Among west Texas oilmen, the lesser prairie-chicken is a subject that quickly raises hackles.
The unusual-looking animal famed for its elaborate mating dance roams the scrubland of the vast Permian Basin — the epicentre of US oil production — and was listed as endangered last year. Its new status now restricts where, when and how oil can be drilled.
For the industry, the rights granted to the bird are emblematic of the regulatory onslaught it claims to have suffered at the hands of President Joe Biden, who executives believe will bring about the ruin of their sector.
“It’s death by 1,000 cuts,” says Steve Pruett, chief executive of Elevation Resources, sitting in his office in Midland, Texas. “It’s the worst presidency with regard to energy policy I’ve ever seen — and I’ve been involved in energy for 40 years, my entire career.”
After the regulatory bonfire of Donald Trump’s four years in office, Biden made tackling climate change a central priority for his administration and vowed to crack down on America’s oil and gas industry. He has brought in environmental rules that range from endangered species protections and a clampdown on methane leaks to restrictions on offshore leasing and the suspension of new licences for the multibillion-dollar terminals needed to liquefy American gas and ship it abroad.
To many Democratic voters, such restrictions are long overdue. But in Midland, the west Texas frontier town where George W Bush spent his childhood, they have made Biden an unpopular man. The city sits at the heart of the Permian, which at 6.1mn barrels a day pumps more than Opec powerhouses such as Kuwait, Iraq or the UAE — and has made the US the biggest oil producer in history.
With six months to go until the presidential election in November, energy policy has emerged as a key battleground between Biden and Trump. The former president is attempting to harness the discontent by telling voters in fossil fuel states that, if re-elected, he would adopt a policy of “drill, baby, drill”.
Yet the rhetoric of the two candidates belies an inconvenient truth for both: America’s oil and gas industry has flourished under Biden. At more than 13mn b/d, production is at record levels, exports of American hydrocarbons have surged and the scale of annual profits has been unprecedented — largely driven by a jump in commodity prices following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Investors in the industry have reaped rewards too, as cash-rich producers showered them with returns. Shares in ExxonMobil have more than doubled since Biden took office and, emboldened by high prices, the industry has also splurged on mergers and acquisitions, making some of the biggest deals in decades.
For many in oil and gas, however, such successes have occurred in spite of the White House — not because of it. Escalation of the regulatory clampdown under a second Biden administration could cause real long-term damage, they warn, chasing away capital and hurting production in the years ahead.
“In Biden’s campaign to become president, he said he was going to end the oil and gas industry — he is doing that,” says Stephen Robertson, executive vice-president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.
“There have been over 200 actions taken by this administration opposed to the oil and gas industry,” he adds. “There’s not one of these that will be the end of the industry . . . but there’s going to be a straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
But Ali Zaidi, Biden’s national climate adviser, counters that claims the administration has declared war on the industry is a…
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