Senators urge Trump administration to make loans available for energy producers
Several U.S. Senators are calling on Trump administration officials to act swiftly to make loans available to domestic energy producers.
“We face a real and present danger of seeing hundreds, if not thousands of oil producers shuttering, an event that will profoundly and negatively impact the industry, its financial partners and consumers for years to come,” the senators wrote to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. “The prospect of once again becoming reliant on oil imports is an unacceptable situation, and we should do all we can to avoid it.”
The letter was signed by U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), John Barrasso (R-WY), Steve Daines (R-MT), John Hoeven (R-ND), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Enzi R-WY), Roger Wicker (R-MS), and Ted Cruz (R-TX).
“Our energy producers should not be unfairly excluded from credit due to an arbitrary date, and their viability should be protected with enhanced support for their credit and access to capital. Assisting these companies could be the difference between maintaining our domestic energy production and workforce or shedding more U.S. jobs and returning to dependence on foreign sources of oil,” they wrote.
The oil and gas industry supports more than 10 million jobs in the United States.
