At today's House Energy Committee hearing, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) questioned Energy Sec. Chris Wright.
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00:00And the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York's 14th district for five minutes for questions.
00:04Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
00:06Before I dive into my questions, I just wanted to clarify some of the exchanges that happened recently.
00:15First and foremost, there was kind of an insinuation that after confirming that solar and renewable energies receive public subsidy,
00:27there was a little bit in the exchange that folks may have insinuated or taken from it that fossil fuels do not receive public subsidy.
00:38That's not what you're saying, right? Correct, Mr. Secretary?
00:42Nowhere near of the same magnitude. And it's very, there's controversy about how to count them.
00:47I would say no meaningful subsidies today for oil and gas in the United States.
00:51Okay, I think you're right in that there's a disagreement in that.
00:55Because I think what most people consider a subsidy is public use, public resources going to an industry or corporation.
01:07And in 2022 alone, we're looking at $10 to $52 billion in direct subsidies.
01:15Anywhere between, again, depending on how you count it, $1.5 to $7 trillion globally in the fossil fuel industry receiving subsidy,
01:27in addition to tax breaks, in addition to also public lands.
01:33I was the chair of the energy and mineral, ranking member of the chair and energy mineral resources subcommittee on natural resource and public lands alone that we had leased for pennies on the dollar for oil companies to drill on.
01:48I think those would be considered subsidies, but there may be a difference of opinion there.
01:52Additionally, the other thing that I wanted to clear up as well is this exchange previously on the immigrant workforce for many of the oil fields and the industry.
02:06You stated that there's a difference between quote-unquote illegal immigration and legal immigration.
02:12But what is your stance on the ending of legal status for immigrants in the United States who are here documented?
02:21The devil's in the details.
02:24So I don't know enough about the issue you're raising to give a comment.
02:28I'm very passionate about immigration and all that, but I'm not sure exactly the question you're asking.
02:33So there are hundreds of thousands of legally documented immigrants here, many that work in the energy sector that, you know, are here under different kinds of authorizations,
02:45one being temporary protected status that Mr. Vesey had raised.
02:48And the administration is ending the status that provides a path to work permits, legal work permits, for huge sectors of the workforce in the United States.
03:00Are you supportive of ending these work authorizations?
03:05Again, I'm not actively working on immigration policy and all that.
03:09I don't think I have a thoughtful response to that.
03:11Understood.
03:12I'll get back to my question line.
03:14In a February interview with Bloomberg, when asked what oil prices you are targeting as secretary, you stated lower is better.
03:22And I take it you stand by that statement, correct?
03:26Yes.
03:26In general, lower is better because there's far more consumers than producers.
03:31And even if that means oil company stock prices falling?
03:34I don't think American consumers should worry about the stock prices of oil and gas companies.
03:41You do need a healthy sector to actually produce.
03:44But that's what a market mechanism does.
03:46The cure for high prices is high prices and the cure for low prices is low prices.
03:50And I think we're in agreement there.
03:52Given your statement on aiming for lower oil prices, what are your stances on the president's tariffs that are increasing costs of production?
04:02There's lots of impacts and there's lots of things that impact the cost of production.
04:09Most of what the president is doing is going to meaningfully lower the cost of production.
04:13But his his agenda to try to reshore heavy industry manufacturing in the United States, I think it's good for the country in the long run.
04:21I'd like to reclaim my time.
04:22You know, there are several there's an industry wide consensus here.
04:28There has also been a survey a survey in March of oil and gas companies by the Dallas Fed, which were literate about complaints around uncertainty.
04:37Companies in the survey commented on the rising costs for materials like steel, which was subject to a 25 percent tariff at the time and is now subject to a 50 percent tariff as of June 4th.
04:50Steel is obviously a very important input in oil and gas production and energy production writ large.
04:58Mr. Chair, I'd like to seek unanimous consent to enter these complaints into the record.
05:03And without objection, so ordered.
05:06Secretary Wright, how does the president's tariffs plan and policy, particularly around steel, align with lowering costs for reducing uncertainty?
05:16Well, if I could interject, the lady's time has expired.
05:19If you could answer that in writing, I'd be appreciated.
05:24I'll do that.
05:24And we can talk another time.
05:26The lady's time has expired.
05:28The chair.