Geopolitical Benefits Spring From US Energy Dominance, Cabinet Secretaries Assert
America is in a stronger geopolitical position today because of innovative drilling techniques making it possible to access domestic supplies of natural gas, two of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke discussed the impact of Trump’s deregulation efforts on the economy and the foreign policy ramifications of American energy independence while fielding questions at CPAC from former Rep. Bob Beauprez, a Colorado Republican.
Perry, the former governor Texas, invoked the memory of President Jimmy Carter’s infamous “malaise” speech in 1979 to drive home the point that “American ingenuity” in the private sector has transformed the energy sector.
Where Carter anticipated a future where “energy shortages” would impose limits on America’s economic potential, entrepreneurs stepped in with technological innovations such as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that unleashed domestic energy supplies, Perry said:
Today, the United States of America is the largest oil- and gas-producing country in the world. This didn’t happen because of government regulations; it happened because the government got out of the way and let the private sector do what it does best.
Perry told the CPAC audience that the energy independence achieved by America …read more