The U.S. energy industry is preparing for a boom thanks to the return of Donald Trump to the White House. Trump reportedly plans to appoint an 'energy czar' specifically to dismantle the restrictions and climate rules implemented under the Biden administration over the last four years. Those restrictions started almost from day one, with Biden limiting new oil and gas leases on federal lands while draining millions of barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
For those in the Texas energy industry, Election Day was a game-changer. "We woke up (last Wednesday) to a whole different place...a feeling of tranquility, and a feeling of hope," says Taylor Dacus, former head of the American Pipeline Contractors Association, on Fox Business. "For the past three-and-a-half years, the Biden administration told us that we needed to go find another job, and now we don't have to."
Trump has pledged to restore American energy independence and dominance on day one of his second administration, as he did in his first one. "We're looking forward to the future," says Dacus. "We've already been in talks with the equipment manufacturers, trying to make sure they're going to have the equipment we're going to need over the next four years."
He predicts not only a massive boost in domestic energy production, but a surge in the energy workforce. "Four years ago, (my company) had over 3400 employees, today we're only sitting at 1900, based upon the Biden administration's policies and agenda," says Dacus. "In the next probably 48 months, that number should double...and when you take into account all the other contractors involved, we anticipate tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs."
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