John Hoeven Presses Energy Department Nominees About ‘Oil, Gas, And Geothermal Opportunities’

5/30/2025

During a Senate Energy Committee hearing before the congressional recess, Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) questioned nominees about oil and gas production.

Transcript

00:00I've been called into other hearings. I'm told he's going to do his questioning today entirely in Spanish, which should be exciting.

00:05Muchas gracias, mi amigo.

00:09Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking member. Appreciate both of you.

00:12And thanks to all of our witnesses that are here.

00:16Mr. Momola, thanks for coming in to visit with me yesterday.

00:20And I do have to warn you before Hickenlooper gets out of the room that you've got to be careful with him because I think he's a geologist, too.

00:27So you can't spoof him like you do the rest of us.

00:29You know, he knows his stuff.

00:33And he was a governor, too, so we really like him a lot.

00:39So thanks again for being here.

00:41You know the story in the Bakken in my state.

00:45You know, we start, when I was governor back there in 2000, you know, there wasn't the horizontal drilling and the shale plays could be produced from a technological standpoint.

00:56You could get oil out of them, but you couldn't do it, you know, on a commercially viable basis.

01:01And so we actually started with our state geological survey to do that analysis.

01:06It actually had been done off some work Price had done in Colorado, in Central Hickenlooper State, which you're probably familiar with.

01:14And then we followed up at the state level and actually started making inroads in it.

01:21They tried in Montana a little bit because they thought maybe the geology was a little better, proved it wasn't, plus the fact they had more regulatory burden over there.

01:28Because we really created an environment with incentives and favorable regulatory environment.

01:36But the geological analysis was critical.

01:40And then once we finally got it going, then we got U.S. Geological Survey to engage.

01:45And then once they did it, of course, then companies really started coming and took off.

01:50That was about 2006, 2008.

01:53So it shows the importance of what you do in terms of producing more energy in this country.

01:58Because that was a critical, you know, it was critical.

02:00And I kept trying to get them to come in.

02:02And that's how we eventually did.

02:04So now we're in situations in the shale plays where we have to put legs on those shale plays, right, in the unconventional areas because of the declines of the curves and all that.

02:15So will you work with us and tell us how you'll work with us to make sure that we're able to go in with tertiary recovery methods?

02:24So, for example, pulling the CO2 off coal plants and putting a downhole for a CO2 flood.

02:30And talk about that, because this is a big deal if we're going to get to this energy dominance and sustain it.

02:36Talk to me about how you can help us get that done.

02:39Okay.

02:39Great question, Senator Hoven, and thank you.

02:42When you add the North Dakota Geological Survey and the schools you have there to my Texas A&M and Penn State, we are ready to rock on these reserve estimates.

02:54No pun intended with the ready to rock.

02:56Yeah.

02:57But, Senator, the USGS, the more it's engaged with our industry, the better for both sides of that equation.

03:07Look, the USGS has a great ability to look at a map, produce a cross-section, and give us a 3-D block view of that piece of real estate,

03:20and the minerals and oil, gas, and other endowments in that.

03:26So, in the case of North Dakota, I think if there was any hesitation, perhaps maybe part of that was not on federal land.

03:33Maybe they felt they wouldn't.

03:34But federal land, absolutely.

03:36That is the USGS Organic Act.

03:39Okay.

03:40Go off of federal land.

03:41Maybe it wasn't quite as – but if I'm confirmed, Senator Hoven, I'm going out there and it's going to be all hands on deck for all lands because there's no need or reason to strand a resource.

03:56And, to your point on tertiary recovery, if we have excess carbon dioxide here and a need for it over here to drive tertiary recovery, we get a twofer.

04:08We take it from here and we put it over there.

04:11We don't want to waste our resources.

04:13Things that don't come out of the ground, Senator, as I said to you yesterday, their value is essentially zero.

04:19Yeah, no, that's right on it is a twofer, and would you commit to come out to North Dakota with me?

04:26We have – we have state.

04:27We have – fortunately, we have a lot of private, and I know that's a frustration for our chairman is they have so much public.

04:32But we have a lot of private, and then we have state, and then we have Native American, and we have a lot of federal, and it's all intertwined.

04:41And one can impede the other if we don't all work together.

04:43If confirmed, Senator, I commit to you to come up there and look at it, and I commit to the survey that we reexamine land ownership and maybe dispatch with the boundaries.

05:01They're more – as far as geology, they're kind of artificial anyway.

05:04An ore deposit doesn't care where it's located, on federal, state, or private.

05:08But it's sitting there saying, wow, develop me.

05:11So this is something I'll look into, and you have my word on that.

05:14Mr. Chairman, just one final quick question, if I can beg your indulgence.

05:21The geothermal – we're doing a lot more in geothermal.

05:24Is there any synergy that you see between the energy industry in terms of oil and gas and the geothermal opportunities?

05:33Senator Hoeven, sometimes if you have an abandoned well in the oil industry, in the energy industry, gas well, oil well, whatever, that well maybe serves a dual purpose.