President-elect Donald Trump (R) wants to greatly relieve, if not eliminate, Federal restrictions on oil and natural gas producers so they can “drill, drill, drill.” Lots of folks, including shortsightedly, lots of major (and not so major) oil and gas producer executives think that’s a bad idea.

But some donors grimace when they hear Trump promise that under his watch, crude-oil producers would open the floodgates. He has also promised to cut Americans’ energy costs by 50% or more.
Oil backers’ skepticism stems from the fact that Wall Street has successfully pressured chronically indebted frackers to stop burning through cash, and return it to shareholders via buybacks and dividends instead of reinvesting it to frack more wells.
“Our stocks will be absolutely crushed if we start growing our production the way Trump is talking about it,” said Bryan Sheffield, a Texas oilman who contributed more than $1 million to Trump’s latest campaign.

That argument is a bit of a non sequitur, and so it presents no reason to not remove the restrictions. The removal wouldn’t force the oil and gas producers to drill with abandon or to increase drilling or to drill at all. It would, however, let the producers adjust their drilling from sound business reasons rather than be confined to Government’s political reasons for any adjustment.