Oil and gas leaders in the Texas Panhandle who formed a group called the Panhandle Import Reduction Initiative three years ago are asking President Trump to correct what it claims are unfair trade policies hurting the U.S. oil and gas industry. They also want the President to recognize oil and gas among core industries in the U.S.
The group recent sent a letter to President Trump after the President issued a memo for Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross to use the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to investigate core industries such as steel, aluminum, vehicles, aircraft, shipbuilding and semiconductors…critical elements of manufacturing and defense industrial bases, according to a report by the Amarillo Globe-News.
“It’s a core industry in that it reduces poverty and it increases the standard of living for people,” said Tom Cambridge, PIRI facilitator and petroleum geologist at Amarillo’s Cambridge Production Inc. “We think that having a stable oil supply in this country that is not threatened by Saudi Arabia and OPEC is good for national security.”
Cambridge says there are several hundred members in PIRI, most of whom are producers and royalty owners — “Mainly those that are out of work or have been financially hurt by what’s going on when oil prices dropped,” he said.
