Message from voters: Remove politicized constraints on fossil energy production

On Election Day, voters delivered at least one clear message: Remove the policy roadblocks standing in the way of greater fossil energy production, American oil and natural gas in particular. The reason is obvious: The efficient production of more fossil energy yields huge economic benefits for millions of working Americans and for the productivity of the economy as a whole.

Voters focused on energy policies played a central role in this election, particularly in such battleground states as Pennsylvania and Michigan. Pennsylvania is second only behind Texas in natural gas production among the states. The Biden administration has worked against the expansion of natural gas exports, and Vice President Harris’ attempt to reverse her earlier pledge to ban fracking was less than wholly convincing.

Pennsylvania voters could easily see that even without a “ban” little would prevent a President Harris from unleashing the regulators, the net effect of which would be severe constraints on domestic energy production. And the pause on new LNG export projects would be likely to continue, justified on whatever shifting and inconsistent rationales for a pause served that end.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm confirmed recently that the Department of Energy will soon release a study on liquefied gas exports. Any such “study” would allow opponents of new LNG export projects to challenge approvals granted by the Trump administration, thus pouring more sand into the approval process. 

There is tremendous room for improvement under the direct control of federal officials. New leases for exploration activities on federal lands (and waters) declined from 1841 in 2019 to 144 in 2023, as the Biden administration endeavored to offer as few leases as allowed under federal law. The incoming Trump administration can — and will — ramp up leasing on federal lands, leading to an increase in oil and gas production on federal lands after a lag of two to four years.

There also is the energy security issue, of particular importance in the context of expanded U.S. LNG exports as a competitor to natural gas and LNG from producers in Russia and the Middle East, sent to U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. The instabilities, hostilities, terrorism threats and politicized delivery interruptions from such sources are not imaginary. U.S. LNG exports enjoy a large inherent competitive advantage precisely because of the solid stability of U.S. production and exports. The Biden suppression of new LNG export projects simply throws that advantage away, without any compensating benefit to anyone except Russia and the Middle East producers. What justifies such a perverse result?

Those are among the central reasons that Mr. Trump carried Pennsylvania after having lost the state in 2020. It is clear also that Dave McCormick’s narrow defeat of long-time Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey would not have happened without the LNG pause and incoherence characterizing Harris’ energy platform.

Consider Michigan, still the major center of automobile production and employment in the U.S. The Biden administration regulatory attempt to force a large shift toward electric vehicles — a substitution of central planning in place of market forces —has yielded large financial losses for the automobile producers and a real threat of layoffs for thousands of skilled, blue-collar workers at GM, Ford and Stellantis.

The adverse indirect employment impacts are severe also, affecting the entire universe of designers, engineers, toolmakers and other professionals providing critical services to the automobile producers. 

Vice President Harris failed to clarify her position on the Biden EV mandate policy even as it was obvious that it would impose large costs on the Michigan economy and communities, and even with polls showing deep opposition among voters generally. 

David Schor, a pollster with Blue Rose Research, said at an event held by the Breakthrough Institute last summer that when he presented voters with a set of Biden administration signature actions, the EV mandate was the one that “literally makes people more likely to vote for Republicans.” And so again it is not surprising that Trump carried Michigan with nearly 50 percent of the vote, after having lost the state in 2020.  

Elected officials are interested first and foremost in being elected. One path toward that goal was made clear in the recent election: The efficient production of natural gas and other forms of conventional energy is a driver of strengthened economic growth, while policies to suppress its production are deeply harmful to ordinary working Americans. 

Benjamin Zycher is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.