On Monday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Surveillance,” Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk stated that the private sector will boost oil production in the U.S. if it isn’t constrained by the government and also touted oil and gas sector emissions regulations announced by the EPA and lamented that the there hasn’t been enough focus on certain oil and gas emissions.
Turk said, “I think one good thing we’ve certainly seen is a focus from a lot of companies, including here at the climate conference, on reducing methane emissions. This is something we’ve been after for quite some time. Our EPA colleagues recently announced some big news here in terms of the new regulatory structure to really do what’s the biggest no-brainer, I think, in the history of no-brainers on climate, [which] is reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas sector. So, we’re really stepping up on that and we’re seeing some companies step up on that beyond what they’re required to do in the U.S.”
Co-host Tom Keene then asked, “How did we get to be an OPEC-sized oil nation? … How did we get to this hydrocarbon success that America is today?”
Turk responded, “I think the short answer is, we are a private sector market, and unless you have federal laws, federal restrictions, the private sector will do what the private sector will do and they’ve found a lot of profit and a lot of opportunity, including in and especially in shale in our country.”
He added, “We also need to, of course, focus on the emissions coming from all of that oil and gas, not only that produced in the U.S., but around the world. And one disappointment I have to say here at the climate conference is, while we’ve made some progress on methane emissions, that’s a big deal, I don’t think there’s as much focus as there needs to be on oil and gas scope three emissions, that is those emissions produced when that oil, that gasoline goes into the atmosphere.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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