M&A Activity Breaks Records! | Trump’s Energy “Independence” | Pruitt Confirmed for EPA – OGTW102

As always, I enjoyed this episode…but I feel Mark was a little flippant about the Scott Pruitt article. I agree the Pruitt copy and paste ‘scandal’ lacks substance. But I don’t like the ‘nothing to see here’ attitude that y’all take. Regulatory capture is a thing, and it causes real problems that actually hurt people (big examples: economic collapse of 2008 did untold damage, BP oil spill of 2010 killed 11 people, there’s an endless stream of further examples large and small where regulators fiddled while risks snowballed)

Regulators taking language from industry is NOT AT ALL akin to a vendor helping to author an RFP. There is no ‘agency problem’ between a company and a vendor. If a company wants to get a vendor involved in the RFP creation, that’s their choice, and they’ll be the only ones to suffer if the RFP doesn’t serve them well. But regulations involve a 3rd party: the public. Public agencies, and the regulations they write and enforce are there to serve the public good. Companies are in business to serve shareholders, not the public good…and that’s great, that’s the free market. But we have to admit that in some cases shareholder interests don’t line up with public interests, and that’s where laws and regulations come in.

Political donations are protected under the First Amendment, and maybe you agree with that, maybe you don’t, but it has the very real effect of creating conflicts of interest for every level of elected official.
Pruitt regulated an industry in Oklahoma that donated hundreds of thousands of $$ to his various campaigns. That doesn’t mean he’s automatically in bed with industry, but it means we have the right to ask questions and be skeptical if it appears he’s not serving the interests of the public. If that doesn’t resonate with you then consider a situation where the regulator has accepted $$thousands of campaign donations from an enviro group, then copies and pastes THEIR content into regulations. (This happens in real life too…obviously I’m trying to lead you to a place where you see that both public servants are compromised, and both situations are unacceptable.)

Reasonable people can disagree on what the ‘public good’ is. I can admit that economic prosperity and a vibrant industry has huge benefits to society that people on my side of the aisle often overlook or discount. And I hope you can admit that there is some value in not having heavy metals in our drinking water, and not having hydrogen sulfide in our air. I wish more people would see these choices as a continuum. Too many folks end up at one end of the argument or another…./sigh/

Anyway – keep up the good work. I think you guys really hit your stride when you mix it up with about 40% oil and gas industry talk, 40% oil and gas technology talk, then 20% on current events…tying a story from a seemingly unrelated domain to O&G.