“Treasury Secretary designee Scott Bessent really wants to help the domestic energy sector” By MARK P. MILLS

“Large public companies that have finally embraced capital discipline in recent years are not likely to change their production profiles meaningfully unless oil prices move sharply higher.”

If Trump’s Treasury Secretary designee Scott Bessent really wants to help the domestic energy sector, he should focus on rescinding all the climate-related financial regulations that have proliferated under the Biden administration across various executive agencies within his purview (including the SEC, OCC, FDIC, CFPB, FSOC and the Federal Reserve). This will free up U.S. hydrocarbon supply from artificial (and highly partisan) capital constraints going forward.

Once emancipated, U.S. oil production, like water, will find its own level based on the dynamics of the global market, which has remained oversupplied for the past decade since the shale revolution changed everything in 2014.

Large public companies that have finally embraced capital discipline in recent years are not likely to change their production profiles meaningfully unless oil prices move sharply higher. Private operators (including mom-and-pops) will continue to grow because they are not beholden to cash-hungry shareholders and volatile stock prices.

If U.S. oil and gas companies decide, in the aggregate through the invisible hand, that it makes economic sense to ramp up domestic production by three million barrels per day or by whatever increment, then that is the industry’s call. It is not the responsibility of the Trump White House, no matter how supportive and well intentioned, to set national oil and gas supply targets.

And if the goal is to reduce the federal deficit (which it clearly should be), cutting government spending should be the priority, not just looking for additional sources of tax revenue from the energy and other industries.

National Center for Energy Analytics Mark P Mills Portia Roberts Texas Public Policy Foundation The Heritage Foundation API - American Petroleum Institute American Energy Institute PetroNerds FIASI .org CFA Society New York

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