CALGARY — A Canadian pipeline boss led a new report advising the Trump administration on how to more quickly build new oil and gas infrastructure in the United States amid a push north of the border to do the same.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright requested the study on permitting from the National Petroleum Council, which includes 200 members he appointed from both inside and outside the oil and gas industry. The body was formed just after the Second World War.

TC Energy Corp. president and CEO François Poirier chairs the council’s committee on oil and natural gas permitting, and was in Washington on Wednesday for the release of the report entitled Bottleneck to Breakthrough: A Permitting Blueprint to Build.

Poirer said in an interview Thursday that common challenges arise in each of the three countries in which TC Energy operates: Canada, the United States and Mexico.

“We would like to see permitting timelines get shorter. We would like to see one application and one review as opposed to being reviewed by multiple bodies with overlap in reviews,” he said.

And he said his company would also like to see “clarity and stability and durability” of the rules applicants must follow.

TC Energy is headquartered in Calgary and operates the vast pipeline network that ships natural gas across Canada. Its U.S. presence is also substantial, delivering a quarter of total American natural gas demand, operating in 36 states and employing some 3,200 people across that country.

Poirier said the petroleum council selected him to steer the study because of TC Energy’s “domestic expertise” as a major player in U.S. infrastructure.

“However, we have the benefit of drawing from best practices in Canada and Mexico,” he said.

The fact that Wright gave the council five months to put together the report — work that would normally take 12 to 18 months — signals the “very high level of urgency” of the U.S. administration, Poirier said.

Indeed, the report opens by saying the U.S. stands at a “pivotal moment” that will shape its economy, national security and global standing for decades to come.

“A surge in energy demand, driven by widespread electrification, the resurgence of domestic manufacturing, the proliferation of data centres and the strategic expansion of liquefied natural gas exports is colliding with aging and limited infrastructure,” said the petroleum council’s report.

“The country has reached the point where capacity has been expanded as much as possible. Outdated and fragmented permitting processes are increasingly unable to keep pace with these shifts, widening the gap between the infrastructure that is needed to sustain U.S. growth and reliability and what is actually being built.”