Trump wants to bring down energy prices — why that’s not easy

Trump’s biggest lever to influence producers would likely be easing permitting restrictions for drilling on public land, says Philip Rossetti, resident senior fellow for the energy policy program at center right-leaning think tank R Street Institute.

A look at the drilling permitting process in past years by the Government Accountability Office found that in 2016 when Democratic President Barack Obama was in office, it took an average of 196 days to review applications for permits. That process was cut by more than half by 2019 when Trump was in office.

“That’s a huge difference,” said Rossetti. “There is this big qualitative difference on how easy is it to navigate the process and increase production on federal land — which is a huge portion of our oil and gas production…”

“Yes, Trump has some levers he could pull that could lower cost by increasing production, but those levers are only one component of energy prices that are mostly dictated by global markets,” said Rossetti.