Jamie Jackson (2:56)

Well, Lester, what do you make of that? When we've heard the administration focus a lot on perhaps tactical successes. Right. We heard the defense secretary earlier today say 15,000 targets have been hit, but have they clearly communicated the objectives that have to be met in order for the timeline to be reached and us to see this conflict pull back?

Lester Munson (3:14)

Well, I actually think the administration, when you, when you kind of maybe average out all of the statements, has been fairly consistent in what they're saying, which is we want to eliminate Iran's capability to threaten the United States with nuclear weapons, threaten its neighbors with its ballistic missile technology, threaten the Strait of Hormuz with its navy and then the production facilities for all of those things. And that's, and that's what I think, think the president is referring to when he says, you know, we won on day one because the initial strikes were so effective and did, in fact, eliminate at least the very top leadership of the country.

Bloomberg Host (3:51)

Glad we could get a swing from both of you on this. Lester Munson and Jamie Jackson are going to stay with us as we now add the voice live from Tokyo of Doug Burgum, the US Secretary of the Interior Secretary. Welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. I know you're joining us from a world away at the Japan Energy Summit that's underway in Tokyo. We'd like to ask you about what you're hearing in Japan. I just want to start first, though, on the matter of Iran. Is the energy issue going to bring out a quick resolution to this war?

Doug Burgum (4:23)

Well, I think what we're seeing here, of course, is the strength of President Trump, you know, setting clear objectives, our military executing nearly flawlessly. And, and of course, what this exposes for the whole world is that we do have a terrorist regime that is threatening the world economy. This is a regime that 47 years, when they, when they took over, literally took American hostages, now they're holding the entire world economy hostage. President Trump and the allies understand that on the backside of this, when this is resolved, that the world's going to be peace, there's going to be more peace in the world, there's going to be more prosperity and there's going to be more stability and more freedom of Movement of energy for all countries.

Jamie Jackson (5:07)

Mr. Secretary, I want to ask you about some of the actions being put into motion when it comes to responding to the energy markets, including that earlier this week you said that domestic oil producers have told the administration that they're increasing output in shale basins. Could you give us any more insight into who those producers are and what kind of increase we can expect from that response and on what sort of timeline?

Doug Burgum (5:32)

Well, as again, in course, in America, as you know, these are private companies, some of them are public. I'll let them talk about their own production plans and their production increases. But certainly when there's a price indication that's happening, happening right now, this is an opportunity. Shale producers have the ability to increase their production. Some of them have drilled but uncompleted wells. They just have to turn those on. And of course, we're seeing our partners. I just got back from Venezuela last week, where you've got companies like Chevron that are indicating that they can accelerate their development in places like that. And of course, the administration taking steps in places like California, where we've got offshore in California, that, that if it weren't being blocked by the state of California in terms of a regulatory and red tape, you know, that that could substantially increase the amount of oil being produced in California. So there's a lot we're looking, we're, you know, every stone is being overturned. The team in D.C. and the team that's here, across a whole set of cabinet members from the Trump administration that's here, we have 17 countries attending this Indo Pacific Energy Security Ministerial. All of these countries are understanding that it's important for them, for their economies and for their countries and for their citizens to have energy security. And they're looking to buy energy from a trusted ally. And of course, here we are in Japan, who's been buying LNG from Alaska for more than 50 years without a single interruption because there are no choke points when you're buying energy from the United States. And that's very different than when you're buying from providers where you've got a terrorist regime. And whether it's directly the Iranians or their proxy, the Houthis, that can cut off flows of commerce to the world, energy security matters to these buyers. And that's why we're seeing these senior leaders and some of the largest LNG companies in the world all here. There's going to be a lot of deals announced in the next couple days at this event, meaning in the tens of billions of dollars, because there's that kind of understanding of the importance of energy security.

Bloomberg Host (7:41)

Well, we'd love to hear more about that when those deals are announced. Secretary, I hope you can come back to Bloomberg to tell us about it. I'm wondering what you're hearing from our allies, from our partners there in Tokyo about triple digit crude oil, how long they can last before this damages their economies and how often you're hearing China come up. You know, Russia and China have been framed as the winners here.

Doug Burgum (8:05)

Well, I think that one of the things that, that we're seeing is that, you know, China having really benefited with the failed sanctions under the Biden administration, when we had failed sanctions on Venezuela, Iran and Russia, the three places where we've had conflicts in the world, you know, they've been buying for the last three or four years, they've been buying discounted refined product and discounted oil. I mean, I basically say the failed sanctions, the Biden administration just turned Russia, Iran and Venezuela into China's discount gas station. They took full advantage of that, building

Bloomberg Host (8:39)

up the largest control sanctions on Russia. Right.

Doug Burgum (8:41)

Of course.

Bloomberg Host (8:42)

Doesn't that make it cheaper for China?

Doug Burgum (8:47)

Well, it's going to make it more, more expensive because that's going to increase the price of that floating oil that's out there right now. But this, this temporary waiver on the Russian floating oil, most of that oil had already left Russia. So Russia's not benefiting from that. If there's any price arbitrage, it was whoever owned the cargo after it left Russia. But you know, that's going to help make sure that we can keep prices down for our allies like India. And so again, that was a smart move that the administration undertook on that temporary waiver on all that floating, you know, the dark fleet oil that was out there again to help relieve some of the short term pressure. But meanwhile, you know, our military making incredible progress on, you know, securing the objectives of this conflict.

Jamie Jackson (9:31)

You said, Mr. Secretary, that there's a lot of tools that the administration can invoke. I'm wondering what's still on the table. Could we see a federal gas tax next holiday? Could we see the invoking of the Jones act or even a push to get higher ethanol content gasoline onto the market?

Doug Burgum (9:52)

Well, I think all of these ideas are under consideration and we've got, you know, teams, like I said, that are working around the clock doing analysis and effort on this and in an effort to try to focus on affordability and keeping the prices down. But this has been our focus since the day that President Trump took office when he took office and declared an energy emergency. It was because energy prices were out of control, whether it was for electricity or for liquid fuels or for heating your home. And of course, those prices have dropped dramatically in the last year because President Trump's policies of energy dominance, which is about having enough energy for low prices at home and being able to help lower prices for our allies. Lifting the ban on LNG export facilities, which also happened immediately in the Trump administration, has allowed us to become the number one LNG export. We've displaced two thirds of the Russian gas that was being sold into Western Europe this past winter. I mean, the estimates are that that's in the tens of billions of dollars that were saved by consumers and our allies because of us being able to literally come to the rescue with low energy prices. And whether it's, whether it's prescription drugs, whether it's housing, whether it's interest rates, whether it's food, President Trump has been on the march lowering those prices for Americans. And with this, you know, temporary, temporary, temporary interruption versus to have an opportunity for long term transformation, I think this is something that everybody in the world should be joining in. If everybody thinks it's okay, you know, to have a regime that killed 40,000 of their own people before this recent conflict even started, just because people were expressing free speech in the street, do you think that's okay to have that group of people controlling the world's energy supplies and the world market? You know, then I would be surprised. I mean, people need to come to a realization that this is a, this is a global problem. People should be aligned with President Trump and aligned with the United States to say, you know, we're not going to, we shouldn't be, we shouldn't be standing for having a group of terrorists control the global economy.

Bloomberg Host (11:55)

Yeah. Secretary Bergen, we heard from the head of the CME group today, Terry Duffy. You probably know each other. He was speaking at a conference in Florida and said the Trump administration would risk a biblical disaster. His words, if it attempts to lower oil prices is by intervening in derivative markets. Right. The oil paper market. We're talking futures and options. Is that something under consideration?

Doug Burgum (12:21)

Well, I'd say there's certainly been a discussion. We've got a lot of smart people working in this administration. There's a lot of smart people that work in the energy trading market. The energy trading is one of the biggest markets in the world. An intervention there to try to manipulate and lower prices, we would require enormous amounts of capital. That's all I'll say on that front. But I'd say that right now, you know, you know, the best way to get prices down is increase supply to match demand. And President Trump again, under President Biden, we were, we were lowering the amount of energy we were producing. We were regulating it out of, out of business, strangling entire industries that were producing either electricity or liquid fuels out of business. And now it's gone the complete opposite direction. It's about more electricity, more energy, the energy abundance, energy dominance is the supply side. Let's increase the supply to lower prices. We do have a temporary disruption in transit, but the world is well supplied in that. And that was reflected in the markets just a month ago, which is, you know, we've got, you know, new sources coming on, whether Venezuela ramping up, whether it's other, other allies around the world. I mean, we're fortunate with new technology, the oil producers are producing more all the time. You know, just think, 20 years ago, people thought the US was going to run out of oil and gas. I mean, so let's just step back a second and understand how did we go from the sky is falling, we're running out of oil and gas, we're running out of energy, to becoming the world's number one oil producer and the number one natural gas producer, number one LNG exporter. That was because of innovation. American innovation drove these dramatic turnaround. And that alone has, that is like a trillion dollar tax break for Americans because of the energy innovation that's come from this private sector in the oil and gas and energy industries in our country. And now we have an opportunity to, to share that abundance with, with our friends and allies around the world. That's what we're doing here in Japan with these 17 countries that are here to sign deals with the US for secure supply chains from places like Alaska, where we've got enormous amounts of LNG and we could be providing all of our partners more secure and lower cost energy across the Pacific. Our traditional allies, whether it's Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Taiwan, you go down list. And our territories, I mean the territories that are part of, of the U.S. department of Interior, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. the Marianas Islands, these are all places where we've got military bases and in many cases, including Hawaii, you know, we're buying foreign oil. We have an opportunity in America under President Trump's energy dominance, to sell energy even to our own territories, into our own states in the Pacific. Alaska's can be a key part of that. And so again, even as we've got the conflict going on, this administration can be do more than one thing at a time. And there's going to be incredible progress here on building a secure energy future for our allies and friends in our territories and our states in the Pacific.

Jamie Jackson (15:12)

Just very quickly, Mr. Secretary, for clarity, has the administration intervened already when it comes to the oil futures market?

Doug Burgum (15:23)

Not that I'm aware of. Has there been any, any intervention in those markets?

Jamie Jackson (15:29)

All right. Doug Burgum, US Secretary of the Interior, thank you so much for joining us.

Hulu Narrator (15:33)

Friends like these. The Murder of Skylar Nese is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney911.

Doug Burgum (15:39)

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Jamie Jackson (15:43)

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Lester Munson (15:46)

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Hulu Narrator (15:47)

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Hulu Narrator (15:55)

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