From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

In his remarks at this week’s U.N. Climate Week conference, President Donald Trump reminded the U.N. general assembly that “we have an expression, ‘drill, baby, drill.’ You know, that’s what we’re doing.”

But according to almost 80% of the dozens of shale oil executives who responded to the third quarter survey of oil and gas companies by the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve, that’s all about to come to an end thanks in large part to the President’s focus on cutting oil prices as a means of controlling inflation.

“The uncertainty from the administration’s policies has put a damper on all investment in the oilpatch,” one executive said. Another warns that “drilling is going to disappear.”

One upstream company executive was especially angry at the administration, writing that the business “has been gutted by political hostility and economic ignorance. The previous administration vilified the industry, buried it in regulation and cheered the flight of capital under the environmental, social and governance banner…Now the current administration is finishing the job.”

The confidential format of the Dallas Fed’s quarterly surveys encourages the executives to speak bluntly in their responses, and the airing of such grievances is often the result. Most would no doubt temper their language in a meeting with the President or his senior officials, and other respondents did just that, noting that their industry and companies have been buffeted this year by an array of factors, both domestically and internationally.

“There are a variety of issues affecting our business,” one respondent points out. “First, excess in the global oil market is restraining oil prices near term. Second, there is continued uncertainty from OPEC+ unwinding production cuts. Third, trade and tariff changes and the resulting geopolitical tensions.”

He or she isn’t wrong. While shale drillers and producers have no doubt been frustrated by the constantly shifting tariff situation as the White House works out trade deals with dozens of countries, there are other major market factors well beyond any U.S. president’s control. The uncertainty around tariffs has without question increased industry costs, especially as they relate to tubular goods and other steel and aluminum products that are integral to their operations. But at the same time, there can be little doubt that the monthly machinations of the OPEC+ cartel have created a much larger impact on driving down the price of crude oil and thus, driving down company profits.

As for the geopolitical tensions the responder mentions above, Joe Biden’s four years in office were chock-full of such issues, many of which were left behind for Mr. Trump to deal with and resolve. The simple truth is that there has never been a time during its 166-year history that the U.S. oil and gas industry didn’t have to deal with such complications.

The oil business is an infamously cyclical one, as anyone who has been in it for more than a year understands. I spent more than 40 years in the industry and would need to use fingers on more than one hand to total up the number of boom-and-bust cycles that took place during that span.

The fact is that drilling levels in the United States have been on a steady decline since late 2018 in response to prevailing market factors far more than to the policies of the Biden or Trump administrations. As I pointed out shortly after last November’s election, the maturity of every major shale play meant that there would be no revival of “drill, baby, drill” in a second Trump presidency regardless of the administration’s policy direction. It just was never going to be in the cards.

The grievances and frustrations aired by these executives are entirely understandable: It’s a tough business that is impacted for better or worse by public policies. But pointing the finger of blame at Trump is a simplistic reaction to a highly complex set of circumstances.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Melissa O’Rourke

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) deployed a significant number of agents to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, many of whom later complained that the bureau was driven by political bias, according to an after-action report obtained by Just The News.

The 50-page document shows the FBI sent agents to the Capitol during the riot, including inside the building, without clear instructions, Just The News reported on Thursday. The report, located by FBI Director Kash Patel’s team, was recently turned over to the House Judiciary Committee’s special subcommittee investigating the incident, according to the outlet.

In anonymous assessments submitted after the Jan. 6 attack, rank-and-file employees accused the bureau, under former Directors James Comey and Chris Wray, of being influenced by politics.

“We are supposed to call balls and strikes, regardless of political pressure, now we can’t even be trusted to be on the field,” another employee wrote.

The report disclosed for the first time that the FBI had a total of 274 agents deployed to the Capitol after violence erupted. Wray, who preceded Patel as FBI director, declined to tell Congress how many, if any, agents were on the ground at the time, according to Just The News.

Many of the complaints came from agents within the bureau’s Washington field office (WFO).

“WFO is a hopelessly broken office that’s more concerned about wearing masks and recruiting preferred racial/sexual groups than catching actual bad guys,” one employee wrote.

Agents also described being thrown into the chaos with no clear instructions, no protective gear and no way to identify themselves to other law enforcement officers.

“I wish you all would pay more attention to our safety than what type of masks we wear. If you are going to deploy us to a riot situation, then give us the proper damn safety equipment–helmet, face shield, protective clothing–and training!” one employee wrote.

Other agents blasted what they called a blatant double standard between Jan. 6 prosecutions and the less aggressive approach to the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020.

“The actions on January 6, 2021 were absolutely despicable and unacceptable in a civilized society. What is even more unacceptable was the hypocrisy displayed by the FBI and its leadership in their attempt to go after those involved in the Capitol Riots, while we as agents, watched cities burn across America during the summer of 2020,” one agent said.

“The conspiracy to commit crimes at the Capitol on January 6th, were also committed by bad actors during the summer riots of 2020 leading up to the election on November 3, 2020. Agents stood by on the ground in Washington, D.C. and observed stores being looted, burned, and ripped of anything of value,” the agent wrote.

While the FBI declined the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment, Patel posted on X Friday that the bureau is “continuing to deliver on our promise of ultra transparency.”

“The only reason you have answers is because we are finding and producing materials exposing corruption at record levels. Thank you to the men and women @FBI once again delivering for the American people,” Patel wrote. “No one else is on Mission like we are.”

The after-action report also highlighted growing frustration with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, which one agent accused of pushing politically motivated cases.

“Currently, the US Attorneys office is dictating what it is that gets investigated. This is a dangerous precedent because we can barely get them to prosecute investigations that clearly meet thresholds needed for Federal prosecutions,” one agent wrote. “However, their willingness to conduct a search warrant on someone’s life for a misdemeanor seems ridiculous. It is unreasonable for the FBI to conduct investigations involving misdemeanor violations at a federal level … it is not our role.”

On his first day in office, President Donald Trump issued over 1,500 “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to people who were involved in the Capitol riot. The action fulfilled a long-standing promise made by Trump during the 2024 campaign.