Trump Signs US Frac Protection Order
US president Donald Trump signed an executive order October 31 aimed at protecting the hydraulic fracture stimulation industry, according to various media reports.
He signed the order while flying to Pennsylvania – a key battleground state in the November 3 general election – for a rally with supporters. The order, he was quoted as saying, would protect the state and its vast Marcellus shale gas industry from the “deep, catastrophic depression” that would result if Democratic rival Joe Biden took the Oval Office.
US energy secretary Dan Brouillette said his office would “swiftly and thoroughly” execute the tasks set out in the order, issued as a “Memorandum on Protecting Jobs, Economic Opportunities, and National Security for All Americans.”
“It is technology like fracking that unleashed America’s natural resources and made us the number one producer of oil and gas in the world, bringing an eight-fold increase in natural gas productivity since 2007, while also creating millions of jobs and reducing the price of gas by 63%,” Brouillette said in a statement. “A ban on fracking would result in the loss of millions of jobs, the doubling of gasoline prices, and the quadrupling of electricity costs.”
Trump’s order directs Brouillette to submit a report to the president within 70 days assessing the impacts of a ban on fracking, including its impacts on energy prices, jobs and wages, tax and other revenues to federal, state and local governments and agencies and trade opportunities.
It also calls for a report from Brouillette, also within 70 days, assessing the national security impacts of a fracking ban, including “an assessment of potential impacts on Russian and Chinese energy production, consumption, and trade activities, and on the energy security of US allies, that may be attributable to changes in US exports of LNG and other energy products.”
Under the 70-day deadline, the report would be submitted 10 days prior to the inauguration of the next US president, whether Biden or Trump.