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When it comes to gas exports and competition with China, the two administrations share a similar vision, the top U.S. energy diplomat says.
At their confirmation hearings on Wednesday, the two men in line to oversee the United States’ global energy policies, Senator Marco Rubio and the fossil fuel executive Chris Wright, are expected to assail President Biden as overly concerned with climate change.
According to a spokeswoman, Mr. Wright, who was picked to lead the Department of Energy, will say that Mr. Biden “viewed energy as a liability instead of the immense national asset that it is.” President-elect Trump has pledged to immediately begin rolling back electric-vehicle tax credits and to undo a pause on new permits for gas export terminals.
But the Biden-Trump split, at least on major policy issues like natural gas exports, battery supply chains and competition with China, may turn out to be more in tone than in deed.
In an interview before the confirmation hearings began, Mr. Biden’s top energy diplomat at the State Department, Geoffrey Pyatt, used similar language to Mr. Wright’s. Energy is “a strategic asset to strengthen our allies” and “a national security attribute,” Mr. Pyatt said, referring in no uncertain terms to fossil fuels. If confirmed as Secretary of State, Mr. Rubio would choose Mr. Pyatt’s replacement.
Mr. Pyatt noted that U.S. crude oil production is 70 percent higher than it was 8 years ago and that U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas, which went from near-zero in 2016 to now dominating the global market, are set to double over the course of Mr. Trump’s upcoming term. “The U.S. is an energy giant,” he said. “We are energy secure in a way we’ve never been before. We have no dependence remaining on the Middle East from an energy standpoint, which is quite different than where we were a decade or two ago.”