Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:21 Hey, everybody, welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job. The podcast honored today to have as my guest and Bradbury. Is it CEO? Is that the title? That is, yep. I like that chief executive officer

0:32 of AXPC, the American Exploration and Production Council. You got it. Now who are y'all? So AXPC represents the leading independent producers of oil and gas here domestically. So we have an

0:45 onshore focus and we have a domestic focus So if you think about who the big independents are, they're probably my member. So we have about 30-something members raging from the largest independent

0:59 such as Conoco to some of the medium and smaller yet, you know, public independents as well. And so, and we are their advocacy voice in Washington to advocate on behalf of and educate policymakers

1:14 on issues related to domestic oil and gas production. I'm gonna say something with my outside voice that I probably shouldn't educate policy makers. I know. That's kind of an oxymoron. I'm kidding,

1:26 I'm kidding. It's a tall job, it's a big job. Yeah, somebody's gotta do it. So, IPAA, are we friend faux? How does that work? Very friendly. Okay. Do you all have different buckets you

1:38 focus on? Are you kind of doing the same thing? Yeah, we have very similar focuses. There is a lot of overlap and we collaborate a lot with IPAA, generally speaking, when you look at the

1:49 membership, mine, AXPC skews a little bit larger and more public and there skews a little more to the smaller independence.

1:59 Because the issues that a conical Phillips has is different than an issue that a smaller independent mom and pop has. And so, we take different perspectives but we work very closely together. So,

2:14 issue, déjour of the day,

2:17 you guys are focusing on these days. So we do both legislative work and regulatory work on the sort of legislative side, the congressional side. There's a lot of talk of permitting reform right now,

2:29 which gets super weedy really fast, but it's all of the environmental statutes and permitting requirements that make it really hard to build anything in America these days, whether it's a pipeline

2:41 or a wind farm. And so that's, I would say, the biggest area of focus right now on the hill and then on the regulatory side, it's like, oh my God, who, you know, don't know where to start

2:52 there. I would say we are focusing most of our efforts on the EPA and the new methane rules coming out, but then there's also the methane tax. We do a lot of federal lands work, so BLM, DOI work.

3:06 And then we, because I have mostly public companies, we also are very involved with the SEC and the new climate disclosure rules that they're working on So it's quite a bit there. Yeah,

3:19 I may be wearing my tin foil hat right now, so pardon me, and it's totally appropriate to roll your eyes or say yes, you are being a nut job, but

3:30 do the quote unquote enemies of oil and gas, is there really a contingent that is fighting this kind of guerrilla warfare through the EPA and various regulatory things that just wanna kill the

3:43 industry or is it folks are just uneducated and so they kinda hear the last thing in there. Is there an element of that in DC? There's definitely an element of it. Yeah, I mean, that's not a tin

3:58 foil question at all. I didn't think it was, but yeah. I mean, you get just like on our side, the industry and industry supporters aren't necessarily monolithic The

4:12 other side isn't monolithic either. So I think you get a mix of people that are just. super anti-fossil fuel and want to see the industry go away, you have a mixed in with people that are just

4:23 really uninformed, but

4:26 are in positions of power, and then you have people that are well-informed that are actually trying to make good decisions and do it in a constructive way, and so you really have a mix of all three.

4:42 And the reason I kind of set up that question, because where I was going on the more serious part is, they always talk about how horrific legislative processes are in general. I mean, that's the

4:51 history of democracy and all. But on a topic that is so incredibly complex, and what I don't think people appreciate is when you talk energy, it's really a water balloon, right? If you're going

5:04 to push here, this side's going to pop out, and there are trade-offs that have to be made, and there are dollars involved and all I mean, how do you navigate that? It's, it's a huge challenge

5:15 and I do think people, you know, the other side is fortunate cause they can kind of reduce their position down to a bumper sticker. Right. Which is, you know, something along the lines of like,

5:25 yeah, save the planet, stop using oil and gas. Fossil fuels are bad. Right. And the reality is much more complicated. Can I get on my sub box for just a second? Oil and gas people have said

5:36 this a million times when we reduce things down to a bumper sticker And we say things like freeze a Yankee. It doesn't help our cause. Please stop. Okay, go ahead. No. Um, so one of the things

5:49 that we've been working really hard on this year is something that we sort of refer to as energy education, which is just, let's make sure policymakers understand energy fundamentals, which is,

6:00 you know, people, not everyone knows that the US is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the world. Right. People don't know that. that we have reduced emissions more than any country in the

6:11 world and the reason we have reduced emissions more than any country in the world is because of our increase in production of natural gas. You know, it wasn't renewables, it was natural gas

6:22 displacing coal. And so we are really working on the first step in advocacy, again, is that relationship building and that education piece So that's something we work a lot on. I forgot your

6:37 question that I was answering. No, but you were going down the path of it. It's when you have a really complicated legislative problem and the other side gets to play guerrilla warfare against you.

6:51 How do you navigate it? And I think you're right. Number one is education. Yeah. We're going to start and try to get people to at least understand the basics Exactly. And that, you know, I

7:00 think that the biggest issue that we run into is policy makers that look at both energy. production and emissions as if both sort of stop at the border, right? And neither of that is true. Like,

7:15 these are global commodities and emissions clearly don't stop at the border, right? I hate to be crass, but my line about this on the podcast is always, there's not a peeing and a non-pying

7:27 section of the pool, right? Right, right, exactly. Exactly. And so if you just look at it from a US. perspective,

7:37 you know, it's not that big of a deal. If you're like, well, we're just going to reduce oil here and we're going to build more wind farms over here, which first of all, you can't do that either.

7:46 But it simplifies the issue. But when you look at it from a global perspective, which is the world benefits from our oil and gas, it's a huge national security advantage for us. And by the way,

7:59 US. emissions are like 13 of global emissions and that number is falling and the real the real problem is China. And to lots of degree India, but those are the biggies, yeah. Those are the

8:11 biggies. Their emissions are skyrocketing. And if you're not trying to address climate and energy issues while looking at these global problems, then like this is all for not, right? Like it's

8:25 just pointless. So

8:28 yeah, so we try to just keep people, keep. Can I add one more thing to that? You may. 'Cause you were like hitting the nail on the head of what, if I could get the world to accept one point,

8:40 it's that it's global and we can't control those actors. We have to look at their behavior and we have to adjust. If we could add one slight point to that in the messages and we only have so much

8:53 money that we can save the planet with, we don't have unlimited funds. 'Cause that's just gotta be brought into consideration. And I'll give my one example, you go Okay vehicles electric, to the

9:04 Volvo website.

9:07 they did a detailed study on where's the break even and or, you know, where's the break even between an electric vehicle and an internal combustion engine when it comes to carbon footprint from

9:18 manufacturing. Interesting. And it's actually it's 150 pages. If you get a chance, it'll put you to sleep on the plane if you need to. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of good stuff in

9:28 there. And the punchline is the way the world generates electricity today, it's called 90, 000 miles If you generate electricity like Europe does, which is more renewable space, lower carbon, I

9:41 think they say it's 60, 000 miles or 65, 000 miles, at the end of the day, we can debate, is that right? Not right. Whatever. That's still five years of a car. So you're saying you don't,

9:53 what the Volvo study is showing is that there's no emissions benefit until you've been driving your car for 90, 000 miles in the US. Whole wide world If you use Europe power production, it's like

10:02 65, 000 miles,

10:06 which is five years of a car. car, four or five, six years of a car, is it really worth trillions and trillions of dollars to go EVs? And that's what the IRA did. The IRA did not say we want

10:18 lower emissions, market, y'all go settle it. They said, we want electric vehicles. Yes. And so the small little point, and I'm sorry, I'm on my soapbox, but is if we could all say, hey,

10:29 it's a global problem, we've got to deal with these actors. And oh, by the way, we've only got a fixed amount of money to do it If we could look at it through that lens, I think if everybody, if

10:38 people wanted to be intellectually honest and truly try to solve a problem, if we could all look through it at that lens, let's go fight there and not the way it feels like we fight. Completely

10:48 agree. And you're also putting, there's a lot of risk associated with that policy as well. And that is, are we going to be able to have a sufficient grid to power all of these electric vehicles?

10:59 Are we going to have the sufficient critical minerals to be able to build all of these vehicles? want them because. I don't know that they do, not to the level

11:11 that the administration is sort of betting on, right? I mean, I think their new tailpipe rule assumes that like 70 of all cars sold in 2030 are electric vehicles. Now, I know that that number is

11:24 increasing, but I don't see a world in which 70 of cars sold are going to be electric vehicles within the next seven years. That's really aggressive, and

11:40 what they're going to do is they're going to make ICE vehicles more expensive, and that's just not good for American consumers. Yeah, and it also leads to kind of another point of if we make cars

11:55 way more expensive, we're basically saying to the rest of the world, we're going to go save the planet and let them eat cake I mean, if a poor village. in Africa has to pay a lot for a car,

12:09 that's bad. I mean, that is the West telling the developing world, hey, we got ours tough. And that's not good for world geopolitical stuff. We have to have a better solution than, you know.

12:23 Right, and if you look at, you know, there's still a great, there's a huge emissions reduction opportunity to be had from additional coal to gas switching, both here domestically, but also

12:35 globally. And that doesn't cost a penny. It actually creates jobs in the US and it makes us more energy secure. So, you know, there are a number of solutions out there that don't cost billions of

12:49 dollars and that don't take away consumer choice. And I feel like those should be more of a focus of policymakers. I mean, if, I mean, I've said this on the podcast again, so my listeners are

13:01 gonna tune out for the next two minutes as I talk, but the Marshall plan for climate change is actually China, India, no more coal, we will finance your natural gas infrastructure. And we'll, I

13:16 mean, nobody prints money like the United States. So screw it, guys, we got this. We'll print the money for it. We'll make Europe kick in some. I don't know that we can talk, we can probably

13:26 talk India into it. I don't know that we can talk China into it just because we're strategic enemies and do they really want to be dependent on worldwide natural gas, but I would kind of say to

13:38 China, hey, even in World War II, oil

13:42 was going everywhere. I mean, everybody was selling oil, you know, even with the Russian-Ukraine war and the embargo, oil's going everywhere. So I don't know that I would be that worried if I

13:51 was dependent on LNG tankers showing up. Yeah. And they've, you've probably noticed, there've been a couple of big deals that China's inked in the last week or two for for. long-term contracts

14:05 for LNG. And so their approach is clearly like, we need coal, but we need all of it, right? And I do think even just marginally shifting them towards more LNG and away from coal would have us.

14:19 It would probably outweigh the impact of all of the money we're spending on EVs here in the US. I agree with that, totally. The other thing I would do to if I was in charge and I was energy czar of

14:34 the world and got to help us if that actually happened. But I think when you look at the existing technologies today, you look at wind and solar, etc, we actually need some leap frog type

14:46 technologies. And it's probably going to have to be something in the way of carbon capture if we really want to do something. I still kind of laugh that we have the arrogance that we're going to be

14:56 able to control the climate if we just suck some CO2 out. But we'll put that aside for for just second. And so, you know. Would 500 billion building charging stations be better than 500 billion at

15:09 MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Rice, you guys, gals, go figure this thing out? Because I do feel like we need something that doesn't exist today if we're really going to deal with this. Totally agree,

15:22 and you're not the only person that thinks that, right? I mean, I think that was Bill Gates' conclusion when he did this deep dive into how do we solve the climate issue We know that there are

15:32 technologies that are going to be needed

15:35 to address this that don't exist today. It certainly don't exist at scale, you know, carbon capture, direct air capture. Things of that nature are certainly, I mean, the technology is there,

15:46 just deploying them at scale, making them economical are really the big questions. So, you know, I personally think that that is a much smarter way to spend our resources if, you know, to the

15:59 extent that we're spending resources to address the climate issue, then. to sort of direct people into a particular energy source that they don't necessarily want to be directed into at an enormous

16:11 cost to American taxpayers. One of the things we did is, so I'm dating a British lady. She's lived here for many years, but at the end of the day, she is British and we'll get on the podcast and

16:25 I'll talk about Europe. And I get read the riot act at home. Europe is 25 different countries. It is not a Uniblock Well, so what we started doing on big digital energy, the other podcast I do

16:37 around here, is we will deep dive one European country each week and talk about their energy usage. And one of the fascinating things that's come out of this that I didn't appreciate is France went

16:51 all in nuclear in the '70s, right? So I think 80 of their energy usage is nuclear. That are exporting they 'cause battery Europe's is power

17:03 else. And so the reason that Europe, and we'll see if they actually have gotten away with it, but to some degree have gotten away to this point with all the renewables they have, is they have base

17:14 load power in nuclear in France. And if France says, hey, we're going to get rid of nuclear, which they're talking about, they're not building new ones, that's going to be interesting. So

17:28 that's really interesting point that Europe is not monolithic, that there are a lot of different countries and perspectives. I will say that if you look at, Europe started turning away from, and

17:42 I'm going to be, I'm going to cast a wide net here. So I'm just warning you now. But Europe started turning away in many ways from developing their own energy resources through oil and gas

17:53 development around the same time that the US started developing, you know, the shale revolution kicked off in the early 2000s. And you, you know, there's just a very line that as the US. started

18:07 the shale revolution kicked off and we produced more oil and gas, prices went down, our energy security went up, and in Europe, their energy security goes down and their prices went way up. And I

18:20 do think France has made a lot of good decisions. You look at Germany that is really doubling down primarily on renewables, starting to make some steps towards more natural gas, but it's also

18:35 increasing the amount of coal that they're burning because they need that base load power. And

18:41 their embrace of natural gas has been very tentative since post-Russia. And

18:47 I think that first and foremost, a country needs to be realistic about their energy needs before you can talk about how are we going to improve the climate, right, because if you're not providing

18:59 energy through base load power or through whatever sources you are, then you're not going to successfully reduce your missions, right? And that's what you're seeing in Germany as air emissions are

19:09 going up because they're burning more coal. Yeah. No, that's exactly right. As I always kind of say, look, climate change is about lives in the future. If energy's expensive today or unreliable

19:22 today, people died today. So that we do have to look at it through that lens. I want to shift topics though, and I'll give you, I'll go first I'll give you my take. You see what you think. So

19:34 the SEC going to require you to publish your emissions.

19:40 Everybody in energy initial thought was, oh my gosh, that's so horrible. I actually think it's going to be really good because once everybody is forced to publish their emissions, people are going

19:53 to sit there and go, well, the oil and gas companies are creating the product, but they don't emit a whole lot. They've done a pretty good job of capturing methods. and CO2 out in the field,

20:05 they do that pretty well. It's all these Amazon vans running around. They're actually emitting. And the bigger problem is the person that gets three Amazon deliveries a day instead of one, as

20:18 opposed to no circuit. I think it's going to want - Was that a personal attack? No.

20:25 I have no idea if you're Amazon, you're Amazon. I resemble that remark. There you go But, so I think at the end of the day, there's a chance to maybe level set the discussion here of, look, hey,

20:41 here's actually where the emissions are coming from and let's have a more thoughtful discussion about it, thoughts? I think that's a really interesting perspective. I don't know that I - Pollyanna,

20:52 you can call me that. No, I don't know that I would disagree with

20:58 it most, you know, especially, you know, I know in my industry. like most of our companies already disclose in some form or fashion, whether it's to the EPA or on their sustainability reports.

21:10 So there's a good deal of disclosure already. And I do think to your point, especially if they're moving away from the scope, three disclosures, which we think they may be because they're

21:23 inherently unreliable and difficult to calculate and beyond our control, you might see that So, I think that's a good point. I do think that a lot of the issues that we're focusing on in that

21:41 climate disclosure bill

21:46 would potentially bring some additional liability issues to oil and gas companies. And so you just wanna make sure that those financial disclosures are not able to be weaponized because we know that

21:56 we're still gonna remain a target of a lot of sort of anti-fossil fuel, either regulators or actors. best. So I do think there's still work to be done within the regulations regardless, but I

22:07 think that's an interesting perspective. And certainly when you look at US oil and gas producers vis-a-vis the rest of the world, too, not that they would necessarily get captured in the SEC

22:17 regulations, but you do see that to the extent that the world needs energy, you want to get it from US producers, because we do have the most transparent and responsible production in the world.

22:30 Yeah, no, and I think that's right. I mean, I can't believe for a second that Venezuela, I've never been to a Venezuelan oil field, but I can't believe it is cleaner and nicer than a US oil

22:43 field. One of the embarrassing moments of my career, because I was finance guy, right? And I show up at the rig, and that's always comedy time. We've got the money guy out here. What do we do?

22:55 And my business partner, Mike Hines, great guy, is a man's man. I mean, he's the Marburg man. I mean, you know, he cuts off his arm. He'd probably just tape it back on and he'd be fine. He's

23:09 that guy. He worked for Exxon for 13 years. He ran the J field for them, which is one of the nastiest, dirtiest fields out there, you know, all this. So just a man's man. We're out there on

23:20 the, my first time out in the field, we're out on a rig. And I don't even know what possessed me to say this, but I kind of went, You know, it's really dirty out here. And Mike goes, Please

23:29 don't tell the company, man He said that, You'll get your butt kicked, Chuck. And I'm like, Okay, okay, I got it, I got it. But, yeah, no, we do it cleaner. And again, okay, so I'll

23:42 take the next step. We're gonna have to disclose this. My advice to the industry is, Hey, we're gonna have to disclose this anyway. Own the narrative. Say, this is what it is. This is why it's

23:58 important, you know,

24:00 And I equate that to ESG with my investors. I used to go to, 'cause we were raising energy fund six and people would say, Well, what's your ESG policy? And I'd go, What do you want it to be?

24:14 Well, I don't know. And we always talk, I think it was Justice Potter, the famous Supreme Court decision about pornography. I know it when I see it. It was kind of that way with ESG. Investors

24:24 would say, I know it when I see it. The world right now has no idea what to make of all these emissions. They don't know what's good, bad. So go define it. Be the first person to define it.

24:35 Make the other side say, No, that's not right. I'd rather go first. Yeah, and so I'll just put in a plug. So we developed our own reporting template so that companies can start disclosing

24:47 emissions in a more apples to

24:51 apples fashion because

24:54 we are very pro-disclosure And we wanna make sure that investors are able. to understand the emissions profile of our companies. And so there was, we brought up, we tried to bring a sort of more

25:07 consistent approach to how all of this was being reported. And then that also has enabled us to kind of go back and show trends. And that I think gets the narrative point in part that you're

25:19 suggesting is that there's a very clear downward trend of the emissions profile of our companies, whether you look at the EPA data, you look at ESG data, US. companies are getting better and

25:31 better and better year over year in terms of their overall emissions intensity of

25:38 methane and GHG by almost every metric. And we're really proud of that. And ESG isn't just environmental, right? Like that's certainly what everybody seems to think it is and that's how they all

25:48 talk about it. But there's also, I think a lot of the companies that I work with at least have really ESG whole the embraced issue to some extent because they're like, Oh, you want to. you want

25:60 to see my environmental performance. I'm happy to talk to you about that. I'm happy to talk to you about what I'm doing in the community. I'm happy to talk to you about my good governance practices.

26:07 These are all things that our companies have been doing for decades, especially on the S and the G side, but haven't been characterizing it as ESG. In some ways, ESG is an opportunity to tell our

26:23 story about what we're doing on emissions, about what we're doing in communities that we operate and about the good governance practices that we bring to our companies. I mean, literally, I think

26:34 one of the biggest untold narratives on the planet is the generosity of the energy business. I mean, oil went to minus 37. Like, literally, you had to pay someone to take your barrel of oil. Not

26:48 granted, that was one day. But at the end of the day, I mean, industry is devastated. And I can't think of a major charity in Houston that went under Yeah. I mean, people still cut checks and

26:59 I'll end the And the thing I hate, and I told this to a very prominent member of the Houston energy finance community, I said, hey, the environmentalists would not have as much sway in the world

27:12 if people knew you existed. And as ugly as this sounds, the fact you won't come on my podcast and just talk about all the charitable endeavors you've done, well, I don't wanna toot my own heart,

27:24 you're not. Yeah. You're defending the industry 'cause everyone in the industry does that, so It's a really humble industry and I really love that about them, but you're right. It's, there are a

27:36 lot of great stories that not everybody knows because of it. Yeah. So, it takes me to kind of something else I wanna talk about and again, I'll get on my soapbox. I'll throw it out there, you

27:49 opine critique, however, I think as an industry, we've totally buried our head in the sand, we don't tell our stories. When we pop our head up to actually tell our stories, we're a bunch of

28:04 engineers, and we do it with facts and figures. And if you go look at the psychological studies out there, the three most effective ways to change somebody's mind are, number one, you just ask

28:16 questions. That's why the Socratic method's really good. Two, you scare people. I think the environmentalists have done a good job of that. You scare them. For sure Three, you make them laugh,

28:27 not you laugh, them laugh. The least effective way on all the psychological studies is backs and reasons and numbers. And in my whole career, I think I've seen two effective energy ads. One is

28:44 the, there've been a couple of variations of it. I forget who did it originally, but most recently, energy transfer did. Hey, we're going on our first date And, you know, the lipstick goes

28:55 away because. it's made out of petroleum products. And so slowly as this

29:02 day is going along, everything that has petroleum in it goes away. I think that's actually pretty effective. I hope you have seen that. You haven't seen it? No, I should find it. I've seen a

29:12 couple of other ads, but - Maybe energy transfer, Super Bowl commercial, go Google it. And so I think that's actually pretty effective. It educates in kind of a funny way, connects on an

29:22 emotional level. The second ad, I think the incredibly effective now, it was an internal ad for the industry, natural gas partners, the big private equity firm, they published an ad that says,

29:34 we've created more millionaires than anyone else in the business. So if you're a management team, you're like, holy cow, I wanna go with those guys. And you know, 'cause it hit on kind of a base

29:43 emotional level. And so I just think we've advocated all sorts of responsibility for doing this. We don't tell our stories and when we do it's highly Am I being too much the old man and grumpy? I

29:59 don't, I mean, I hear this a lot. I don't disagree with it. I think that there are a few, I guess I would, I would ask a couple of questions back. And these are questions that I struggle with

30:12 too. Do we - I don't have the answer. Yeah, no, right, and neither do

30:18 I. So what I focus on in my role is to impact policymakers, right? And, you know, by extension, you know, other people that impact policymakers, right? But we

30:32 hear a lot about like changing hearts and minds, right? And like,

30:37 I really struggle with the question of do we need to be loved, right? Does this industry need to actually win over hearts and minds? Because what I know is that we are providing an essential

30:49 service for America, for the world. And I know that when - that essential product becomes scarce through unreliability or increased costs or what have you, but then all of a sudden people really

31:05 want and need our products. And so like, how important is that emotional connection? I guess is the question that I struggle with. Well, you bring up this point because the thing that might be

31:18 the most effective thing we could do in the industry, not that it would make us loved, but maybe make us feared and the like and give us some sway is one day, eight o'clock in the morning, email

31:32 goes out, no petroleum products for 48 hours. Now, unfortunately, people would die in that scenario. It would be really bad. But you grind the world to a halt and, okay, guys, you really

31:45 don't want us around. I don't think that's the right answer, but you bring up that point. We at least ought to discuss it Yeah, and to me, when you get it like your three options, I do think

31:55 that's, you know, that is a facts and figures, right? It is educating people on like, hey, what is your life like if you don't have petroleum products in it? Like it's not good. You don't want

32:07 to live that life, right? Yeah. And so there are probably, you know, industry could probably do a better job of communicating that, but I also know that,

32:19 you know, at the end of the day, when people do understand it, you know, one way or the other, if it's not available to them or if it becomes more scarce or becomes more expensive, they send a

32:31 pretty clear message that like, no, we need energy and we want it affordable and we want it reliable.

32:38 And beyond that, I don't think a lot about it. And it's kind of a luxury that we have in this country. So another thing that I'll say, and I get flamed on Twitter for saying this, so sorry guys,

32:48 I'm gonna say it again

32:51 Generally speaking in America, I think we celebrate success. I mean, we celebrate Steve Jobs, Bill Gates has gone crazy so we don't celebrate him anymore. But generally speaking, we celebrate

33:05 success. I think one of the issues that happened historically with energy is we're somewhat counter cyclical. So high energy prices, we're doing really well, the rest of the world, the United

33:18 States is suffering. Right. Right And unfortunately, I don't think we have displayed humility when we have been at that point. And it's unfortunate because we're almost the only energy, I mean,

33:30 the only industry that needs to do that because tech is roaring, gone great. Elon Musk can be as obnoxious as he wants because we're doing well, you know. So Jeff Bezos can go buy his big huge

33:42 yacht because generally speaking, if he's doing well, the economy's doing well, I think that's part of the problem too For sure. I mean, you have, you know, the president of the United States

33:53 will go on television price gouging that, you know, somehow companies that have no ability to set prices are engaging in, right? And they have net income margins that are less than the average SP

34:13 500 company. Exactly. And meanwhile, you know, Apple and tech companies that do actually set their prices are making ten times more and everybody celebrates that as a great American success story

34:18 It's really frustrating and, you know, if, you know, unfortunately, energy is very easy issue to demagogue and, you know, it's something that we have to deal with because every time prices go

34:30 up, you hear it from, you know, a lot of different corners and it's a struggle. One of the things we did at digital wildcatters when oil was kind of hitting its peak right at kind of the Russian

34:44 invasion of Ukraine, so call it a year, year and a half ago, is we ran around with just our credit cards and we were buying people gas. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and we were recording it and kind of our

34:54 story was, and we meant it was, hey, what was it minus 37 three years ago? I got fired, and so I understand the suffer. Oil's expensive now, so I'm doing a little better. I know it's making

35:07 you suffer. Hey, we wanna buy you some gas. And I mean, we actually, I think connected with folks on an emotional level, we got a lot of good publicity from that kind of virally from shooting it

35:19 out across social media, as well as just the people that we bought gas for. I mean, I got hooks, you know, and so I - That was a really tough time. I mean, that was what, at least in DC, it

35:32 was close to 5 a gallon, that was a lot, yeah. Yeah, no, it really was. And you realize that people, and kind of one of the things Dan Pickering, the big investor was doing is he was

35:44 monitoring when he would get gas, How many people stopped at 10, 15 versus 15? 83, which meant they filled up their tank, and it was dramatic, kind of over a three-month period. It was dramatic.

35:59 A lot of my companies also made very generous contributions to Ukraine-aid efforts, too, because I think they

36:08 were being accused of war profiteering or what have you. They wanted to put forward this really important effort to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine You know, collectively they donated

36:22 tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars to that effort. So, it is, to your point, it's a very generous industry

36:30 and very resilient when prices go to negative 37.

36:34 Exactly. So let's close on this. I am going to make you, energies are not of the world, but of the United States So whatever you say goes, you can rule with an iron. if you want to, however

36:53 you're looking at it, what are we doing in Anne's world? That is a great question.

37:01 Okay, I'll try not to get too soapboxy here, but yeah. Soapbox away and read me the 172 edicts you're doing on the first day. Yeah, I don't have that many, I might, if you give me a little time.

37:14 So first I'll say that I think one of the big frustrations from where I said is the lack of any sort of thoughtful energy policy in this country, right? I mean, even within this administration,

37:26 you have totally conflicting goals, right? Like they clearly want to, you know, force a shift away from fossil fuels, but they also want to keep energy really affordable and reliable at the same

37:38 time, right? And these like, these goals are in conflict with each other, fundamentally So, you know, I think first and foremost, let's craft a thoughtful energy. policy on how does the US.

37:52 view energy in the US. and including in particular domestic energy production, right, like what do we want our role to be in the world? So I think if you went through that exercise, then you

38:08 would hopefully come to the conclusion that we want abundant, affordable, and clean energy, right, like the most abundant possible, the most affordable possible, and the cleanest possible,

38:21 because we want to lead the world in the cleanest molecules produced. And so if that was the goal, and I would hope that that was the goal, you know, I don't think you need to do a lot to achieve

38:35 that, frankly, I mean, if you look at the shale revolution of the early 2000s, most of that happened because,

38:46 you know, hydraulic fracturing is regulated by the states and the federal government kind of took a light touch approach to that, and states were able to regulate it in a really thoughtful and like

38:56 regionally appropriate way. So, okay, so if those are the goals, affordable, reliable, clean energy, I think the first thing you have to do is kind of pull back on some of the regulatory issues

39:09 that you're seeing today. And there is absolutely an appropriate place for regulation, but it should be done in sort of a collaborative and rational approach with the industry So rational regulation,

39:22 first and foremost. You know, that was the thing that got me is when we would talk about the shale revolution and fracking,

39:35 I'm not talking politics here, but arguably you could say George Bush was our most conservative president, right? And that's really where the shale revolution started and Bush, true to kind of his

39:45 core principles, States ought to do it. Yeah. Not the EPA. Then you had arguably, except maybe till now, but arguably you had our most liberal president, Obama. At that point, the US energy

39:58 business was jobs, union jobs, et cetera. They took the same approach. They're, I mean, I'm sure the EPA did a little bit more under Obama than it did at Bush, but their energy policies were

40:12 basically the same. It wasn't until we became a smaller piece of the SP 500, less important and the like that you really saw the ramp up in the EPA. I think that's a really important point. Now,

40:28 I will say, you know, I actually wasn't representing this industry during the Obama administration. I was on the Hill during the Obama administration. And it didn't feel particularly friendly at

40:39 the time. But if you look back rhetorically, he would talk in the state of the union about how great US. natural gas is and how, you know, the the production and utilization and export of natural

40:55 gas, what a great thing it was gonna be for America and the world. Can you imagine this presidency? Exactly. You can get your head around it. We were digging around in some old Obama archives,

41:09 like last year when prices were really high

41:15 and when gas prices were high during the Obama administration, they put out this whole thing on how they're doing all of these great things to develop, to maximize production on federal land,

41:24 increase production, and you just can't fathom that happening under this president, right? So

41:33 it didn't feel friendly for the industry, but if you look at it, you are 100 right that the Obama administration, especially in terms

41:47 how they viewed natural gas.

41:50 really a still allowed industry to kind of flourish. And then you look at this administration and like there's been almost a complete halt to federal leasing, you know, increase in royalty rates.

42:05 I mean, more regulation than anyone in

42:11 the industry that I've worked with has ever seen in a short amount of time and more aggressive. Yeah, and the thing to me is it's dishonest. Well, you have the permits to go drill, but I can't

42:20 drill, I can't lay a pipeline to get the gas out and you're not gonna let me flare. Right, right. Okay, great.

42:28 Yeah, and I have to wait a year to get permits sometimes. And, you know, if I go over to Texas, I can get in six days, so. The one thing the Obama administration did, and like I hate the fact

42:39 that they did this, but I'm actually kind of impressed. Supposedly permitting processes went from digital to manual. Historically, under George Bush, in the beginning of

42:58 the Obama administration, you would file electronically for your permits and all, and they changed it to know you have to send paper copies of the permits for us to do, and those were able to get

43:06 lost on desk. Well, we don't know it yet. And so, I've heard that story, I believe it to be true, but that was a neat little way of, we're gonna slow this down and no one's gonna know why Yeah,

43:20 well, you know, it's interesting because just about six months ago, BLM revised the number of unused permits. If you remember, the Biden ministers kept being like,

43:32 The industry is sitting on 9, 000 APDs. And then very quietly, they were like, Actually, it's like five or 6, 000.

43:40 And it wasn't 'cause they started drilling holes and they just miscalculated. So whatever that system is, it is fairly antiquated Um, ah. You know, the other thing I'll just note that I think is

43:51 always important to remember is it was under the Obama administration that we lifted the oil export ban, which was probably the most significant energy policy development in like the last two decades,

44:02 right? I mean, it was other than maybe the Bush administration, you know, allowing states to regulate fracking. So that was a really big deal. And, you know, that was, I was actually working

44:15 for Speaker Boehner and Speaker Ryan at the time. And so got to kind of help get that across the finish line, which was really fun. But that was, you know, a negotiation with the the Obama

44:24 administration. They got some, you know, renewable tax credits for it in exchange. But, you know, again, they they at least brought an element of, you know, rationality to their energy policy

44:39 that, you know, is, is sometimes missing today. So, um, yeah. Okay. I'm going to go. Now I'm energy czar. Okay. I am going to command each and every energy company in the United States to

44:55 give variable pricing of whatever it is, gasoline, electricity based on regulations they want passed. So Chuck, you can pay, you know, 2 for gasoline if Congress will pass these three things

45:16 Unfortunately, you're paying 3 today. If they pass this, I'm going to have to charge you four. And I think one, we should be doing that because it educates. I two think you might even be able to,

45:30 you know, it's kind of like that, hey, will you pay more for electricity if it comes from renewable? We ought to start bifurcating the pay if you truly believe that methane emissions should be

45:41 zero on all this gas stations, auto cell, zero emission, methane, gasoline, and you're

45:50 8 and so I think they ought to be using price To educate and I've never seen that. Yeah. Well, I don't know how that works Yeah, so it worked really well.

46:07 I like I it's an interesting idea if you're if these are commodities Right because I only represent upstream to right like I don't know how to do that But it's interesting, but I will say I mean the

46:18 only Sort of version of that that I'm aware of is with the certified gas You know market But there just aren't a lot of I think at the end of the day I don't know how many people are willing to pay

46:31 more for lower That would potentially be the point. Yeah. Yeah, and and so maybe it's it's less the stick of higher You know stick of higher prices pay it because we know most people aren't gonna

46:46 do it Maybe it's just the care to if You will call your congressman and ask for these three things. We could lower it 82 cents a gallon or something. I, could you touch the general population,

47:01 literally millions of times a day. Everybody fills up their car, everybody pays their electric bill. You have this communication, just lay it out for people. Right, and I think one of the things

47:13 that's so impactful about gas prices, just sort of as a side note, is that like, it's on every corner, right? Right. I think it's like, we're prominent than the price of milk, 'cause even if

47:22 you're not buying it, you know what it is. Yeah, sign this petition, it will knock five cents off. I mean, I think there's a powerful way that you could use that, and I think we're just too

47:32 scared to do it. Yeah, it's

47:37 complicated, but it's a good thought. I do think, I totally agree that price is the most impactful message that we have, and it is something that we know that politicians are most afraid of too.

47:50 And I said there were two great ads and energy. The Biden stickers saying I did this. That was actually pretty effective too, I think. That was quite amusing. Yeah. Yeah. So how do folks reach

48:03 you? What kind of folks do you want reaching you? What do you need to help with? Yeah, so our website is axpcorg. So

48:13 feel free to check us out there We do have a

48:21 grassroots center where you can sort of sign up and get Washington updates or interesting facts and figures from us that we try to push out to kind of advocate, to educate people in our network and

48:33 have them help advocate for us. And then you'd also get an alert if Washington is doing something impactful that it would be helpful to hear from constituents on to help you write your congressman.

48:44 So go to our website super easy to sign up for that and to get those updates. We also have, you know, we're also on Twitter and Instagram and, you know, both to kind of keep folks informed, but

48:57 also to highlight a lot of the great things our companies are doing. We like to do that too. Cool. Well, thanks for coming on. Thanks. It was a pleasure. This was fun.