STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President-elect Trump campaigned on a platform that included this promise - quote, "make America the dominant energy producer in the world by far." Camila Domonoske, why do analysts think this is sure to happen?
CAMILA DOMONOSKE, BYLINE: Well, the U.S. is not only the largest oil producer in the world, we are the largest oil producer in human history.
INSKEEP: Oh, you mean right now...
DOMONOSKE: Yeah.
INSKEEP: ...We are.
DOMONOSKE: Yeah.
INSKEEP: OK. Camila knows this because she covers energy and joins us to talk about the president-elect's plan. So obviously, he's starting at the finish. He's already achieved the goal. But what more can a president do to increase energy production?
DOMONOSKE: Well, he could - almost certainly will - roll back a lot of environmental regulations. That makes it cheaper to drill for oil. He could open up more federal land for drilling. And he can also do things that would promote demand for fossil fuels - talking here about new permits for exporting liquefied natural gas and things like pulling support from electric vehicles, which don't use gasoline. So altogether, he cannot order more oil production - we're not Saudi Arabia - but he can do things that would encourage it.
INSKEEP: So what then would the energy industry think about in addition to whatever the president says he would like them to do?
DOMONOSKE: Yeah. Well, the big one is prices. This is a global industry. Prices are set by a global supply and demand, and companies watch that very closely. And then there is a key constituency here that does not want to drill, baby, drill, as the president-elect wants, and that is Wall Street because if oil companies drill so much that the supply of oil is greater than demand for oil, prices would plummet, and that would be bad for investors' returns. So on the campaign trail, president-elect promised rising oil production and falling prices. But if you talk to some of his allies in the energy world, they strike a different note. I talked to Tom Pyle, who runs a think tank, and he was part of Trump's transition team the first time around. I asked him how much can production even increase?
TOM PYLE: I don't know, and I don't care. Does that make sense? The industry should make those decisions based on the marketplace.
DOMONOSKE: So to him, what matters is freeing companies from the hammer of regulations. And after that, they might decide to drill more, or they might not.
INSKEEP: OK, so the president-elect can do some things for the energy industry. The market will do a lot to shape the energy industry. What else might affect U.S. oil production?
DOMONOSKE: There's what the oil-producing nations of OPEC want. That's huge. But to zero in on a couple of wild cards here, there are tariffs. What President-elect Trump has promised in terms of tariffs would be hugely disruptive to the global economy. That could reduce oil demand - drives prices down. Also could increase the cost of production - drive prices up. It's a wild card. There's also green energy. So President Biden supported clean energy to try to curb the worst effects of climate change. Trump dismisses climate concerns, and his policies will be a blow to climate protections. But, Steve, clean energy production could still increase - not necessarily because it's clean, but because it's cheap and homegrown. And that in the U.S. and globally could cut into oil demand. And not to repeat myself here, but this is ultimately what rules the oil market - supply and demand.
INSKEEP: Well, whatever happens in the years ahead, NPR's Camila Domonoske will be here to tell us about it. Camila, thanks so much.
DOMONOSKE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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