By Ed Farnan, USDR Contributor
Americans are suffering unnecessarily under misdirected energy policies. Recent Dept. of Labor statistics showed that millions are still without jobs and our economy is sputtering, perched on the precipice of another recession. The bright spots in our economy seem to be Washington, where swamp gas is manufactured. The state of North Dakota, where real production of natural gas and oil is occurring, producing an unemployment rate of 3% and Texas where Gov. Rick Perry is a staunch advocate of recovering our energy resources.
North Dakotais in the middle of an energy boom as oil rigs and companies start to exploit the huge Bakken oil field. This oil field crosses state lines and goes up into Canada. The potential energy under the ground is massive.
Oilmen have known about the Bakken reserve for years, but the technology wasn’t capable of extracting it until recently with great advances in drilling and recovery techniques.
At the same time, this technology has lead to the capability of recovering massive amounts of natural gas, a clean-burning economical fuel. Some estimates have reported we have a hundred year supply right here in theUnited States. If government cooperated and fast tracked areas for resource exploration,Americacould see a rebound in its economy not seen in years.
You would think the administration would be championing this new technology and promoting its use in making our country energy self-sufficient, but facts are proving otherwise. Besides the shock of seeing taxpayer funded solar companies going belly-up because they are not economically feasible, it seems the administration wants to punish oil companies too, aside from the punishment they are handing out to coal companies:
Excerpts from Peterson Institute for International Economics October 2011 report: http://www.petersoninstitute.org/publications/pb/pb11-16.pdf
“Finds that proposed tax increases on just specific sectors (in this case, the oil industry) hamstring economic growth. Intangible Drilling Costs (IDC) in the new bill would no longer be allowed to be expensed for the Big Five. The API reports that this could put nearly 60,000 jobs at risk the first year that it would be implemented.”
It seems that when President Barack Obama said his policies would make energy prices necessarily skyrocket, he was serious. Even though we are sitting on some of the largest reserves of oil, gas and coal in the world, we are being hamstrung by administration policies. Policies which in turn are crippling our economy.
It is very conceivable that America could become energy self-sufficient with the right leaders. If American focus was directed at exploiting our own resources – including hydroelectric – to become energy self-sufficient, our economy would explode. Cheap, plentiful, domestic energy is the key to a healthy growing economy. It is the engine of growth.
Canada saw the light a few years back when it was mired in its own recession. They decided to exploit their natural energy resources and now their economy is booming. We should learn from them. Unshackling American ingenuity can make us energy independent with the proven resources we already know we have. Let the electric cars, solar and wind energy methods catch up, when if they can.
Ed Farnan is a syndicated columnist, featuring in many arenas such as The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, New York Daily News, USA Today, India Times,and many others all over the USA and world. He is a frequent contributor to Irish Central
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