JOHN HOFMEISTER (FORMER PRESIDENT, ROYAL DUTCH SHELL): The facts are the facts. And, yes, production did increase throughout [President Barack Obama's] term. But, frankly, he had nothing to do with it. This was production in states like Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, North Dakota in particular. And these were all state decisions made with industry applications for permits. The federal government had no role. And if anything, he was trying to frustrate the efforts by taking federal lands off of the availability list. Putting them out -- you know, just no more drilling, he shut down the Gulf of Mexico for a period of six months, changed the regulations from an average of 60 to 80 pages per -- for permit, to 600 to 800 pages per permit. He also never approved the Keystone XL pipeline after dangling all the potential customers for eight years, and it was in the eighth year when he said no Keystone pipeline. And so, I would say that he was not a leader when it comes to energy other than the Clean Air Act -- or the Clean Power Plan, where he tried to remake the power generation industry without involving Congress, and the Paris Accords, again, without involving Congress. So he did try to do a lot, but it was not in the direction of the kind of energy that President Trump is working on.
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Beneficiary of fracking, too, correct?
HOFMEISTER: Absolutely. And fracking, of course, came online about the time that Obama became president, which again, he had nothing to do with. And the Environment Protection Agency did a number of studies and were able to demonstrate that fracking did not pollute local ground water, and so we continue to frack.
