Joe Biden's Energy Policy's Effect on the Houston Economy (San Antonio: income, tax)

[swopoe]

My husband, in O&G, says Biden wants to eliminate future drilling on federal lands or water, such as in the Gulf of Mexico. He is a production geologist in GOM. He said that will affect exploration. What is your take?

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by mojo101

IT HAS TO do with supply and demand,back then we dont produce as much,now we have Russia,Canada,Saudi,Iran,Iraq,Nigeria and until recently Venezuela

Right if you curtail fracking you constrain supply of oil and prices go up. The foreign producers use production limits to constrain supply. Saudi Arabia and Russia will co-operate to keep prices up if they can. It has been the supply of oil brought onto the market by the fracker's that has put so much pressure on oil prices.

[GreenBouy]

Originally Posted by swopoe

My husband, in O&G, says Biden wants to eliminate future drilling on federal lands or water, such as in the Gulf of Mexico. He is a production geologist in GOM. He said that will affect exploration. What is your take?

My take is, we can’t turn off o and g until we have suitable replacements, which to this point we don’t.

Private industry is much more innovative than politicians in DC, if these alternate forms of energy are not profitable, who exactly do we think is going to develop them and bring them to market?

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by Mr. Football

In this week's debate, Joe Biden stated that he wants to close down the Oil industry.

If elected, what effect will this have on the Houston economy? Houston is the Oil & Gas capitol of the world. Eliminating or vastly reducing one of the most important base industries for the entire region could mean hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps trillions in lost revenue for this region. What will be the net effect on jobs, real estate, education, etc. in Houston, Texas and outlying areas should Joe Biden and the Democrat party's energy policy come true? What effect will this policy have on the already economically disadvantaged people in Houston?

Will Houston become the next Detroit under Joe Biden's plan?

So, you have two separate questions here. But before answering, you have to take a realistic perspective from Joe Biden’s plan. First of all,” closing down the oil industry” won’t happen overnight. I’ve heard people taking his comments too seriously, so perhaps Biden didn’t explain it well enough but considering it’s Joe Biden, not surprised to hear him say something dumb. As mentioned, nothing will happen over night. The transition from an oil dominated energy driven world (which is unfortunately still the case) will take years and years for the transition. First, cleaner energies still have to be tested and discovered, while a lot of recent progress has been made, it’s not close to the finish line there. Then once that happens, it will be another process to get all the industries that currently rely on oil for energy to transition there. And after that, it will there it will take consumers to buy into it, since it will be expensive at first before it begins to settle into place finally. The nonsense that he will shut down the oil field over night is unfortunately not the case. I say unfortunately because we need clean energy ASAP.

So what effect will it have on Houston, as the process goes. And the answer is that it’s going to be a roller coaster for a while. You’ll see the downs you expect with layoffs and so forth and you’ll see ups with availability for new fields to enter that have are already established. You’ll see industrial areas like Pasadena and Texas City be more vulnerable than the rest of the metro that’s more white collar. You’ll see temporary declines in class A office space that other companies will look to take over (this is actually already happening).

As for will Houston become the next Detroit or even close to it is ridiculous.

1. Houston’s economy today is extraordinarily more diverse than Detroit was when industry left. Forget the port and growing healthcare & bioscience fields. There’s lots of companies here that don’t rely much on O&G. There’s 4 companies nearing Fortune 500 status that have nothing to do with oil. It’s a lot more diverse here than traditionalists think. By now, O&G is well below half of the city’s engine. Still higher than jt should be obviously, but there’s plenty to gain from moving on.

2. The USA economy is much more integrated today. Houston gets helped and hurt by the national trends much more today than previously.

3. If you actually look into the fall of Detroit, it was much deeper than an economic collapse. It was a social mess overall with much more people than good schools, services and university to accommodate.

But most importantly, X. Houston is the Energy Capital of the world. It’s still the biggest player in green energy, and the energy industry won’t die as long as humans are still civilized. It will just evolve.

Of course, all of this still has old head Texans skeptic because they’re used to seeing the world as it was. The confidence level will increase as it gets going.

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by GreenBouy

My take is, we can’t turn off o and g until we have suitable replacements, which to this point we don’t.

Private industry is much more innovative than politicians in DC, if these alternate forms of energy are not profitable, who exactly do we think is going to develop them and bring them to market?

Unfortunately, you’re right. We don’t have sustainable replacements to oil and gas as energy yet. I do hope we begin to take it seriously though.

[As Above So Below...]

The effect on Houston economy of Biden is president will be minimal.

Pretty much every oil and gas company is making plans to transition to green energy over time. That’s exactly what Biden says he wants to do.

That would be a much bigger issue for Midland than Houston. You have to remember that innovation takes place in Houston, not the drilling itself. Houston can pivot relatively easily.

Saying Houston will somehow be Detroit is ridiculous. The oil and gas industry will be smaller and it’s up to Houston to chart its own course.

[fnh]

Basically Biden had the guts to say out loud a truth that the major oil & gas leaders already know and for which they are already planning. A real leader levels with people.

Texas is #2 behind California in sustainable energy technologies and industry jobs. We can choose to be a leader in the future of energy or we can be left behind in the sludge.

ETA: Here is an example where the trump administration's myopic and retrograde thinking has shot the Texas energy economy in the foot. The gutting of regulations has predictably backfired:

French government blocks U.S. LNG deal as too dirty
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/1...ng-deal-431028

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Originally Posted by As Above So Below...

The effect on Houston economy of Biden is president will be minimal.

Pretty much every oil and gas company is making plans to transition to green energy over time. That’s exactly what Biden says he wants to do.

That would be a much bigger issue for Midland than Houston. You have to remember that innovation takes place in Houston, not the drilling itself. Houston can pivot relatively easily.

Saying Houston will somehow be Detroit is ridiculous. The oil and gas industry will be smaller and it’s up to Houston to chart its own course.

The parts of Houston that will eventually get the same effect will be Pasadena and Deer Park and to a lesser degree Baytown. But this is inevitable regardless of who gets elected. I view this as another classic case of close minded conservatives thinking “they’re trying to take our oil/guns/religion/etc”.

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by astrohip

The world is changing. Have you ever seen a movie set in the future with ICE vehicles? Of course not, they're always powered by Unobtanium or whatnot. Houston can still be in the forefront, we just need to ACT.

I think you're the only person other than my husband whom I've heard use this term, LOL.

[houston-nomad]

Originally Posted by jerbear30

I think what he said was that he wanted to make a plan to transition away from fossil fuels. That is different than saying he wanted to close down the energy industry. Can you imagine the energy industry being in fossil fuels forever? If so why? If not, don't you think it's smart to think about how to transition the industry toward something else? I mean, if the resource of oil is finite, the industry is literally going to disappear unless it transitions to more infinite resources like wind and solar. How did we every get it in our heads that planning for the future is ideologically bad?

Yes-- this. The big companies are already making plans for the future that involve alternative energy. You have to plan for the future. Biden will help make that happen, rather than just pretending everything is fine and we can use oil and coal forever and ever.