Congressman August Pfluger (TX-11) joined Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street to discuss his recent visit to Midland. On the visit, Rep. Pfluger hosted EPA Regional Administrator Scott Mason and Rep. Julie Fedorcheck (ND-At-Large) to tour one of Diamondback Energy's production sites and participate in a roundtable discussion with producers, stakeholders, EPA officials, and other local leaders on the energy industry's future. Read more about the trip and view pictures here.

Watch the full interview HERE or read highlights below.

Maria Bartiromo: Earlier this week, you hosted EPA officials at the Permian Basin, the energy capital of West Texas and your district, to address these federal oil and gas regulations that were put in place under the Biden administration. Tell me about that, and how is Trump cutting back on that red tape, and what are the challenges that energy producers are still facing? Because I know this is night and day when you look at the policies, correct?

Rep. Pfluger: Well, you're absolutely right, and they are still facing a number of challenges... But what a difference an election makes to bring in Mr. Scott Mason, who is the Region 6 EPA Director, as well as Lee Zeldin, who showed up in the Permian Basin, and to demonstrate to them the work that has been done in the Permian Basin and throughout the other producing regions in the country, to produce efficient, affordable, reliable energy...I think most producers there really want a sweet spot, and that sweet spot, price-wise, is somewhere between $65 and $80 / bbl because they want predictability.Rig counts are already starting downward because they're making business decisions and are not quite sure about what the future holds. But when you talk about lower gasoline prices, yes, that is very, very important, but it's also important that we have a good, predictable supply and demand, and that's what producers are worried about right now, which is just predictability. They're going to hang in there, they always have. We've always survived. But again, a good sweet spot, $65 to $85 really helps our economy flourish.

Maria Bartiromo: They also need predictability on policy, because these are long-term contracts that these oil companies and oil suppliers, and drillers are making. And so, they need to know that permitting, for example, is going to be sustained, permitting deregulation, so that they can actually get the permits on a timely basis, and they can actually invest the way they want to. How can you, as a lawmaker, codify some of these executive orders that President Trump has put in place to ensure that they don't go away in four years?

Rep. Pfluger: Well, President Trump has taken very aggressive action on deregulation. Administrator Lee Zeldin is leading the way with 31 deregulatory acts, and as chairman of the Republican Study Committee, we are championing an initiative that would codify many of those actions already, and you're exactly right. They [companies] want predictability, not to have to compete against the U.S. government, not to have to compete against the overreaching nature of that far left liberal machine that we've seen for so long. And they want to know that the investments that they're going to make are actually going to return profits that they can put into more drilling, more access to energy, so that we can actually have affordable, reliable energy, not just here, but also for our partners and allies.