Biden Administration's Policies Contribute to Spike in Gas Prices - Texas Oil Regulator

SAN ANTONIO (Sputnik) - The Biden administration's tight grip on the US energy sector has hurt consumers at the gas pumps, Jim Wright, an industry regulator in the United States' top oil-producing state, told Sputnik at a conference in San Antonio, Texas.

"That's certainly part of what's driven that price up and I don't think the current administration, the Biden administration, recognizes some of those actions that he's done here in the past and what that's really done to the consumer," Wright said on the margins of the US-Mexico Natural Gas Forum.

Wright, who serves as a commissioner on the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state's oil production, said President Joe Biden's decision to revoke a key permit in the Keystone XL pipeline project was very harmful to the industry.

"That oil is going to continue to come to Texas because we have to have that oil for our blend to make that product and now it's still coming on truck, rail and ship," Wright said. "I'm more concerned about environmental impacts in those regards than I would be with an underground pipeline."

Wright added that Biden's decision to temporarily pause oil and gas leases on federal land also did not help.

Some of the decisions Biden made may have been driven by lobbyists from the renewable energy sector, which is a strong force, Wright said.

Earlier this month, Biden's Environmental Protection Agency announced it intends to limit the methane emissions from some one million oil and gas rigs in the United States. Moreover, during the United Nations climate change summit this month, more than a hundred countries vowed to cut 30 percent of global methane emissions by 2030.

However, in September, the White House approved the lease of 78 million acres of offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which is reportedly the largest offshore oil and gas auction in American history.

Overall, US oil and gas producers are feeling uneasy about the Biden administration's anti-American energy policies, according to Wright. "I think everybody is nervous right now about what may be coming down in regards to regulations that are imposed against fossil fuel production and certainly that reeks [on] Wall Street," he said.