Lee Zeldin argued that expanding American energy production could provide economic and national security benefits at home while giving countries overseas an alternative source for their energy supplies.
Zeldin said other nations are increasingly interested in American energy as they consider ways to diversify their supply chains and reduce their reliance on existing sources.
“In order to unleash energy dominance here at home, it’s not just a benefit for Americans, we see a lot of other countries also interested in being able to access U.S. supply chains,” Zeldin said. “They want to diversify their supply chain, and they’re looking at us in a way that they haven’t done in a long time.”
Zeldin focused particularly on countries in the Indo-Pacific, saying their calculations about transportation times and freedom of navigation provide an incentive to consider American energy.
He said some countries have determined that obtaining energy supplies from the Middle East requires significantly more time than obtaining supplies from the United States.
“So when you want to, you know, look months and years into the future, we’re going to see the benefits from those Indo-Pacific countries that did the measurements and said, Okay, well, it takes us 28 days to get our energy supply from the Middle East,” Zeldin said.
Zeldin also pointed to freedom of navigation as an important consideration for those countries when determining where their energy supplies should originate.
“We don’t have total freedom of navigation,” Zeldin said. “If we were to get it from America, it would take us eight days with total freedom of navigation.”
Zeldin argued that the difference creates an opportunity for the United States to become a more important energy supplier for countries seeking alternatives.
His comments also focused on what the United States would need to do domestically to increase its ability to meet that demand.
Zeldin called for continued deregulatory efforts, faster permitting, additional pipeline construction and increased American energy supplies.
“So, when I look into the future post-conflict, that plus all the deregulatory efforts to make sure that we’re that we’re getting permits done, building new pipelines, that we’re ramping up our own supplies, it’s important for our economy, it’s important for our national security,” Zeldin said.
His argument places domestic infrastructure at the center of expanding American energy production. Increasing supply, according to Zeldin, requires not only access to energy resources but also the permits and pipelines necessary to move those resources where they are needed.
Zeldin connected those efforts directly to economic and national security considerations. By increasing domestic production and creating greater access to American supplies, he argued, the United States could strengthen its own position while giving international partners another option for meeting their energy needs.
The Indo-Pacific is a particular focus of that strategy in Zeldin’s comments. His argument is that shorter transportation times and freedom of navigation make American energy attractive to countries seeking to diversify where they obtain their supplies.
Zeldin also said increased reliance on American energy could carry environmental benefits. He argued that the United States handles energy production more effectively than many other countries around the world.
“I’d also argue that it’s better for our environment too, because we tap into these energy supplies so much better than so many other countries do elsewhere around the world,” Zeldin said.
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Taken together, Zeldin’s comments presented increased American energy production as serving several purposes at once: expanding domestic supplies, strengthening the economy, improving national security and providing foreign countries with additional choices for their energy needs.
His prescription centered on removing regulatory barriers and expanding infrastructure so that greater amounts of American energy can reach both domestic and international markets.
For Zeldin, the potential demand from Indo-Pacific countries demonstrates why increasing American production is not solely a domestic issue.
Those countries, he said, are examining how quickly and securely they can obtain energy and increasingly looking toward the United States as an alternative.
By accelerating permits, constructing pipelines and increasing supplies, Zeldin argued that the United States can capitalize on that interest while strengthening its position at home and abroad.
