Governor Stitt One Of 19 Governors Calling For Changes To Federal Energy Policy In Letter To Biden Administration

Governor Kevin Stitt is pushing for energy reform on the federal level. Stitt was one of 19 governors sending a letter to President Biden, laying out concerns with the administration's energy policies and calling for a list of changes.

Stitt says if changes aren’t made to these energy policies, the cost of gas, groceries and utilities will continue to climb, impacting everyday Oklahomans.

“I'm going to call a spade a spade,” said Gov. Kevin Stitt. “It's harmful for good old average Oklahomans and average Americans.”

The letter sent to the president said in part, “As governors, we are extremely concerned with the impacts your energy policies are having on households across our country and call on you to pursue an all-of-the-above energy approach.”

“We need all of it if we're gonna be energy independent, we're going to be energy dominant,” said Gov. Stitt. 

Stitt points to Oklahoma as a model for that approach, using a variety of energy sources, including natural gas, wind, solar, geothermal, and hydrogen.

“We have a huge advantage because right now we've got some of the cheapest, most affordable electricity costs in the country, and that's because of our all-of-the-above approach,” said Gov. Stitt. 

The letter goes on to say the ‘all-of-the-above approach’ “will promote homegrown energy that benefits all Americans.”

The letter later says under the Biden administration “Americans have paid over 40% more for gas every time they fill up. These policies are disproportionately impacting low-income Americans.”

“It hurts the working person and that's why the free market policies that we're talking about are actually good for the middle class and it's good for upward mobility,” said Gov. Stitt.

The letter specifically calls for these 10 things:

• End regulatory overreach that unnecessarily restricts domestic energy production, making it more difficult to build and transport all forms of energy in America (like the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines), and ultimately drives up costs and threatens national security; 

• Increase the number and quality of onshore and offshore lease sales for all forms of energy production (including petroleum development on the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPR-A); where such leasing is consistent with all federal and state laws; 

• Expedite approval of federal drilling permits, which can take over a year on federal lands as opposed to less than two weeks on private lands; 

• Remove the pause on LNG exports; 

• Stop the EPA’s war on American energy by rolling back initiatives such as the final rules on methane emissions, particulate matter (PM2.5) standards, the Ozone Transport Rule, and the Clean Power Plan 2.0, among others; 

• Repeal EPA’s Waste Emission Charge (i.e., methane tax) which will drive up energy costs; 

• Work with Congress to enact comprehensive permitting reform that is supportive of all forms of energy and limits bad-faith legal obstructionism; 

• Repeal burdensome and unnecessary financial regulations that will drive away capital from American companies;

• Expand critical mineral mining and processing to counter China; and 

• Prioritize innovation over regulation by supporting technology to produce reliable, affordable American-made energy. 

The full letter to the president can be read below: