API President and CEO Mike Sommers joined this week’s episode of Veriten’s C.O.B. Tuesday podcast to discuss the state of American energy policy as the Trump administration and Congress continue to make progress on many of the priorities outlined in API’s five-point policy roadmap.
Following last week’s Supreme Court ruling reinstating NEPA to its original statutory intent, Sommers addressed the need for durable, comprehensive permitting reform:
“Durability is really the coin of the realm here and if you don’t have a durable permitting system, it’s going to be very difficult to build anything in this country. But this has been a problem for decades and decades.… It’s gotten a lot worse over the year, which is one of the reasons why we were very pleased with the decision that was made at the Supreme Court just last week. That decision was really focused on how NEPA should be interpreted throughout the country.… It’s not just for oil and natural gas, it’s for all kinds of energy infrastructure going forward and getting us back to the place where NEPA is actually interpreted in the way that it was intended. …But the real thing that has to happen is Congress and the president have to get serious about doing a big comprehensive infrastructure permitting bill so that we can actually get these things built as quickly as possible.”
As Congress moves forward on its pro-growth tax plan, Sommers outlined key provisions to strengthen America’s energy advantage:
“We put forward twenty top priorities for reconciliation at the beginning of this process. You know, some of them included the big tax provisions, like keeping the corporate rate at twenty one percent or making bonus depreciation a permanent part of federal law or, other key energy provisions that we have advanced. But we’re also advancing some of these key natural resource provisions, like mandatory lease sales in the Gulf and in Alaska and onshore. So, we got most of those key provisions, in the House reconciliation bill. There are a couple of things that still have to be done, like, fixing the IDC provisions as it relates to the corporate, average minimum tax. That is a big priority for us. Advancing the hydrogen tax credit as well is a is a top priority for the American Petroleum Institute.”
As trade negotiations continue between the U.S. and Europe, Sommers discussed how extra-territorial European regulations put American energy companies at a disadvantage in the global market:
“You all have talked about the CSDDD guidance out of the European Union. That is an area that could completely eliminate American oil and gas companies from operating in the European Union. I think that should be considered a non-tariff barrier. There are a number of other regulatory things that are happening in the European Union. For example, on differentiated natural gas, they want us to be able to trace natural gas back and make sure that it is produced in an environmentally sound way. One of the things that we’re pushing for is to ensure that the European regulatory bodies look at the American methane regulatory regime in an equivalent manner. But if they don’t do that, that could be an impediment for American natural gas LNG to go to the European Union.”
Sommers also highlighted why Congress’s recently passed legislation to overturn California’s one-size-fits-all EV mandate is a victory for American consumers:
“Just last week, when Congress said that they would not impose the California EV mandate on the other states that have waved into it and stopped California from doing this EV mandate on their own constituents, that was a welcome sign. We’re excited about the opportunity to see President Trump sign that into law… It is a sea change from where we were just a few years ago where the EPA and the Department of Transportation were imposing these new regulations to really mandate EV sales throughout the country. Consumers should have a choice. EVs make sense for a lot of different people, but they don’t make sense for every American, which is why repealing the California mandate was so very, very important.”
