Cruz to Texas oil and natural gas industry: 'fight back'

Speaking to several hundred Texas oil and natural gas executives at a recent Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association's (TIPRO) conference, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, described the assault on the industry by the Biden administration and encouraged Texans to "fight back."

"There is an assault on this industry that is fundamental. [President] Joe Biden and [Vice President] Kamala Harris and the Democrats in Washington, D.C., they want to bankrupt every person in this room," he said, referring to the administration's pledge to eliminate fossil fuels.

He said their agenda isn't based on "facts or reason or logic. ... They view it through a mannequin lens where they think oil and gas is evil. And just like a vampire hunt, you don't engage in a philosophical debate. You just drive a stake into the heart of the vampire. That's how they look at what everyone in this room does."

Their perspective "is not connected to reality," he continued. In the last two and a half years, the Biden administration has waged "a concerted war on oil and gas production," starting with Biden's first day in office when he shut down the Keystone Pipeline. Overnight a minimum of 11,000 jobs "disappeared with a stroke of a pen," he said, referring to an executive order Biden signed.

Cruz said the pipeline would have created 8,000 high-paying union jobs and transported 800,000 barrels of oil a day traveling south from Canada to the U.S.

Biden then shut down new drilling and leasing on federal lands both onshore and offshore and prioritized cutting off capital to the oil and natural gas industry. The administration's banking administrator is attempting to shut down debt and the Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner is attempting to shut down equity, he said.

"Now, I may not be a rocket scientist, but if you can't get debt, you can't get equity. How the hell do you get the capital to drill for new resources?" he asked.

He also reiterated what Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian highlighted: Texas oil and natural gas production is among the cleanest in the world. Instead of prioritizing domestic production, Cruz continued, the administration is focused on expanding production overseas, including in Iran and Venezuela, where pollution is among the worst in the world.

"If you shift supply from American production to overseas dirtier production, guess what? You're polluting more, emitting more carbon," he said. "This is not about a rational effort to protect the environment. By the way, if the only thing, and I'm assuming a voter doesn't care about jobs, doesn't care about prosperity, is just the only thing that matters is stopping carbon. You know, if you actually believe that you know what you would be, you would be a full-throat advocate of natural gas."

Texas natural gas is one of the cleanest and most efficient energy sources produced in the world. According to the Texas Oil and Gas Association, flared natural gas represents less than 0.2% of all natural gas produced.

Cruz also highlighted the uniqueness of the Texas oil and natural gas industry forged by pioneers from West Texas to the Gulf. The industry "has an amazing story to tell," he said.

"The United States is the number one producer of oil on the face of the planet. The United States is the number one producer of natural gas on the face of the planet. The United States is driving the greatest reductions in environmental pollution on the face of the planet. Low-cost energy is producing prosperity throughout America and across the globe. What y'all are doing is powerful, but we gotta tell that story."

In 2022, the Texas oil and natural gas industry broke records in every category, leading the U.S. in oil and natural gas production and lowered emissions, ranking first in industry job growth, wages, payroll and Gross Regional Product (GRP) nationwide.

If Texas were its own country, it would be the world's third-largest producer of natural gas and fourth-largest producer of oil. In the first half of 2022, the U.S. became the world's largest liquid natural gas exporter, led by Texas, according to EIA data.