Congressional Majority Hurries to Slash Oil and Gas Rules
In a flurry of activity in early-February, Congress nullified an Obama administration environmental measure intended to curb the venting of gas wells on federal lands. This instigated the process of rolling back other regulations, including one enacted to limit the damage that coal mines cause to streams — an item on the "Roadmap to Repeal," a concise list of Obama administration environmental regulations that business groups were pressing President Trump and Congress to quickly reverse after Inauguration Day.
President Trump took up two more items on the list, including a call to rewrite major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act, legislation crafted by the Obama administration and passed by Congress in response to the 2008 financial meltdown. Not since the Reagan administration has Washington moved so quickly to roll back or nullify so many federal regulations, one of the clearest signs of an abrupt shift of power in a government now under one-party control.
A three-way alliance has now been formed among Congress, the Trump administration, and industries that struggled to reverse what they saw as an out-of-control rush to regulate by the Obama administration. Lobbyists for the so-called extraction industry — oil, gas, coal, and other mining operations — said they were as surprised as anyone else by the outcome of the November election, which gave them new clout in Washington.
Within days of the election, conference calls and meetings between industry lobbyists, members of Pres. Trump’s transition teams and key Republican staff members on Capitol Hill were taking place. Those who took part began to plot out which regulations they wanted to go after first, participants in the process said.
Energy rules quickly ended up at the top of the list. The energy industry spends about $300 million a year lobbying Congress, deploying an army of three lobbyists for each member. It also contributed more than $160 million during the most recent election cycle to federal candidates according to a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group.
Another rule targeted for quick repeal was one adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission that required oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments for development rights — a provision intended to prevent corruption in places like Africa and Latin America. Billions of dollars from such payments have disappeared over the past several decades, at times siphoned by government officials for their personal use, instead of being used to improve the standard of living in these often impoverished nations.
Exxon Mobil, whose former chief executive, Rex Tillerson, just became Secretary of State, was one of the provision’s primary opponents. He argued that the rule would force the company to disclose "commercially sensitive information" and make it harder to compete against certain foreign oil companies that do not need to comply.
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