This week’s midterm elections provided an outline for where the country is headed politically for the next two years and the results are largely positive for the oil and gas industry. According to Scott Segal, founding partner at Bracewell & Guiliani, the results, which saw the Republican Party take control of the U.S. Senate while maintaining control of the House of Representatives, represent a return to the regular order of business.

During a webinar held by the law firm to discuss the results and their ramifications on legislation and regulation, Segal said that this regular order meant that members will once again offer amendments and legislation rather than trying to stymie the opposition party. This includes taking up some of the legislation that passed the House in the Senate. While this doesn’t sound like such a big change, it is when you consider that the current Senate only took up a total of seven amendments.

“This election demonstrates a nationalization of the electorate. It was a vote on President Obama and, to a lesser extent, on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,” Segal said. “In fact, Sen. Reid’s concept of protecting his voters in the Senate from hard votes and protecting and conserving President Obama’s political capital by not forcing him to issue any vetoes. … What this did was deprive those marginal senators—the fiscally conservative Democrats—from the ability to be relevant … and allowed moderate Democrats to be characterized as being in 100% agreement with the President because there were no votes to distinguish themselves on things like carbon emissions or Keystone XL.”

The reason these results are likely to result in smoother legislative sailing is not just because of one party controlling both the House and Senate, but because of the expected new Senate Majority Leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

According to Segal, McConnell’s decades of experience and status as a long-time student of the Senate will help him keep order while also reaching across the aisle to see legislation get through the Senate.

Indeed, during his victory speech on Nov. 4, McConnell said, “We can have a two-party system without constant conflict.” However, Segal noted that the biggest challenge for the Republican leadership will be overreach as well as the possibility that some factions within the Republican Party may seek to widen their divide.

Segal stated that while it isn’t yet known what will be the main focus for the new Senate, it is likely that energy legislation, including LNG exports to non-free trade agreement (FTA) countries and the Keystone XL Pipeline, will be focal points based on their place in the Republican agenda. It is expected that the Senate will vote on legislation that previously passed the House that seeks approval for the Keystone XL, but the timing for such a vote is unknown as of yet.

The current geopolitical landscape in which Russia is flexing its muscles in Eastern Europe by attempting to force countries to bend to its political will in order to secure supplies of natural gas may move the issue of LNG exports further up the Senate’s agenda.

“There has been a lot of frustration the past few years over the pace of approvals of LNG export terminals to non-FTA states,” Eric Washburn, former staffer for Tom Daschle and principal at Bracewell & Guiliani, said during the webinar. “Two events have happened over the last six months that have sharpened the focus on LNG exports: Russia showing aggression in the Ukraine, which has increased the debate over how the EU can lessen its dependence on Russia for its gas supplies, and the change in power of the U.S. Senate.”

The question is now, can the leaders in the 114th Congress help to speed these approvals up? Washburn acknowledged it is difficult to tell if the Obama administration will help with this, but there should be more oversight of the process with new legislation.

Salo Zelermyer, former senior counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy and senior counsel at Bracewell & Guiliani, said that while the U.S. has been quick to grant licenses to export LNG to FTA countries, licenses to non-FTA countries are especially important as they don’t cover all of our allies, including Japan and the Ukraine.

“Prior to [Nov. 4], this administration has been resistant to including things like energy exports into trade negotiations,” Zelermyer said, but added that LNG could jump ahead of the Keystone XL if Russia continues to act in a bullying fashion.

This could create an interesting scenario in which decisions would have to be made for Senators that support the Keystone XL Pipeline, but oppose increased exports as coalitions may not be as strong and sides may have to be picked between the two.

In addition, Zelermyer questioned what President Barack Obama would do if a bill seeking to speed up LNG export licenses to non-FTA countries came to his desk. “Thus far the administration’s arguments against legislation to accelerate the regulatory process has largely been about the process and not actual opposition to exports. Will the president veto a bill that is so important to our allies over a process and not the substance?”

Another topic gaining support in Congress is the allowance of crude exports, but it contains more potential political landmines. “Crude exports occupy an interesting place both from a political and policy standpoint. This is one of the topics that can provide a bipartisan opportunity to address both energy and economic issues,” Josh Zive, senior counsel at Bracewell & Guiliani, said during the webinar.

“The current policy really is a remnant of a different era. The current crude export restrictions were adopted in 1975 in the wake of the OPEC oil embargo and are explicitly based on a domestic shortfall situation.”

As oil production has boomed, there has been a renewed call on the option to export some volumes that may not have a natural home in the U.S. This call certainly hasn’t been uncontroversial as it touches on a number of issues politically: the implications for gasoline prices, implications for continued production of oil and gas if we don’t export some volumes and international implications for crude prices, he said.

In the next few months, this debate will take on a much higher profile as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) will head the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee. She has been most vocal member urging exports and is committed to having a public debate on the matter. Zive added that this debate won’t just focus on crude exports, it will also cover other artificial price inflators on crude, including Jones Act Ships.

Looking ahead to the 2016 elections, Republicans will face a harder road as the majority party as they will now be defending seats while also having a higher voter turnout with a presidential election. Additionally, incumbent Senators will also have to campaign with established legislative records since Senate Majority Leader McConnell will introduce more legislation for votes which could hamper any truly controversial legislation from reaching the floor.