Shale billionaire Harold Hamm, who has backed several Republican presidential candidates for election in 2024, called for the end of back-and-forth US energy policy that raises costs from one administration to the next.
The GOP donor and founder of Continental Resources Inc. gave his remarks to a small crowd of oil industry executives and political friends gathered in Oklahoma City on the eve of his first ever American Energy Security Summit, which will include former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer David Solomon.
“It’s like riding a roller coaster,” Hamm said of the changes to energy policy over the course of his five-decade plus career. “It’s so important that we have an energy policy that’s lasting and somebody can’t tinker with it from one administration to the next.”
Hamm told the standing-room-only crowd inside a Bob’s Steak & Chop House that there should be a full-on resumption of oil drilling permits on federal lands, reversing the policy of President Joe Biden. Not being able to drill more on federal lands has increased energy costs, he said.
“When the federal leases were pulled off the table with this latest administration, it took a full year just to modify everybody’s drilling plans,” Hamm said. “Everything you planned that you’re going to do, if you can’t get permits, you have to basically go to plan B, and plan B is not a good plan.”
“All of us in this room, we don’t need $100 oil; high $80s, that’s fine,” Hamm said, drawing laughter from attendees that included Devon Energy Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rick Muncrief and former Attorney General Bill Barr.
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