THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 196, August 6, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
U.S. RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN JOBS, REVENUE, & PROSPERITY:
A Vital Part of the Solution to our Economic &
Employment Crisis Is Right Under Our Feet
By Paul K. Driessen
U.S. ENERGY, ECONOMIC, & FISCAL POLICY: PRESENTING A SOUND & RATIONAL PROGRAM FOR PUTTING MILLIONS
OF AMERICANS BACK TO WORK, GENERATING BILLIONS, & EVEN TRILLIONS, IN GOVERNMENT REVENUE & SLASHING
AMERICA'S PUBLIC DEBT, A NATIONAL PROGRAM TO BE ACHIEVED BY DEVELOPING OUR COUNTRY'S VAST, UNTAPPED,
&, FOR MUCH TOO LONG, OFF-LIMITS ENERGY & MINERAL RESOURCES -- THE PRIMARY OBSTACLE TO ADOPTION &
IMPLEMENTATION OF SUCH A PROGRAM: THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT & ITS POLITICAL ALLIES IN THE
U.S. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT
FULL STORY:
A frequent refrain during budget and debt ceiling debates is that we need revenue enhancement: higher tax rates, reduced
tax deductions, and eliminated tax credits. But doing this, especially amid today’s massively expanding regulations, will kill
more jobs and further reduce government revenues.
There is a better way. Huge revenue sources are literally under our noses, or more precisely our feet.
America is blessed with vast oil, gas, coal, uranium, rare earth, and other natural resource riches – to compliment our
ultimate resource: the creative, competitive, innovative spirit of our people.
Finding and developing these resources would generate millions of jobs and billions, even trillions, in new government
revenue and societal wealth. It would prevent default and downgraded credit ratings, reduce the need to cut government
programs, shrink unemployment and welfare payments, avoid having to send hundreds of billions of dollars overseas each
year for foreign energy and minerals, and reduce the need to borrow $120 billion out of every $300 billion the United States
is now spending every month.
Many of these untapped resources are on federal public lands in our Western states, Alaska and Outer Continental Shelf
(OCS). Many more are on private land and onshore and offshore state-owned lands.
Leasing, exploration, extraction, transportation, and processing unleash economic activities and revenues on extraordinary
scales: business activity, investment and profits, along with lease bonus and rental payments, permit fees, royalties and
severance taxes for each unit produced, direct and secondary jobs, taxes on corporate profits and workers’ income,
property taxes on equipment and facilities.
These activities also generate billions of dollars in purchases of equipment, food, supplies, raw materials, hotel lodging,
special services, and myriad other items. All this means still more employment, newly enabled consumer spending, more
local, county, state and federal revenue, and other economic benefits.
Newly developed horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) techniques have enabled companies to unlock
previously unavailable natural gas riches in conventional and shale gas deposits. That increased production, in turn, has
reduced industry’s cost for energy and raw material feed stocks.
The American Chemical Council says this is reopening idled plants and creating jobs. In 2010, it helped increase chemical
and plastics exports by 17% and 10% respectively, turning a $100 million industry balance of trade deficit into a $3.7
billion surplus. Other industries could soon see similar benefits.
America’s OCS generates over $19 billion annually in bonus, rent, royalty, and tax revenue, IHS Global Insight
has calculated. Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oil field alone has generated hundreds of billions in government revenues since
1978, and the State of Alaska has collected a whopping $157 billion (in 2010) dollars from statewide oil and gas
development since 1959. Millions of jobs were created and sustained.
In the Lower 48 States, Marcellus Shale deposits stretch across 95,000 square miles of New York, Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, western Maryland and eastern Ohio. In Pennsylvania, say the State Labor and Revenue Departments, Marcellus
fracking activities created 72,000 jobs (with an average $73,000 salary) between October, 2009 and March, 2011. Workers
and royalty recipients paid $214 million in personal income taxes attributable to Marcellus development, while Marcellus
drillers paid $1 billion in state taxes 2006-2010 (and another $238 million just during first quarter of 2011).
The shale gas success story is being repeated in West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas, and other states: thousands of jobs
created, billions in royalties and taxes collected. New York should take note.
Taken together, America’s oil industry sustains 9.2 million direct and secondary jobs (5.3% of all U.S. employment),
generates $533 billion in total annual payrolls, contributes $1.1 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product (7.5%), invested $2
trillion in capital improvements since 2000, and accounted for $190 billion in 2010 oil production. The largest integrated
oil companies alone paid $1.95 trillion in corporate income, severance, property, excise and sales taxes, between 1981 and
2008, says the Tax Foundation.
We have it in our power to put many of our 20 million unemployed and involuntary part-timers back to work, generate
trillions in revenue, and slash our chronic indebtedness. We just need to take action.
End the leasing moratorium and “green flu” backlog on drilling
permits in formerly accessible areas of the Gulf of Mexico. By
the end of 2012, America could create 230,000 jobs in Gulf
Coast and dozens of manufacturing states, produce
150,000,000 barrels of oil (worth $15 billion), reduce oil imports
by a like amount, and generate $12 billion in tax and royalty
payments, says IHS Global Insight.
(Right now, we are losing over $1 billion annually in Gulf
royalty payments, because Gulf oil and gas production is
down 220,000 barrels a day, thanks to DOI, EPA and White
House foot dragging.)
End leasing and drilling bans in the East Coast, West Coast,
Western Gulf and Alaskan OCS, Rocky Mountains and Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. America could produce up to 40
billion barrels of oil (worth $4 trillion at $100 a barrel) … create
114,000 to 160,000 jobs … and generate $547 billion to $1.7
trillion in new government revenues over the next few
decades, according to ICF International.
Open up some of the nearly 500 million acres of public lands
that are now closed to mineral exploration (nearly 70% of all
public lands). We could repeat these petroleum-related gains,
and end our near-total dependence on China for rare earth
metals that are essential for smart phones, smart bombs, night
vision goggles, hybrid and electric vehicles, wind turbines,
solar panels and a host of other modern technologies.
Unfortunately, Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and the White House
are doing just the opposite.
EPA denied Shell Oil permits to drill in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea, after Shell had spent $5 billion acquiring and exploring leases.
EPA also blocked construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, Texas. During
construction, the project would generate 130,000 U.S. jobs, plus $600 million in state and local tax revenues – plus $5 billion
in property tax and other government revenues during the pipeline’s life. EPA’s excuse? The projects would contribute to
global warming.
EPA is also imposing thousands of pages of new rules on coal-fired power plants that provide 48-98% of the electricity in
26 states, including our most important manufacturing centers. Experts say the actions will raise electricity rates 20-60
percent, shutter up to 60,000 megawatts of electricity generation, kill 3.5 million jobs in six Midwestern states, and cost
those six states $42-82 billion in lost annual GDP.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar continues to stall OCS leasing and drilling, and keep Western states oil, natural gas,
oil shale, shale gas, coal, uranium, and metals deposits off limits.
Meanwhile, our state and federal governments are spending over $10 billion annually, subsidizing wind and solar energy,
and bankrolling radical environmentalist activism on energy, climate, and public land issues.
Americans deserve a complete and honest accounting of how much revenue and how many jobs have been lost, due to
the excesses of environmentalists and their political allies in the U.S. government. We have a right, and a duty, to develop
our resources, rather than deplete other countries’ energy and minerals – and saddle our children with more joblessness
and debt. It’s a perfect time for bipartisanship, at least among Republicans and moderate Democrats.
Congressional committee hearings and briefings could discuss and evaluate industry, government, and independent
analyses of our vast energy, mineral, job, and revenue opportunities. They would go a long way toward revealing the
enormity of our self-inflicted wounds – and charting a responsible path forward.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Fiscal Policy: Taxation & Government Spending
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (2004).
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Conservative & Free-Market Analysis of Government, Politics & Public Policy, Covering Political, Legal, Constitutional, Economic,
Cultural, Military, International, Strategic, & Geopolitical Issues
Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity