Democrat Presidential Candidates’ Energy Policies Will Hurt Markets

March 4, 2020

In the wake of Super Tuesday, presidential candidates’ policy proposals are starting to feel a lot more real. All of the Democratic presidential candidates have antagonized the natural gas and oil industry since the first day of their respective campaigns, but, now that the number of nominees has narrowed, their proposals are being seriously considered. For the energy industry and the economy, any of the Democratic candidates would mean bad news.

Foreign Policy reports:

The three leading Democratic candidates—Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren—all propose vigorous federal action to limit or even roll back production of oil and natural gas.

In particular, Democrats are targeting hydraulic fracking. In a little over a decade, the fracking boom transformed the U.S. from the world’s biggest oil importer into the world’s biggest oil and gas producer. This has given us an edge on the international stage and in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Still, Biden is advocating for heavy restrictions on fracking, and Sanders and Warren are pushing for an outright ban.

Tallying up the different proposals on the table—from bans on fracking to offshore drilling, and tougher scrutiny of oil and gas investments, McNally (the head of Rapidan Energy Group) said the oil and gas industry is bracing for a potential regulatory onslaught. “If a Democrat wins, we’re going to see a Tet Offensive against the oil and gas industry the likes of which we’ve never seen before,” he said.

Kevin Book, the co-founder and managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, believes that oil and stock markets will be changing for the worse if a Democratic candidate ends up in office.

“None of the Democrats, from an energy-production point of view, are moderate.”

America needs a president that is practical and considers the impact a policy will have on jobs, the economy, and the international playing field – not a president that enacts policies on the basis of unproven, political talking points.

Jason Bordoff, a former Obama energy and climate advisor and the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, may have said it best:

“The shale revolution has been a game changer from a geopolitical standpoint,” Bordoff said. “If U.S. oil and gas output suddenly collapsed and imports rose, that would weaken the United States geopolitically, and benefit countries around the world that don’t always have U.S. interests at heart.”