been talking about the need to ‘drain the swamp,’ for example, he’s looking for people to come in and solve the problems,” said a source close to the Trump campaign. If the Trump team interviews candidates who say, “I’m not sure if we can actually do that,” the source said, “I think there’s a strong likelihood that they might look at the person and say, ‘Next, please.'”
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EPA
Trump has appointed well-known climate skeptic Myron Ebell to lead his EPA transition team and has promised to overturn the Obama administration’s climate policies. Trump has even floated abolishing EPA entirely, although that would likely be an uphill climb politically. At the very least, he’s expected to pursue dramatic reforms at the agency.
Contenders for the highly politicized job of EPA boss include two top state attorneys who are helping to lead the legal charge to overturn President Obama’s Clean Power Plan in court. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt are rumored candidates to lead the agency under Trump.
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DOE
At the Energy Department, some sources expect an energy industry insider to become secretary, while others are pushing for Republican lawmakers with a deep knowledge of the inner workings of the complex agency. Energy lobbyist Mike McKenna is leading Trump’s DOE transition team.
Trump adviser and oil tycoon Harold Hamm is often cited as a leading contender for the agency’s top job.
Other prospects include David Hill, executive vice president and general counsel for NRG Energy Inc., who was DOE’s general counsel during the George W. Bush administration; and J. Larry Nichols, co-founder of Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp.
Interior
A broad range of Westerners and public lands insiders are rumored to be in the running to lead the Interior Department. Former George W. Bush administration Interior official David Bernhardt is leading Trump’s Interior transition team.
Idaho Republican Gov. Butch Otter is one possibility for the job. The former Idaho congressman told E&E News in September that he would “be proud to serve in a Trump administration.”
Other Western Republican governors floated as possible picks include Wyoming’s Matt Mead, South Dakota’s Dennis Daugaard and New Mexico’s Susana Martinez.
Current and former Republican members of Congress who might be picked include Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee; Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska; Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe; Rep. Don Young of Alaska; retiring Wyoming Rep. Cynthia Lummis; and Idaho Sens. Mike Crapo and James Risch.
Other names floated include Tony Clark, a Republican commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who was previously chairman of the North Dakota Public Service Commission, and Pruitt, the attorney general of Oklahoma.
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The top candidates for EPA Director are Republican State Attorneys General who have led the fight against the Obama Administration’s regulatory malfeasance… 
The top candidate for Secretary of Energy is Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm. Continental Resources led the way in the exploitation of the Bakken shale oil play in North Dakota…
The top candidates for Secretary of the Interior are Republican governors from western States who will fight to open up Federal lands and waters to oil, gas and coal exploitation and hopefully fight to cede control of Federal lands to the States….
Trump’s energy team will be able to quickly scrap almost all of Obama’s climate-related executive orders and agreements. The Paris climate agreement will be neutered, if not revoked. The Clean Power Plan and Climate Action Plan will be zeroed-out. Many other pernicious regulations will also be rescinded or modified. My personal hope is that the recent offshore well control rule will be modified to make compliance cost-effective.
The highest profile impact will be in Alaska and its OCS (Outer Continental Shelf)…
Trump presidency has big implications for Alaska oil development
By Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk
November 9, 2016
Now that Donald Trump is set to take over the White House, big changes could be coming for Alaska’s oil and gas industry. But even though Trump will see Alaska through a very different lens than Obama, a 180-degree policy shift isn’t likely to happen soon.
Donald Trump’s unexpected victory could change the landscape for Alaska’s oil and gas industry. Robert Dillon, communications director for Senator Lisa Murkowski’s campaign, said with Republican majorities in Congress, a Trump presidency opens up new possibilities for resource development in Alaska.
“Certainly you are in a much better starting point than you would have been under Hillary Clinton,” Dillon said.
Dillon said a big issue to watch is drilling in federal Arctic waters. Hillary Clinton opposed Arctic drilling, and in its upcoming five-year leasing plan the Obama administration may still announce it won’t include the Arctic. But one conservative group that endorsed Trump isn’t worried about the permanence of that decision anymore. American Energy Alliance President Tom Pyle, who is based in Washington, D.C., said President-elect Trump could reverse an Obama administration decision to halt drilling in Arctic federal waters.
“There’s still a lot of untapped energy potential in Alaska and I suspect that President-elect Trump will look at that very closely and put together plans that put the state back in the game,” Pyle said.
Another thing Pyle hopes Trump will accomplish is drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Republican leaders like Senator Murkowski have been pushing for oil and gas development in the refuge for years.
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It will take time to open ANWR and other areas because the 5-year leasing plans will have to be rewritten, which may require some congressional input. Enviromarxist terrorist, Environmental activist groups will wage an unrelenting litigation campaign against President Trump’s energy policies. The current commodity price environment will also be an obstacle for OCS exploitation. However, ANWR Area 1002 sits right next door to the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. This area will be rapidly developed, even at $40/bbl.
Trump May Open Up Arctic Drilling
By Nick Cunningham – Nov 11, 2016[…]
No other place has been more contentious, more fought over, than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a large swathe of territory in northeast Alaska, east of Prudhoe Bay where much of the state’s drilling is located. As its name suggests, the refuge is home to scenic mountains, rivers and lakes rich in wildlife and biodiversity. But it is also thought to hold large volumes of oil and gas reserves, and has been the subject of heated debate since the late 1970s over whether or not oil and gas companies should be allowed to drill. Republicans have long sought to open ANWR up for drilling, but Democrats have stymied them for decades.
But that deadlock could be broken with the unusually brazen President-elect, who is hoping to deregulate large sectors of the U.S. economy. And he has the allies in Congress to take on hugely controversial items. Alaska Dispatch News reports that the Alaskan congressional delegation, led by the powerful Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was shocked on election night (as was everyone else), and quickly thought to put ANWR on the table for President Trump’s agenda in his first 100 days. When asked about ANWR by a reporter on election night in Anchorage, Sen. Murkowksi voiced cautious optimism. “Well, as you know, we have been working to advance ANWR for decades now. And we need to have the support of the Congress,” Murkowski said. “But if the numbers continue for us with the Senate and you have a president who has expressed support, I will be chairing the energy committee again, and I am going to look to push that early on,” she added.
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So Griff if one government head honcho wants to throw himself off a cliff and then other governments also jump this makes it a consensus , there is room for you on that cliff go on take the plunge jump please , show us your not a hypocrite.
This entire notion of energy dependence/independence is a straw man, a red herring. It’s all about the price of oil and by extension gasoline. As long as foreign supplies are cheaper to buy and easier to refine they will continue to flow.
That logic works fine so long as there is no war, when petroleum becomes vital to the defense of the nation. Japan found out about this the hard way. This is why being self-sufficient is always prudent, even if not always economical.
North America internally consumes about the same amount we as it produces. We have to import oil from outside North America primarily so we can sell refined petroleum to the world. If we went to war, we could stop the exports.
ie. the US internally consumes 15.2 million barrel/day. We produce 9.5. Another 3.75 is imported from Canada and 0.75 from Mexico. That’s only a 0.7 million barrel/day shortfall at present.
Obamas war on coal inadvertantly fueled the energy price increase neccessary to capitalize the shale oil/gas boom. Further proof that his economic policies were/are misguided and unappropriate but amusingly serendipitist.
Just as Hillary’s marching orders to the Media to take out those most likely to be a challenge for her to beat after the Republican primary leaving only the non-politician (Trump). That Trump could not only survive the media’s attacks but also the GOP’s is a testament to him and his family’s ability to survive. I doubt that any of the 22 republicans that ran for president could have survived the progressives, media and internal GOP back stabbing. We have Hillary to thank for her stupidity, thinking that DJT would be a pushover enabling Trump to emerge from the primary as the candidate. Hillary’s marching orders where in an e-mail from the Podesta collection….
Anyone have thoughts on the Geopolitical impacts of the US dropping imports from the Persian Gulf from 1 Billion Barrels in 2001 to maybe zero in 2018? We only imported 1.5 million barrels a day from the Persian Gulf in 2015, so zero in 2018 is very doable it Trump sets that as a goal.
I asked the same question on Quara a minute ago if anyone wants to follow along:
https://www.quora.com/unanswered/As-the-US-reduces-oil-imports-from-the-Persian-Gulf-what-are-the-Geopolitical-ramifications
Federal Energy resources galore in an era of “Common Sense”… not lies and Socialism.
If I’m dreaming, don’t wake me.