2024 Press Release 

OFFICIALS AND EXPERTS TO DISCUSS ENERGY AND CLIMATE AT  PENNSYLVANIA OIL REGION SUMMIT OCTOBER 14-15, 2024

October 11, 2024

Oil City, Pennsylvania — Experts and current and former officials will convene in northwest Pennsylvania’s Oil Region National Heritage Area October 14-15, 2024 to discuss the past and future of energy and climate security at the second annual Drake Energy & Climate Security Conference.

Drake Energy Security Forum President and Cofounder Andrew J. Tabler, an Oil City native, author and former U.S. official, is spearheading a grassroots initiative of Venango County, Pennsylvania natives, residents and nonprofits determined to put the state’s historic Oil Region back on the global map by hosting a spirited dialogue between energy and climate specialists amidst the region’s stunning peak autumn foliage.

“The United States and its allies face hard choices concerning energy and climate security,” Tabler said. “To help solve them, the non-profit Drake Energy Security Forum and its partners are hosting two days of discussions and dialogues at heritage sites throughout Pennsylvania’s Oil Heritage Region.” 

Entitled “At the Crossroads: Navigating America's Energy & Climate Dilemmas,” the conference connects global experts and policy makers with the edge of the American heartland. The program is being organized by the non-profit Drake Energy Security Forum in collaboration with the Venango Area Chamber of Commerce and the Oil Region Alliance (ORA) and with the facilitation of Clarion County Economic Development Corporation’s Tourism Director Hind Karns. (Guest registrations are now closed due to capacity restrictions).

On October 14 “Energy Transition Seminar and Tours” will feature presentations on energy transition issues, as well as the area’s opportunities and plans. Presenters include ORA President & CEO John R. Phillips II, Moody & Associates’ Mark Walentosky, John R. Cubbon of Airdale Oil & Gas, The Nature Conservancy’s Evan Endres, Venango County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Emily Lewis, Balmagie Beverage Group’s Jeff Karns, Venango Area Chamber President and CEO Susan Williams, ORA Project Manager Abbe Watson-Popescu, Spark Community Capital Project Consultant Jason Ruggiero, and Colonel Drake Cultural Alliance President Joe Borland. In addition to presentations on sparking private sector involvement by Commonwealth Foundation President Andrew Lewis and Shale Crescent’s Greg Kozera.  The program is designed to facilitate interactions and start new conversations between local leaders and conference attendees concerning future opportunities and lessons learned from the region's 165-year and counting experience with - and environmental recovery from - the oil industry. 

The October 15 “Drake Dialogues” on energy and climate security will be held at the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission’s Drake Well Museum and Park - which for 90 years has commemorated the birth and early history of the modern energy industry. This includes hybrid interactive presentations ranging from energy production to climate, with panelists giving arguments followed by dialogue, questions, and answers. This full-day event is by invitation only.

Scheduled in-person and virtual presenters include representatives from governments, research, industry and local communities, among which are: 

• John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy

• Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania 

• David McCormick, candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania

• Elnur Soltanov, CEO of COP 29 Azerbaijan

• Steven Burns, Director for Energy Security, National Security Council and Titusville native

• U.S. Representative Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania 16th Congressional District 

• Victoria Coates, Vice President, The Heritage Foundation and Former Deputy National Security Advisor and Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Energy

• Ambassador (Ret). James Jeffrey, Chair of the Middle East Program, Wilson Center 

• Robert McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy Group, former White House energy advisor and author of “Crude Volatility - The History and the Future of Boom-Bust Oil Prices”

• Nick DeIuliis, CEO CNX Resources

• Edward Chow, Senior Associate in the Energy Security and Climate Change Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

• Dr. Dhabia al-Mohannadi, Assistant Professor in Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University at Qatar

• Michael Ratner, International Energy Lead, Congressional Research Service

• Michael Cohen, Chief Economist, BP America 

• Brenda Shaffer, Professor, U.S. Naval Postgraduate School

• Robert “RJ” Johnston, Executive Director at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University

• Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Director, Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment, Heritage Foundation 

• Andre Beliveau, Senior Manager of Energy Policy, Commonwealth Foundation

• Raad al-Kadiri, Non-resident Senior Associate, CSIS 

“The Alliance always welcomes the opportunity to discuss the history and influence of the petroleum industry on an international stage,” said John R. Phillips, II, ORA President and CEO. “This year summit participants will see first-hand the advancements of our organization between the demolition of a hotel and the acquisition of the Venango Campus, thanks in part to our strategic partnerships. The revitalization of Oil City is well underway.”

Additional activities include a “rolling” cocktail reception and excursion aboard the heritage Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad from Drake Well to dinner at the Titusville Iron Works Tap House (an oil boom era factory recently converted to an event venue) and tours of heritage sites in Oil City including the newly reopened 100 Seneca Street (original site of the world’s first oil exchange building) and the former Standard Oil’s National Transit Building (Rockefeller’s former headquarters in Pennsylvania’s oil region, now the Oil City Civic Center). The conference will also highlight the area’s oil history and world-class rail trails. 

“The last two years’ deliberations between rural leaders and energy experts showed the real value of stepping away from the bustle of the city and our offices in order to think strategically,” said the Venango Chamber’s Susan Williams. “The Oil Region in October is a beautiful setting for thought leaders to meet and contemplate the nexus of energy and climate before us all.”

The conference was born out of recently established oil heritage connections spanning the globe. Venango County and Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, located on the edge of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, both claim the world’s “first'' modern oil wells. Azerbaijan’s first well was drilled at Bibi-Heybat in 1846, while Edwin Drake drilled America’s first well outside Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859 - launching the modern petroleum industry. The world’s standard 42-gallon oil barrel was established in the area and the global oil price was set in Oil City throughout the late 19th and early 20th century. 

During a 2022 trip to Azerbaijan, Tabler helped establish the first connections between the two oil heritage communities since Azerbaijan’s re-independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. 

Members of the media are encouraged to attend and cover the conference, but to abide by session attribution rules. Most attendees are happy to give interviews on the sidelines of the event. 

Please contact info@drakeenergysecurity.org with your press credentials in order to pre-register.

For more information visit www.DrakeForum.org

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/U.S.-elections-2024/Trump-and-Harris-camps-clash-over-energy-transition-with-eye-on-Asia

U.S. elections 2024

Trump and Harris camps clash over energy transition, with eye on Asia

Republicans say Democratic green energy policies 'handcuff' economy to China

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and former U.S. President Donald Trump have decidedly different takes on energy transition.  © Reuters

KEN MORIYASU, Nikkei Asia diplomatic correspondent

October 22, 2024 18:00 JST

TITUSVILLE, Pennsylvania -- With two weeks to go before the U.S. presidential election, the campaign of former President Donald Trump is highlighting its differences with Vice President Kamala Harris on energy, especially in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, a leading natural gas producer.

Trump maintains that Harris wants to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves the use of highly pressurized blasts of water and chemicals to extract natural gas and oil from subterranean rocks. The vice president, who backed a ban during her unsuccessful campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, now says she would allow the practice.

Pennsylvania sits atop a rock formation called the Marcellus Shale, estimated to hold trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. Trump, a Republican, has vowed to accelerate the drilling of oil and gas and use the revenue to pay down the U.S. debt and cut taxes. Critics say fracking contributes to climate change and releases chemical compounds that are harmful to the human body.

Since the beginning of October, Trump's campaign has run a TV ad titled "Give a frack" in Pennsylvania and Michigan, slamming Harris' previous support for a ban on fracking. Her policies will lead to new taxes, higher gas prices and job losses, the ad says.

During a rally in the Pennsylvania city of Latrobe on Saturday, Trump returned to the theme, saying: "Starting on Day 1 of my new administration, I will end Kamala Harris' war on Pennsylvania energy."

The Harris presidential campaign released a statement on Oct. 1 saying Trump's energy policies would let polluters "write their own rules," benefiting Big Oil at the expense of the American people and allowing other countries to charge ahead with "clean energy innovation."

A Harris administration "would create good-paying clean-energy jobs and secure America's energy independence," it said.

Energy was not among the leading topics of either campaign's ads until recently. Republicans had focused on inflation, the economy, housing, immigration and crime, according to AdImpact, an analytics firm that tracks political advertising.

The Republican stance on energy also mixes in geopolitics.

At the Drake Energy Security Forum held last week in Titusville, the birthplace of the U.S. oil industry, conservative panelists took particular aim at President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which promotes electric vehicles and the use of renewables.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the IRA would instead increase inflation through higher energy prices and "handcuff" the U.S. to China because that country is home to the top makers of solar power plants and wind turbines, as well as EV battery producers.

Brenda Shaffer, a faculty member of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a political independent, said that if the U.S. abandons fossil fuel too quickly, "we're voluntarily making our own electricity more expensive, less reliable [and] more dependent on our enemies for the inputs to this new energy system."

American energy policy needs to consider the recent alignment of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, she said. This alignment addresses key strategic weaknesses of the U.S. rivals, such as China's dependence on imported energy and the susceptibility of Russia and Iran to sanctions.

"This alliance between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea solves all the problems," Shaffer said. "China not only gets uninhibited access to Russian and Iranian oil, but thanks to our sanctions on Russia and Iran, it gets it at a discount."

Similarly, sanctions have little effect on Russia and Iran because they have access to the huge Chinese market, she said.

Harris, who cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate in 2022 to pass the IRA, has called the legislation "the single largest climate investment in American history."

Sarah Bianchi, a former deputy U.S. trade representative in the Biden administration, said in a recent visit to South Korea that the IRA will end up being one of the most important laws in U.S. economic history, "but that doesn't mean that every day it feels like a clear win for everyone."

Bianchi, now a chief strategist for international political affairs and public policy at investment banking advisory firm Evercore, said though Democrats could point to "new investments, new factories, new jobs," they also need to respond to Trump's attempts to fuel anxiety, particularly in battleground states like Pennsylvania.

"There ... needs to be a sensitivity because transitions are bumpy for certain segments, and this one will be, too," she said.

During a seminar at American University in Washington on Thursday, Daniel Fiorino, the university's director of the Center for Environmental Policy, said the Harris campaign is "being cautious about climate and energy" as it seeks to win Pennsylvania.

"There is this perception that dealing with climate mitigation means higher energy prices," he said. "A lot of climate advocates are giving her room, because they realize the alternative is catastrophic for climate change."

Trump has vowed to impose a moratorium on new spending under Biden-led bills such as the Inflation Reduction Act. But whether Trump would seek a repeal of the IRA is debatable.

At the Drake forum, Robert Johnston, senior director of research at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, said a "reform" of the law would be more likely, because many of the battery investments spurred by the IRA are clustered in Republican states of the Rust Belt and the Southeast.

"If you look at some of the states that are going to be 'red' states and have strong Republican support, they are benefiting from some of these projects, which will certainly add complexity to any potential repeal," he said.

Additional reporting by Steven Borowiec in Seoul