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-- or heat for your home. These are the people that are powering America and to have them back part of the conversation about where our future is going and the important role that energy plays, both in terms of our economic prosperity, but also bringing peace to the world. I'll let Secretary Wright say a few words and then we'll stand for questions.
Yeah, the one quick thing, this morning I signed another LNG export approval, CP2. This is a very large LNG export facility that was ready to be approved in the Biden Administration and this was the pause. The protest led up to the pause to stop this LNG permit. And one of the things we've released publicly, a report, an exhaustive report, on LNG exports done by the Department of Energy.
This report was completed in September of 2023. Think about that date, four months before the pause and desire to initiate a study was announced. Because this study, longer more exhaustive study than the one that was released more than a year later, showed that in all scenarios the impact on natural gas prices domestically was negligible.
And of course, as we become a natural gas exporting powerhouse, natural gas prices have gone one direction, down, and that greenhouse gas, global greenhouse gas emissions reductions would be reduced by increasing US exports of LNG. These are obvious if you're an energy nerd and you think about numbers or whatever, but these conclusions were politically inconvenient for the previous administration.
And truly shamelessly the report was buried and never issued. And, in fact, denied the existence. It's only with subpoenas from Congress and digging in that we actually got the report. The exact same title of the one released 15 months later. Um, this is the kind of lack of transparency and bringing politics into energy that this administration is not going to do. We have one constituency, the American people.
We want to bring low cost, affordable, reliable secure energy to Americans and our allies around the world. We're not going to be hiding the ball, uh, hiding studies that give opposite conclusions to reality. Um, we're going to restore a little credibility, a little bit of fact and science based stuff to energy policy in the United States.
And with that, I'll open Doug and I up for questions.
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Secretary Wright, sir -- Mr. Secretary, could you summarize what you heard about oil prices? What was the discussion on prices and what concerns did you hear from the industry?
There was really no discussion on price. Price is set by supply and demand. Uh, there's nothing we could say in that room, uh, that would change that one iota. Uh, and so it wasn't really a topic of discussion. But we did talk a lot about permitting because one of the things that this industry has faced is the onslaught of regulation that was really had one goal in mind, to try to drive their business out of business.
And story after story, uh, that Chris and I hear of people where the permitting process takes longer than the actual build process on critical, critical, infrastructure in our country. And this is unacceptable because right now we're in an AI arms race against China. China is building enormous amounts of electricity.
We've been shutting down baseload electricity in our country while they've been adding it. And this is the real existential threat to our country. We've got to be able to actually not just drill baby drill, but we've got to be able to build baby build so that we've actually got the infrastructure to drive our economy forward.
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What do you say to those consumers who are very upset, sir, about the fact that some of the electricity prices are going higher than anticipated in several areas around the country?
Oh, yes, in the last administration, last four years --
We're talking about now though.
Well over 20 percent rise in electricity prices with almost no increase in electricity output. So, we are moving urgently to reverse that trajectory, grow the supply of electricity and stop the rise of electricity prices first, and ultimately push electricity prices down.
When do you expect to see that shift, that change?
As fast as possible. As fast as possible. Reversing four years of treading the wrong direction is taking some time, but you will -- you will be seeing impacts of this later this year. As soon as possible.
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I should go back to --
You talked about $50 barrel of oil being a goal here, that's something that even Harold Hamm, you know, a donor and supporter of this president has said is a little too low for production. What's the balance that gets the president's goal of lowering energy costs, but also is, you know, sufficient for the industry to drill?
Well, I don't think I've mentioned $50 oil before. I've always said all commodities are supply and demand. What we can do is do everything we can to get barriers out of the way to grow supply. If you grow supply, that's the way you push prices down. And -- and I think we've seen prices come down a little bit already in anticipation that it's going to be easier to produce energy in the United States and it's going to be lower risk.
That's our goal, increase supply.
Can I just say, I want to just add to that, that there is a cost to energy and if we're using a proxy for one form of energy to be the price of a barrel of oil, is that our just back of the envelope feel in terms of the regulatory cost, whether it's permitting, whether it's frivolous lawsuits, whether it's protests, whether it's the challenges of building the linear infrastructure like a pipeline or a transmission line that get held up and held up by even, you, know local or state regulations, that could be more than 10 percent of the cost.
Could be higher at 20 percent of the cost of energy. If we can reduce the regulatory burden, that's another way we can get prices down in this country and it's one of the challenges that we're taking on.
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Gentleman -- gentleman on the topic, the topic --
You go.
What affect are tariffs going to have on energy prices in the United States?
The tariff dialog is still ongoing. Ultimately the president's whole economic agenda is to lower prices in the United States and grow job opportunities in the United States. I suspect as we get through these negotiations and we get forward, this end result of this will be more jobs in the United States and ultimately lower prices.
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Go, right here.
A little bit about tax credits, hydrogen, carbon sequestration tax credits, is that something the executives brought up in the meeting today?
There was no discussion of tax credits whatsoever during this meeting.
[Crosstalk]
During the president's call today --
Kaitlan, Kaitlan, let's go -- Kaitlan? Kaitlan?
During the president's call today with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, he proposed this idea of the US taking over nuclear power plants in Ukraine and utilities potentially as well. How would that work given it involves both of your portfolios?
No. No discussion about that right now. The United States and this president's agenda is more energy, more energy, ideally produced in the United States, but more energy to better lives and drive down prices.
But you haven't discussed the United States taking over nuclear power plants with the president?
No discussion of that today.
And how soon is that big plant going to come on? Could it even come online and produce power in Ukraine? I mean it's been heavily --
No. No comment on the Ukrainian nuclear.
Yeah, no -- no comment. Thank you all.
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Thanks everybody.
Thank you.