President Trump declares national energy emergency, Oklahoma economist responds

President Trump declared a "national energy emergency" on his first day in office. Part of his administration's plan is to ramp up domestic energy production, claiming “We will drill, baby, drill.” Oklahoma economist, Dr. Travis Roach, weighs in on the president’s executive order.

Trump wants to increase domestic oil and gas to bring down prices for US consumers.

“Right now, the United States is producing more oil and gas than we ever have in our history,” Roach said. “In fact, we're also the largest producing country in the world and so there is no energy crisis there is no need for this.”

The national energy emergency will "unlock a variety of different authorities" that will enable the U.S. to quickly build again to produce more natural resources.

“If we really do need energy abundance if we need to unlock all forms of American energy, then why is this administration going through the effort to block certain types of energy,” asked Roach. “So, what you see with the oil and gas industry right now is there are no limitations on what they're able to do and what they're able to produce which is why we're at record production.” 

Trump focused on fossil fuels in his inauguration speech vowing to increase drilling, fill reserves up again, and export American energy all over the world.

“We already have plenty of profitable shell plates in the United States and they are producing at record levels so we don't need this new exploration that going into new territory in fact, the price fundamentals probably will not incentivize that whatsoever,” Roach said.

The U.S. needs to increase traditional oil and gas production to reduce energy prices for Americans.

“Right now, gas prices are at basically inflation-adjusted the same as they have been for the last 20 years and so I do not see prices at the pump necessarily changing from this, how we could see prices at the pump changing is through the president's tariffs that he would like to impose beginning February first,” Roach said. “We import especially from Canada and if these export tariffs or any of these tariffs are coming online then that would make that price go up so if anything, we could see at the pump prices go up as a result of that.”