The oil and gas industry is hunkering down to weather the final stretch of the Obama administration.
Industry groups and their backers had hoped President Obama would use his trip last week to Alaska to say something about the need for more oil and gas drilling in the United States.
Instead, Obama kept his focus on global warming, leaving oil interests in a familiar position: left out and on the defensive.
Obama has pledged to keep oil and gas part of the nation’s energy mix, but has also moved to crack down on the industry as part of his fight against climate change.
Warning against over-regulation, industry officials have opposed those efforts and stressed that they need more support from federal officials — be it from regulators, members of Congress, or even a new president in 2017.
“That would be a shift because there are some agencies that fail to recognize the potential Alaska has,” Alaska Oil and Gas Association President Kara Moriarty said.
“So it just constantly feels like we have continual roadblocks, and that there doesn’t seem a willingness to get more development from the federal lands we do have.”
Oil groups had hoped Obama would at least tip his cap to potential development of Alaska’s vast oil reserves during his visit to the state.
But he kept to the topic at hand: climate change and its effects on the state. His only mentions of oil were to reiterate his opposition to drilling in the state’s Bristol Bay — something he blocked last December — and to declare that the U.S. has become a leader in oil and gas production during his time in office.
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