What we will do is reach out to our own Texan, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and bend his ear,” said Steven H. Pruett, chief executive of Elevation Resources, a Texas oil and gas company. “And say, ‘Please, please get the Trump administration to back off of the Nafta cancellation rhetoric and enable us to continue to have the economic boom that natural gas has created for Texas.’”
Under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Mr. Trump has threatened to terminate unless he can get a “fair deal” for the United States, the authorization of natural gas exports is virtually automatic.
But if the United States pulls out of the agreement, it will be up to the Energy Department to approve future gas exports considered to be in the national interest.
That places Mr. Perry in a pivotal role at a tense time, and there is good reason to consider him a friend of the industry. As governor of Texas, he defended contentious practices like fracking to promote his state’s oil production and natural gas exports. Under his watch, production of natural gas in the state soared 50 percent.
