Posted on 02/11/2015 4:35:29 PM PST by upsdriver
It’s always a pleasure returning to the beautiful Lone Star State. This week I’m in Houston speaking with the industrious men and women of America’s oil patch at the North American Prospect Expo. These are the unsung heroes of our nation’s energy renaissance.
In the brutal economic environment of the last six years, one sector had good news to report, and it came straight out of America’s oil patch. From 2007 to 2012, employment in the energy industry rose a dramatic 31.6 percent while employment nationwide fell 2.7 percent. U.S. oil production increased from 6.5 million barrels per day in 2012 to 7.4 million barrels per day in 2013, and in December, the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas produced its billionth barrel of oil. Thanks to American energy entrepreneurs’ drive and innovation, we’ve surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest oil and gas producer. This truly is a great American success story, and it’s a proud moment for those of us determined to educate D.C. bureaucrats on the link between energy and our security and prosperity.
Apparently, the president is pretty proud, too. In his State of the Union address last month, he boasted about the surge in oil and gas drilling, saying, “We are as free from the grip of foreign oil as we’ve been in almost 30 years.” From the way he’s talking, you’d think he coined the phrase “drill, baby, drill.” But it was just three years ago while campaigning in Miami that he lectured, “We can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices.” Respectfully, Mr. President, “yes we can.” And yes we did. Average gas prices were well over $3 in 2012, but in the first months of 2015, they’re near $2, with some states enjoying even lower prices.
Despite his newfound appreciation for drilling, the president fails to mention that most production is on private and state lands out of his control rather than on federal lands he can over-regulate and lock up. In fact, under the Obama administration, natural gas production on federal lands — onshore and offshore — has fallen an astonishing 28 percent while production on private and state lands, many sitting atop prolific shale plays like the Bakken and Eagle Ford, thankfully increased by 33 percent. Similarly, under Obama, oil production on federal lands has fallen 6 percent but increased by 61 percent on nonfederal lands.
Though they like to take credit for this energy renaissance, politicians weren’t the ones who searched the shale formations for resources to extract. It was our private sector, and its responsible use of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, that spearheaded the shale gas surge.
Our nation is blessed with the natural resources, the knowledge and the workforce to now take this energy renaissance to the next level. What we lack is the political leadership and courage to do so. T. Boone Pickens summed up the problem by observing that “a five-minute conversation on energy can’t happen in Washington, because within three minutes, you’ve run out of everything they know.” The private sector’s natural adversary has always been the market forces of supply and demand, so the last thing it needs is the artificial adversarial forces of political machinations.
Alaskans understand both of these frustrations. We know the challenges of wildly fluctuating oil prices. During the heyday of our trans-Alaska oil pipeline, oil prices were high, the boom was on and state government spent fast. Then the bottom fell out: $9 per barrel. Alaskans drove around with bumper stickers that read, “Dear God, give us another oil boom and we promise not to piss it away this time.” Alaskans also know the frustration of fighting against politicians in D.C. who constantly attempt to lock up huge swaths of our resource-rich Arctic land and water. Just last month, the Obama administration released a plan to potentially expand offshore drilling in Virginia and the Carolinas while placing millions of acres in Alaska off limits to future development. The president’s advisers would have you believe he’s being pragmatic, but to those in Houston and Anchorage, it looks like pretzel logic.
If the administration sincerely wanted to help our domestic energy sector, it would lift the four-decade-old ban on exporting crude oil. American producers shouldn’t have to beg permission of our own government to export our resources while the White House negotiates increased oil exports with Iran. For an administration not shy about acting on its own, it has no excuse to ignore this and not even consider lifting the ban. I challenge the watchdog press to ask why this is so.
The energy sector has been a star athlete, and Washington is scrambling on the sidelines, unaware of how to react. Let’s remind them that our government is supposed to work for us, not get in our way. Let’s tell them, “Just watch.” Watch how America’s oil patch fuels our nation’s economic engine. Watch how continued investment, innovation, exploration and production allow the U.S. to remain the global economic powerhouse. Watch the men and women of America’s new energy boomtowns in states like Texas show the bureaucrats in D.C. that no matter what roadblocks are placed in their way, they’ll find a way through and build a stronger America.
ping to Sarah’s list
Happy Birthday Sarah! Wish you were Alberta’s
Fabulous speech.
Lets see the Libs and the prim tut-tutters of the D.C. “Conservative” establishment complain about this one.
I think the name George Mitchell and Harold Hamm should be synonymous with Edison, Jobs, Gates, Ford etc.
Yes, they got rich, but they all do. These few actually changed our lives, and the world’s. But outside their industry Mitchell and Hamm are nobodies.
Lets see the Libs and the prim tut-tutters of the D.C. “Conservative” establishment complain about this one.
I agree.
As for those who criticize Palin, I really don't give a damn. Sarah Palin stands head and shoulders about those nattering nabobs of negativism. They have nearly destroyed our country. Palin, along with millions of her supporters, will rescue it.
Lots of jobs are created because individuals lay their money, hard work and reputations on the line. Yes, many get wealthy in the process but many, too, go broke. The profit motive is crucial to a free society. Sarah Palin knows it. I wish SOMEONE in Washington would know it, too.
Obummer and his whackjob supporters are trying to shut down the Alaskan oil industry. They figure if they can lock down ANWR and the continental shelf long enough Prudhoe Bay production will fall to the point that the pipeline will have to be shut down.
That’s true. Palin talks about that in this column. Most of growth in oil drilling has been on private and state controlled lands. Just think if we ever get a president that opens up the vast federal lands to exploration. I would like to see the states take control of these lands from the federal government.
Another thing to think about. the oil, gas and coal extracted from the federal lands would go a long, long way towards reducing the deficits and national debts.
I read in USAToday last week:
“Republicans talked about drill baby drill but it was Obama that made it happen”
The bizarro part is that 50% of Americans will believe it by Nov 2016.
The fact is with modern drilling technology there would be a tiny footprint in ANWR that wouldn't harm the land or the critters.
Yes, I’ve seen them. My position on drilling is that if there’s oil under the White House lawn, we go after it.
Here in ND’s Bakken field, oil is being extracted from under Lake Sakakawea. Directional drilling has dramatically reduced the environmental footprint.
I am so glad that gas is down....but it worries me that it went up 9 cents this week. Hopefully that trend turns back to going down-down-down. We should really be paying about 90 cents when we did during the heyday of the 90’s.
Gas has gone up here the last few days from $1.99 to $2.19. I predict it will go up even further. If the Federal government ever opens up fed controlled lands, prices could be dramatically reduced. That is as long as producers can get it out of the ground and still make a profit.
Ping to Sarah's Amazing List!
On this thread is the whole article Sarah wrote.
It is required reading.
America has an almost unbelievable amount of resources. We are discovering more deposits and new technology is being developed to exploit them at a fast pace.
I have been doing research and have been reading much on the Oil Industry of late and we are truly witnessing the beginning of a New American Energy Renaissance.
USA Today?
Oh, yeah.
That's the comic-book lookin' thing gets dropped outside the door and I leave my boots on to keep the mud off the carpet in my motel room.
Come to think about it, I actually DID read through one of those "news"papers some time ago, but I really think it's highest value is exactly what I've described above: a door mat. (Even if it is such a sorry grade of paper you've gotta use two or three of 'em most times.)
Hey! I had one of those bumper stickers--In North Dakota in the '80s.
She's right, but duh-1 isn't interested in a strong America--quite the opposite.
The result is an incredible investment with the opportunity for a return removed by decree.
Leigh Price should be in there, too. He was the USGS geochemist who recognized that the oil generated in the Bakken had stayed in the formation, and was providing estimates of billions of barrels in place as early as 1993. His work was one of the foundations of the Bakken boom.
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