Extremely successful oil exec Harold Hamm: "It would be very, very good if we didn't have a government that was intent on putting us out of business...It's hard to understand why the administration isn't embracing this great renaissance of oil"

Harold Hamm on Oil, Climate Change, and His Divorce - NationalJournal.com

WILLISTON, N.D.—Washington's fixation on Harold Hamm, the onetime top energy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has waned since the former Massachusetts governor lost the 2012 race. But as long as America is booming with oil, as it is here in the Bakken shale-oil fields of North Dakota, Hamm will be more relevant than he ever was in Romney's campaign.

Hamm is founder and CEO of Continental Resources, the independent oil company with the most drilling rights in the Bakken and Three Forks oil-formations spanning Western North Dakota and bits of Montana and South Dakota. That makes him one of the most influential oil-industry executives and one of the richest people alive.
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[Hamm] It would be very, very good if we didn't have a government that was intent on putting us out of business. They don't like oil and gas. They don't like fossil fuels. They want to end us. That's the belief out here in the industry. If we didn't have that overhang, it'd be a lot easier to work with the federal government.
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Hamm: There's been one thing that's caused this whole boom, and it's horizontal drilling. It's created something here that is so important, more so for oil and what oil means for the U.S., than natural gas. We're not importing natural gas from the Middle East. We're not fighting wars over there for natural gas. We're fighting wars over there and have troops there and being very intense on security over oil. That's what it's all about.

It's hard to understand why the administration isn't embracing this great renaissance of oil.