While it remains to be seen whether the Obama White House will be more friendly towards oil and natural gas in its second term, it appears to have become more coordinated on oil and gas issues, said a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA).

During President Obama’s first term in office, there were 12 different agencies that were looking at oil and gas, said IPAA spokesman Jeff Eshelman. The fact that there is a “single point person” now at the White House to address energy and climate issues “has been helpful for the industry,” he noted.

Heather Zichal is the deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, She became the top White House advisor on the issues following the 2011 departure of Carol Brown from the administration.

“There still are some causes for some concern,” Eshelman said. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been an “activist” agency in the past. The question is whether this will continue into the future. Producers have to remain vigilant that the hydraulic fracturing rule “gets done appropriately.”

Obama’s appointees for EPA, the Interior Department and Energy Department “are picking up a lot of the [contentious] issues that their predecessors left behind.”

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