span as a public service pports along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democrac on wednesday, israeli prime er netanyahu will address congress, his first visit to the u.s. since the hamas attack israel on october 7th. many democratic members of congress haveuncethey plan to boycott his speech and protest of israel's military operations in gaza. the israeli primsteris expected to speak about the ongoing war against hamas. he be the first foreign leader ever to address congress in a joint meeting four times watch live coverage of his remarks from the house chamber wednesday at 2:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. online at c- span.org and on our free video app c-span now. we are back now and joined by energy reporter for news

heather richards. welcome to the program. >> thank you for having me. >> you wrote a recent article, and it says president joe biden enter the white house missing to end drilling on public lands . instead he has presided over a record boom in u.s. oil production. what is going on there? >> president biden promised on the campaign trail he was going to cut down on drilling on public land. the only place that a president can touch oil and gas production is on public lands, but that a significant, 24% of our oral production. he came into office and had ever early climate agenda. i'm going to do something about all the oil we produce on public lands and didn't actually do that. it was hard for them. they had a big court lost early on. they try to pause leasing, which is an early process to drilling. but they haven't touched --

which is where you see how much oil is coming out of the ground. they backed off on that and did a lot of regulatory reform but really when it comes to production, the biden administration has an done much to rein that in. they had a long-term thinking which is, if we make some changes here now, in the long term we might have less drilling on public lands because far as what comes out of the ground right now, the biden administration hasn't done that much. >> i'm going to show the energy -- this is u.s. energy information administration. it is eia.gov and it has this bar chart, which shows the average annual crude oil and production from the top three global producers which are the united states, saudi arabia, and russia, according to millions of barrels per day. it is showing that the united states is the biggest producer of oil beating both of those.

some people could be surprised at that. what you make of that? >> yeah, i think a lot of people who maybe are not following this stuff every day or every year think of it in terms of the political cycles, who is in the white house, like most importantly. but the reality is, we have been growing our oil production for a while. we just made huge strides, i think as a driller of the united states, to produce more from what we have, to hydraulic fracturing which has been quite controversial and quite successful in the sense that it has got a lot more gas and oil out of the ground. we have these long wells that stretch for miles underground that go horizontally and they take out a lot of oil. what that has meant is, the u.s., in the 80s and 90s and 70s always had its oil concerns, at

this point is not concerned about how much oil it can make. we make a tremendous amount of oil and that is because we have become really good at doing it, and there might be some kind of cliff to that someday, but the reality is we are just very good at producing oil and we produce more of it than we ever have before. >> we are talking about energy policy, energy production with heather richards who is a reporter with e and e-news. if you would like to join us, give us a call. it is 202-748-8000 four democrats pick 202748 8001 for republican and 8002 for independence. heather, or is this oil production happening in the u.s.? is it on federal property? is it on private land? is it offshore? >> most production does happen on private lands, some on state lands.

you have tremendous amount of oil that comes out of texas. i think everybody knows that. that has been true for a very long time and it is still the trip request texas produces a ton of oil. north dakota produces a lot of oil, but you do have a lot on federal lands, about 24% of how much oil produced is coming from federal lands or from our oceans, which is overseen by the u.s. government. so you have the gulf of mexico is huge. we have a ton of oil coming out of the gulf. that is about 15%, maybe altogether. and then you have a ton coming out of new mexico. new mexico is the number one onshore producer federal oral. wyoming is a second. you have -- it comes from different areas. the gulf of mexico being really important and in states like new mexico, oklahoma of course. >> what would you say has been the most significant energy policy change in the biden administration? >> that's a good question. i think we are just thinking

about oil and gas on federal lands, the most significant thing to have done is lease a lot less, and so the leasing process --. you have these sales and in order to drill on federal lands off the nations coastlines, you have to get a lease from the federal government. that's were the federal government gets its money from this process. have royalties and they get fees from these auctions but it's private development that go out there into the ocean or public lands in wyoming or new mexico and do all the drilling pit the first step to getting a well is you have to get that lease. if the participate in that auction. that is the one area where a president has a lot of latitude in terms of what it can do and the biden administration has dropped off leasing considerably. in the next five years they made a schedule for how much options they will have offshore for example they schedule three which is republicans during the obama administration. their schedule was about a dozen in years past it has been several dozen, so they have

really scaled way back in terms of how much access to drilling companies have to federal assets, federal oil and gas, and that has complications years down the road in terms of how much oil is coming out of these places. big companies, they think long- term, they can plan around having fewer lease sales in the ocean or onshore. smaller companies maybe don't have that kind of latitude to say, you know, we are going to buy what assets we want and this one sale we have a chance at -- it's a little bit more difficult. there's a possibility, and i think the biden administration intends this, but like this, which is that the less leasing now means less drilling in the future. >> switching now to natural gas, earlier this week federal judge in louisiana but the energy department's pause on natural gas export permits on hold. can you explain what this means and what it means for going forward? >> yes, natural gas exports is

really important in terms of how people think about our contribution to the global gas market and the future. it's not my specific area of expertise so i want to get us off course, but it is important in terms of how we see the u.s. contributing to gas supply internationally, especially something with ink about a lot after the question invasion of ukraine , which really upset the supply of gas and who got it from where. it's been really important and considered very important. the pause i think is something a lot of people look at as an election year move. the biden administration made a lot of promises on climate and when you look at the u.s. as a big exporter of fossil fuel, it is something that climate activists in particular and environmental groups look at with a lot of skepticism. i think there is a possibility that tapping the bricks a little bit and saying, let's take a look at this and the climate impacts and what we are doing here, is not promised to

fundamentally change what happens next in terms of that. but it is something that gives a little bit of a nod to people who don't want us exporting, who don't want us so much involved in supplying the world with crude oil or natural gas or fossil fuels. it's more of a nod to that, we will take a look at this as opposed to, we are going to stop and do something different. >> let's talk to callers now, kenneth is up first in michigan , independent. >> yes, since we are producing so much oil, what is the policy to replace the oil in a strategic reserve loss we have had lately? also, you think there will be changes at cnn after -- c-span after the cnn people take charge? thank you. >> go ahead, heather. >> i differently kent speak to c-span, that would be your

stuff, but yeah i think the plan is to refill the spr. exactly when that happens and how, i don't know. that was set up and your former guest might have to it but that was set up decades ago to make sure that the u.s. is no longer beholden to the middle east in terms of oil supply. we kind of address are former crises and sometimes when it comes to the future those are not the crises that come up. so, pulling oil out of the spr was a crisis at the moment post- pandemic when we had a global war market that didn't have enough oil on it. or had that as an issue, and so releasing that into the market so that you have crisis come down was the choice that they made and then you refill it when prices are low, if you are doing it smart, obviously. you buy that back and put it back into our reserves.

so, yeah, pulling oil out of the spr was a really interesting move from the biden administration. i know some people are worried about it. it has been something that republicans brought up in terms of, when are we going to put that back? but it is important to remember as well, having those reserves was something that we did at a time when we were not the number one producer of oil in the world. it comes from a period of time, where we were very insecure about our ability to provide energy inside the united states if the middle east or any country in the middle east like iran, saudi arabia or these folks wanted to hold -- that's it different political time and different time for energy than we are in now. refilling is a policy decision that will come out of the white house, but in terms of, you know, being worried that we don't have those reserves, personally, i'm not worried about that. >> larry in southport, north carolina, republican, your next. >> --

>> larry, you have to mute your tv. cindy insert use, new york, independent. >> hi, thank you --. heather, i wondered what former president trump would do if he gets in about drill, baby, drill. what would he do as far as oil production. thank you. >> it's a really fair question and i think that trump -- a second trump administration would be similar to the first when it comes to oil and gas, which is profession of lots of support for the industry. when it comes to federal lands, again the only place where a president can influence what happens, you would see more leasing, complete open door for leasing, but in the same way

that biden administration has not been able to curtail production, because it is ultimately private companies that do that and if you don't stand in the way of permitting, you can into legal troubles if you do, you really can't directly influence how much oil is coming out of the ground in the moment, and the same is true for the trump administration if they come back into power. the reality is, president doesn't decide how much comes out and so that is a problem for somebody who wants lester, and somebody who wants more to come out. the biggest problem for donald trump would be, probably going after the regulations that the biden administration has put into place, that a significant. which is, focusing particularly on new oil in places that maybe had oil in the past, not disturbing new land, trying to put oil in places where there is high potential for oil, so again you are trying to prioritize certain places to not have oil and gas and other places where you all have oil and gas develop. there will be busy to undo what

the biden administration has done. but trying to -- that has never been something that he is capable of doing. that has to do with the price and how many leases these companies have in hand and what they want to do. it has to do with the world stage in terms of how much oil is coming from the saudi's and opec which affects the price. the president can talk a big game and i think he can -- the former president can talk a big game and he certainly could have a big impact in some ways, but in terms of making production that's not going to be in his hands. >> heather i want your reaction to the reporting from the washington post from may with the headline, what trump promised oil ceos as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign. donald trump has pledged to scrub president biden's policies on electric vehicles and wind energy as well as other initiatives opposed by

the fossil fuel industry. >> yeah, those are big promises. there is definitely things that he could do that would be quite influential. a lot of the offshore wind development folks are very nervous about a second trump administration because he has been so adamant that he would slow down offshore wind. it is developed by offshore energy companies, many are big oil companies who have a history in oil because that's where that expertise and money is, but the former president does not like offshore wind. he has been very clear on that. that's an area he could get in there and messed things up in terms of slowing down permitting and holding fewer lease sales for offshore wind. again on the regulatory front, the president could get in there and try and undo some of the things of the biden administration has done. i think he said in the story, it talks about his i.r.a., inflation reduction act, a signature law that came out of

the democrats and biden administration, which put a big focus on -- if you are going to have climate action, you can focus on how much oil and gas you're producing, how much coal you are producing, but you can also focus on how are you reducing your need for those fuels? the reason we have them is because we are very dependent on them. of the i.r.a. was an attempt is a, what we are going to do is focus billions of dollars on giving alternatives like offshore wind, electric vehicles instead of gasoline vehicles. that was a big part of what the biden administration was hanging his head on. this is what we achieved. even though that came out of democrats in capitol hill as well. going after that law in any way you could is significant. i don't know how successful he would necessarily be. that depends on congress. but, going after any pieces of that has ripple effect, at the very least of undermining the legacy that the biden administration once you have. >> chris in new mexico,

democrat. >> good morning, my connection is really good so i will take my answer off the air but could you address the increase in bonding requirements for drilling on public lands and also the -- why the biden administration increased the royalty rate on reduction? thank you. >> good question. so, both of that came out of inflation reduction act of 2022 and in the biden administration went ahead and put that in regulation as they were asked to do by congress. so, we had a big jump in the royalty rate which is how much oil and gas companies pay when they produce oil or gas on federal lands or offshore. last time that was set in 1920, so it had been a long time and royalty rates on state lands and private lands hadn't risen and that 100 years. so they set that hire for a 10

year period from 12 have presented to over 15 or 16% so they set that higher for a 10 year period and then we can reassess that. but, also bonding, that's how much oil and gas companies have to set aside or secure insurance before they drill, and the reason is, if they were to go bankrupt or if something were to happen, that money would be set aside in the federal government can pull that and use that to clean up because it can be very costly, plugging wells, taking out pipelines, those kinds of things. the biden administration did increase bonding as well quite significantly. those were set at -- years ago. and so the amount that drillers have to lay down is much higher. that is also the case offshore and offshore drill, it's coming into effect now, the regulations that the biden administration put forward which were not in the i.r.a.

basically for drillers who don't have a ton of oil reserves or a very strong credit rating, which is a lot of the smaller midsized firms that are out in the gulf of mexico. if they don't have that, then they have to set -- pull in a supplemental bond. it can be a significant sum of money and all in all, offshore we don't have a lot of bonding in place, certainly just a fraction of what it would cost to clean up everything out there right now. the federal government doesn't have very much of that in comparison to the cost, so this new change would increase that significantly. there has been a lot of pushback from drillers saying, you are really going to put people out of business, and maybe that's what you want and that's what they are arguing. the biden administration wants to not those drillers out of business and shrink the offshore drilling program and make it so that it's just a couple folks, shell or bp or these bigger drillers and no more smaller drillers.

those are big, those are things that the biden administration has done, and they can have a significant impact on what kind of federal work we have in the future. >> david in los angeles, independent. >> hi, how are you doing? i have a few fun facts for the lady there. it was joe biden by executive order who approved oil drilling in alaska called the willow project, a $2 billion conoco phillips oil drilling project, number one. number two, also, joe biden released oil from the strategic oil reserves, sold it on the market, open market at $90 a barrel. from what i understand, he is replenishing that oil back to the reserve at 70 something dollars a barrel, which means i believe the net a profit of -- i don't know the exact number but it's in the millions of dollars that they made a profit. also, joe biden, because of joe

biden's inflation reduction act chips, the chips act, the infrastructure bill, they renamed the midwest the battery belt. they are producing more lithium ion batteries than ever before and the -- from the united states. i just wanted to share those facts with you. biden i believe is probably the most oil friendly presidents, and also renewable energy. i think that is something that people ought to think about. >> heather? >> thanks, that's all true. i can't speak to the batteries, but the willow project and in northern alaska was a big thing, it was a big thing for climate activists in particular who opposed it and fought really hard to get the administration to tap the brakes and reverse it. but ultimately, the biden administration did approve the project. it's a large project.

in terms of how much production that is, it is not that much. for a single project, 30 years of development is huge. it was really supported by alaska leadership and they also pressured the biden administration to make sure that was approved. but yeah, it's a big black eye to the biden administration in terms of their oil record. in reality, i mean, it would have been very difficult for them to stand in the way. the conoco phillips has a right to drill on those lands and bought those leases a long time ago. there isn't much of a record of the u.s. government successfully calling back those drilling rights once they have sold them. it's very tricky, and i think one thing we have seen from the biden administration is that they had big goals on reining in drilling on public lands or promises i should say, when

they first came into office, and then tap the brakes on some of that. they had a pause on leasing in the first year in office, a few months later you have a court decision that says you can't do this and they backed up and went back to leasing. they leased a lot less, but since that loss, you really seen them say, okay we will focus on regulatory changes. we are going to focus on higher royalties and think about how we can lease only in certain areas, try to shrink the footprint over time of the federal oil and gas program, they had almost nothing in terms of stopping the actual flow of oil and the willow project is one thing that will last for 3 decades. that came out of the biden administration and certainly something on the record. >> heather, we have a question for you from jacksonville, florida. please explain the impact of president biden shutting down the keystone xl pipeline that everyone said hurt the economy and killed jobs.

>> if you kill a construction project, you killed some jobs, right? the pipeline is not important in terms of u.s. production. it's just a conduit. it's an extension of existing conduits to pull in canadian oil down south. it certainly was a big construction project, have a lot of jobs on the line. blenders go out and string together their contracts to make a living and if you have a contract or hope for a contract to work on the pipeline, you go and have to find a job somewhere else. there was a jobs impact for that decision but in terms of it important for u.s. production or u.s. gas prices or those kinds of things, absolutely minimal in terms of those impacts. >> less call, can in tulsa, oklahoma, a republican. >> sorry about my voice, but old policy is so important and the biden policy coming in is

what everyone understood, was to restrict oil and gas production to basically attack the oil industry, which gave power to opec again. drill, baby, drill policy, and lowered oil prices to $50 a barrel approximately. cut the power of opec, which includes russia's power, so the ukraine question war -- russia could not afford to fight a war on $50 oil under trump, but when biden came in, he created the $100 oil scenario and russia could afford to create the war, so biden's policy created the russia ukraine war. wars are fought for oil.

>> what you think, heather? >> i think it's a really common misconception that the trump administration did something to bring down oil prices. the biden administration to something to spike oil prices. i think that into this than i can but it is certainly the case that the prices that happened at the end of the trump administration and beginning of biden administration work completely talking about the pandemic. the pandemic shot down oil prices to literally less than zero. it's the first time in history we were tracking the price of oil that you had it fall below zero. that was because the pandemic for the economy. people weren't driving or flying or using oil so drillers drilled less. when you have the economy come back online, you don't have the production that you would have had. you don't have enough oil and that shoots the price way up because you need oil and you don't have it. if you need something and you don't have enough of it, then the value goes up and so what

happened during the trump administration, did not affect the price of oil substantially. what happened in the biden administration has not affected the price of oil substantially. releasing a bunch of oil from the spr did have an impact on the price, but a short-term one. so, i think the thing i would really want to remind people and encourage people to think about when all the things you see on the news and headlines make you think differently, remember that presidents do not control how much oil comes out of the ground. they don't control the price of oil which is set on a global market. doesn't mean what they do is important, it is important but it's not because of the trumpet ministration did something that kept our prices low. that's not true. it is not true that biden administration did something to put prices up. it's not how it works purpose energy report for -- you can find more of her writing at ee news.net. thanks so much for joining us pick

>> thyo