On Tuesday, the president will deliver his State of the Union message.
The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama will continue his “move to the center.” The quotation marks are necessary because some people think he really is moving to the center, while others think he just wants to appear like he is.
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Either way, this undoubtedly means Obama will try to seem as if he’s meeting Republicans halfway on their “reasonable” demands (quotation marks for the same reason as before) while drawing a stark line against their “unreasonable” ones.
As much as I may enjoy it, this sort of strategizing leaves most Americans cold. As far as I can tell, these days they are less concerned with “triangulation” than they are with the creation of good jobs that aren’t bogus make-work, or paid for with money borrowed from China or our grandkids.
If that’s the case, the solution is right in front of the president’s face. To echo a chant from the 2008 Republican convention, “Drill, baby, drill!”
The objective case for developing our oil and gas wealth is pretty straightforward. With the exception of climate change, pretty much everything the Obama administration considers a major problem would be improved by opening the floodgates to new exploration.
The deficit? The oil industry already pays the U.S. treasury more than $95 million a day in taxes, rent, royalties, and the like. If you expand exploration, you expand revenues. According to estimates, if America unlocked its oil and gas reserves, the government could take in somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in additional revenue over the coming years. And that’s not counting the increased revenues from the stimulus of lower fuel and energy costs.
Trade imbalances? Domestic oil and gas is, by definition, not imported. The more we produce here, the less we import, or the more we can sell overseas. Either way, the trade deficit goes down and GDP goes up.
Jobs? You can’t drill for American oil or natural gas in China, Saudi Arabia, or anyplace other than America. Oil- and gas-exploration jobs pay more than twice the national average.
Just take a gander at North Dakota, where oil production is up 138 percent since 2008. The boom “has helped make its economy almost recession-proof,” writes American Enterprise Institute economist Mark Perry. North Dakota’s “jobless rate never exceeded 4.4 percent even during the Great Recession when the U.S. rate hit 10.1 percent.” North Dakota, with a $1 billion surplus, and the lowest unemployment rate in the country, has more jobs today than it did when the recession started in 2007. Perversely, as AEI’s Steve Hayward notes, if trends continue, North Dakota may well out-produce California and Alaska (it’s already zoomed past Oklahoma), not because California and Alaska are running out of oil, but because the feds keep their oil reserves under lock and key.
All in all, the American Petroleum Institute believes we may have 100 billion barrels of untapped oil — that’s 10 million barrels a day for 30 years, or the equivalent of our total imports of foreign oil.
1. "If you expand exploration, you expand revenues." No. If you expand production, you expand revenues.
2. "All in all, the American Petroleum Institute believes we may have 100 billion barrels of untapped oil." Great! and I believe we have 70 quadrabazillion barrels! Who ya gonna trust -- an ignoramus like me, or the API? Me, of course, because I am not the API and I just MIGHT be right.
3. We may be the "Saudia Arabia of natural gas?" Great! Would you like sparkling water for your table, or simply tap formaldehyde?
To the extent natural gas replaces coal, and it will, more domestic drilling will be a plus for global warming as co2 emissions for gas are half that of coal.
It is almost amazing to me monitoring this site, as well as others, that we have so many petroleum engineers and geologist commenting you would think that the U.S. would be number 1 in education instead of 25 and falling. With so many sources of information it may be the reason that the public can only take in sound bites, bumper sticker conclusions and pay per view pseudo documentaries. I am from a section of the nation that has been controlled and created by democrats, with a ratio of a 100 lawyers to the population of 3,100 in some towns, believe me you can collect full disability if some one bumps in to your shopping cart at Wal-Mart. The reason I bring this up I come from a county that has successfully drilled over 6,500 Gas wells since the 30,s, if any thing could be dreamed up for a law suit it would have been done. They have had trouble in some formations in a few parts of the nation, this will be over come. They are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of gas wells all over this nation with out incident, to frac a well has been around for decades. I guess the source of the new found knowledge is from the former Speaker of the House, 17% Pelosi , she said she was against fossil fuels and for natural gas and wind power like Boone Pickens, but later she must have had two deep revelations, it is a fossil fuel and it can catch on fire. Think about it, that is what we called the leadership in energy!
Mr. Goldberg, you could have added domestic uranium to oil & natural gas. As I know you know, the US could very easily decide to open uranium mining in 5-6 states, easily supply our current domestic nuclear power plant fleet (for the anti-nukes, which 20% of the electricty produced by these plants are you willing to do without, every day--go ahead, decide). If the feds simply reversed Jimmy Carter-era no-recycling policy on nuclear fuel, and built a breeder reactor or two, you'd have a domestic, literally renewable (95% by volume), and virtually inexhaustible supply of energy. Which is precisely what lefty trolls like MikeB don't want and can't stand, becuase it would undermine their goal of rationing energy. And MikeB, that IS the goal, right? You and your enlightened Ruling Class buddies (see, e.g, Jeff Immelt) are going to tell the rest of us poor rubes in flyover country how much energy we can use, when we can use it, and where it will come from. For our own good, of course. Then once you've herded us into federal co-operative, energy-rationed housing, you can start rationing not only energy, but us. If that's not the endgame, then what is the substantive objection to more use of existing domestic energy supplies?
Nothing better illustrates the destructive foolishness of Obama liberalism than its pollyannaish energy policy of stifling the production of proven, efficient and relatively cheap energy sources in favor of subsidizing hugely expensive and problem-prone alternatives. What incredible fools; they will bankrupt us all.
It's irresponsible and anti-conservation to be importing oil instead of using our own resources. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would see that this anti-energy "environmental" movement is not about what is intelligent, safe, cost-effective or responsible.
Want to really take care of the planet? Prosperity breeds respect for the environment. Prosperity creates the opportunities and revenue to improve the land, restore the land and develop new products which truly advance humanity without damaging the planet (not that I think we humans are capable of doing more than causing acne - both God and his servant Mother Nature are infinitely more powerful than we are). Because in the US we have created the luxury of time and wealth, because war does not live on our doorstep, we have the inclination and responsibility to take care of our environment.
And why do we have this luxury of wealth and safety? A little thing called the Constitution which says that we are personally responsible for ourselves and by acknowledging our right to personal property, respect and innovation are born.
There is nothing less logical than an environmentalist. It's in everyone's best interest that we pursue domestic energy.
What I'll never get is the correlation that evades notice of the Left. Properity is the best thing that ever happened to the planet. Prosperity breeds respect and a desire to restore and improve that which is around it. Compare the US to any third world country. Unbelievable that people believe the tripe from the Left when the proof is in front of us.
Then again it's unbelievable that people believe that we, en masse, are any match for the power of nature or God.
Jonah - Excellent column. Also, while we're exploring and drilling for more oil, maybe we ought to rethink our draconian environmental laws. Some of our manufacturing base may decide to return from China should that happen.
Edgarb81 - Spot on. If there is global warming why haven't temperatures increased since 1993 along with the CO2 increase? And don't take my word about temperatures' not having increased. Read Phil Jones' testimony before the House of Commons. (He's at HadleyCRU and is one of the leading global warming fraudsters.)
There is another fairly painless approach to reducing domestic consumption of existing energy sources, and thereby minimizing the cost and burden to the American people, that has yet to be considered. This would be to house all true liberal energy "regressives" in common facilities which would be powered by their own hot air on the topic. Using volunteers, of course. One would think the facilities necessary would be limited to, say, the private residences of Senators Kerry, Edwards and Kennedy and the required transportation fulfilled via those parties' personal SUVs and aircraft.
This "pilot" program could be used as a test study for not only the citizenry's true energy needs but also collectivism generally, including health care. Naturally, having no experience whatsoever in the healthcare delivery field, I would be willing to make myself available to provide not only end-of-life counseling services, but also determine the cost/benefit analysis for each medical procedure, medication or treatment necessary to determine that appropriate levels of healthcare are not "wasted."
But, using MikeB's logic, it will be imperative that nobody be allowed to search for any firewood at all. This is necessary due to the uncertainty of the quantities that might eventually be located and utilized.
@MikeB "1. "If you expand exploration, you expand revenues." No. If you expand production, you expand revenues."
A lot of oil is located on Federal land/offshore, so in many cases oil companies would have to pay the government for the right explore. Even if the land is privately owned, any financial transaction is going to be taxed.
In my opinion, there is no greater issue than energy production and the ruinous effect on the economy by the EPA. The Republican leadership needs to start banging the drums on this issue and keep banging them so that when the eco-socialists say "but BP" people are educated enough to say so what.
By all means let us decrease impediments to drilling for oil and natural gas.
But the real future for power is nuclear. Bechtel (one of the world's largest nuclear engineering firms) and Babcock (which has produced nuclear power plants for naval vessels) recently partnered to design small (~125 MWatt) - sufficient for a small city - nuclear plants that can be mass produced in factories.
They are compact, safe (e.g., they are passively cooled and continue to be cooled, un-powered, after emergency shut-down) and need fuel replacement only once in thirty years. Fuel is terrorist-resistant because it cannot be stolen, without massive equipment taking days to install, because the fuel is so (locally) hot and radioactive. Spent nuclear fuel disposal is the same as for ordinary plants.
These small, modular plants would replace, for new installations, the on-site built plants that are 10 times larger. Modules can be added locally as needed to increase power as local electric power needs grow. They require fewer transmission power lines, since there will be more local plants and less need to distribute electricity on the expensive power grid. They are small enough to serve as local sources of heat for factories or commercial properties, thus saving money for heating oil. They produce no green-house gases.
The larger, old plants are all custom-built, one-off artifacts, each different from the next, and are magnets for environmental lawsuits.
The small plants would be standardized. Building them in factories encourages expertise, common standards, safety, and reduces regulatory problems: approve one and succeeding identical modules have standardized certification regulations and will attract fewer installation nuisance lawsuits.
Similar small plants are already under construction in China. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission of course is dragging its approval feet.
Republicans should force the NRC to fast track - or just ordinary track - approval of these small units.
Malibu is where you'll find Hummers with fight-global-warming stickers on the bumper. They're poseurs. Energy Independence ..if not exporting energy .. will save our butt. The key is to make boatloads of energy but then use it as efficiently as possible. That's how you we dig ourselves out of the hole.
The States should demand our Constitution be adhered to and release the stolen land back to the rightful owners, "We the People..." and "Drill Baby! Drill!"
America is financing China's military with just the interest on loans the American taxpayers pay every month!
Saudi Arabia is building Mosques in every city in America with oil money from American taxpayers!
Our Founding Fathers made it unlawful for government to own land except for the ten square miles of Washington D.C. and such as may be needed for erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dockyards and other needful buildings.
The first of the ten planks of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto is abolition of private property!
The United States government has direct ownership of almost 650 million acres of land (2.63 million square kilometers) – nearly 30% of its total territory.
The top 10 list of states with the highest percentage of federally owned land looks like this:
America is becoming a Communist nation! Study the manifesto and the laws that have been passed by our Republican and Democrat politicians, and “you determine” if we are or if we are not a Communist Country.
MikeB--Who am I gonna trust? How about the USGS(United States Geological Service. ) Read their reports on the Bakken Reserve(which encompasses the Dakotas). You're right I wouldn't trust an ignoramus like you. Your chance of being right on anything is the same as a monkey sitting down at a typewriter and composing Hamlet.
Please read DAC's comment, and ask yourselves how much of your political philosophy would disintegrate if you were forced to assume that your adversaries were speaking and acting in good faith.
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