00:00Well, one of the points is that you see these Asian countries that have relied so heavily on the Middle
00:09East for their crude oil and the time that it takes and the reliance on a route that in many
00:18respects a terrorist regime has been able to frequently disrupt or at the very least threatened to disrupt over the
00:25course of years and decades.
00:26Now they start looking east to the United States where we have been unleashing energy dominance here at home with
00:34new projects that are now on the horizon.
00:36President Trump has been advocating strongly for a new liquid LNG facility, a pipeline that would run alongside the Trans
00:46-Alaska Pipeline in Alaska.
00:48Crude oil in Alaska has the ability to have a lot more oil pass through it.
00:55And that route for 60 years with Japan, for example, has been able to deliver that crude oil to Asia,
01:05to Japan uninterrupted with freedom of navigation.
01:09Of course, I'm sorry for interrupting, but if I may, are you not getting any pushback that even if you
01:13make some of these deals and President Trump becomes displeased with these countries, he could claw back that energy?
01:21Well, what we just witnessed over the course of the last 48 hours is that many countries in the Indo
01:28-Pacific are gravitating towards the United States.
01:31We had over $50 billion worth of deals with the U.S. companies.
01:37All the dialogue that has taken place has been with an understanding that by entering into new deals with the
01:45United States,
01:46it allows them to reduce their reliance, which was so heavily concentrated in the Middle East.
01:52And on top of it, it takes just a fraction of time to get that energy supply to Japan and
02:00these other countries compared to 28 days to get it from the Middle East to take eight days to get
02:06there from Alaska.
02:07So that is another dynamic, but just a lot of very robust, energetic, motivated conversation and engagement from the ministers
02:19of energy of all of these countries trying to cut deals with the United States.
02:24Mr. Minister, you might have heard Christina say at the top here, this is, of course, a summit that was
02:29scheduled before the war began.
02:31And I'm curious, given what has happened here, how much that situation is kind of coloring the conversations that you're
02:37having with allies and companies at the summit over the course of this weekend?
02:45One of the topics that were discussed, one of the pillars of this weekend is about the supply chain.
02:53And for Indo-Pacific countries, they are, I think, far more motivated.
03:00They were talking quite frequently about wanting to diversify their supply chain, that they want to start looking elsewhere because
03:10they were relying too heavily on the Middle Eastern region for their supply chain.
03:15Now, so diversifying how they provide energy to their people.
03:21Some countries are further along in talking about nuclear.
03:25Others rely more on LNG.
03:27Others talking about coal.
03:29People, it really ran the gamut.
03:31And depending on which country we were sitting in for a bilateral or for meetings amongst all the energy ministers,
03:38diversification of the supply chain was not just a pillar going into this weekend, but something that was frequently talked
03:46about throughout.
03:47I have a couple of nuclear questions, but I do want to start with, when we look at the possible
03:52consequences of a regime falling in Iran, one of the concerns we've been hearing from nuclear experts and security experts
03:57is how to secure and possibly transport out that enriched uranium in that country.
04:03Is there a plan to do it?
04:04Does it involve American boots on the ground?
04:06And what can you tell us about what's going to happen there?
04:12Yeah, that's a question that I, as administrator of EPA, would not want to answer on behalf of the president
04:20of the White House, the Department of War, Department of State, or Department of Energy.
04:25The transport of uranium out of Iran and any other aspects of your question are questions that I, as EPA
04:36administrator, wouldn't be appropriate to be the one answering.
04:40Great questions, but I wouldn't be the right person for the administration to answer that.
04:44Fair enough.
04:45Let me ask you something kind of complementary to the strikes on Iran, and that is we've seen the administration
04:49open up those pipelines off the coast of California once again.
04:53And there are a lot of Californians who remember that oil spill back in 2015, that Refugio oil spill.
04:59They're worried about the integrity of those pipelines.
05:01And I wonder what your message is to them as we hear from the governor of that state and others
05:05saying, look, this is something that shouldn't be happening right now in light of the fact that there are 100
05:08,000 gallons of barrels of oil that were spilled as a result of that back in 2015.
05:16Well, I mean, it's always important to remember lessons learned of the past, to be leaning into new technology, to
05:25make sure that with new projects for extraction, for processing anywhere in America, that in the partnerships and in the
05:36requests for permits,
05:37and as this investment goes forward, that we are learning the lessons of the past and that we're doing it
05:44as safely as possible.
05:46I often talk about how I strongly believe that in the United States, we tap into our own energy supplies
05:53so much safer than so many other countries elsewhere around the world.
05:57And that runs across the gamut on all different kinds of ways that energy is extracted.
06:05So, yeah, to your question, which is a great one, it's important that when these projects, when these permits are
06:12moving forward, that we're doing it as responsibly as possible.
06:15I also want to ask you, as you talk about U.S. energy dominance, obviously, the president and a lot
06:20of people have said the U.S. should look more into nuclear.
06:22One of the things your agency and the Department of Energy have done is change some of the regulations for
06:27trying to build nuclear plants and nuclear reactors.
06:29That's had mixed results because it's trying to bring these plants online faster and solve this issue.
06:35But some of the criticism is it's taking away some of the safety concerns, including things like firearms trainings and
06:40emergency drills,
06:41which critics are saying could make these plants more vulnerable to theft of nuclear power.
06:46What is your response to that?
06:48And do you have any concerns with lessening regulations around nuclear reactors?
06:55At no point since I was sworn in as administrator 14 months ago with any nuclear project that I've seen
07:05anywhere inside the United States,
07:08have I seen anything but the highest level of competency brought to bear with very incredible staffers,
07:18many career staffers here at EPA doing our due diligence.
07:22Trump's speed is about operating quickly.
07:26The way that we have implemented that directive from the president is one that I can very confidently say with
07:34eyes on many different nuclear projects across this country
07:38that they're being done extraordinarily competently.
07:43And quite frankly, the people, the companies that are making the big investment,
07:46they have every motivation to protect that investment.
07:50And I would say that a lot of these companies are breaking ground on projects with goals of breaking ground
07:56on many more projects.
07:58So it's almost a proof of concept when, you know,
08:01Oclo in Idaho Falls, Idaho is breaking ground, which they have recently done.
08:07They want to build many more.
08:10I think of their project in Oak Ridge, in Tennessee, as well as other states.
08:14Right now, there are a lot of retrofits, a lot of small modular reactors.
08:18There are a lot of nuclear projects.
08:20Yes, the permitting is going much faster under President Trump.
08:24But due diligence and competency has been all over from the government standpoint,
08:29as well as from the investor standpoint.
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