Less than a decade ago U.S. energy security was in crisis. Domestic oil production had been declining steadily from a peak of 10 million barrels per day in 1970 to only half that amount in 2005. Our reliance on oil imports and OPEC had risen to an all-time high ten years ago. U.S. natural gas production had been flat for more than 30 years and was slipping behind growing domestic demand. We were on track to become a major natural gas importer, a future that energy experts the world over agreed was nearly inevitable.
Despite countless promises about breaking — or at least significantly reducing — our reliance on overseas energy sources, our energy security was going from bad to worse. Fortunately, innovation, “petropreneurship” and free market capitalism had other plans.
In the last decade, the U.S. has become the world’s largest oil and natural gas producer. America now stands poised to become a leading natural gas exporter and, should the outdated crude oil export ban finally fall, a considerable oil exporter as well. Refined petroleum products like gasoline and diesel fuel have already become the largest source of U.S. exports every year since 2011, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The shale revolution made all of this possible. Our unplanned and unexpected energy turnaround has become the envy of our allies and foes alike. Many nations blessed with their own energy-rich shale formations have watched their dependence on foreign energy grow in recent years. For them, recreating the American shale revolution has become a policy imperative.
In the United Kingdom, the Cameron government has stepped into local debates about shale development to ensure it proceeds. While Britain has proven shale resources, not a single well has been fully fracked there since 2011. Public opposition to fracking — driven largely by the same kind of misinformation and hysteria that stubbornly remains in the U.S, despite evidence to the contrary — has obstructed shale production in the U.K. But many more open-minded Brits see shale and fracking as both a tremendous economic opportunity for the U.K. and as a critical energy source to shore up the nation’s energy security.
Like much of Europe, the British fear their growing dependence on Russian natural gas and further petro-fueled bullying from Vladimir Putin. Russian imports already account for 15 percent of the U.K.’s natural gas and that reliance is projected to increase. Shale development provides an important and increasingly necessary alternative. The Cameron government, growing increasingly impatient with the permitting delays that local regulators are imposing on natural gas development, recently imposed a strict deadline of 16 weeks for regulators to review drilling permit applications. Foot dragging and delays will no longer be tolerated.
While the Cameron government is actively supporting its domestic shale industry, the Obama administration seems to be doing its best to obstruct further production, having apparently already reaped the rewards of surging shale oil and natural gas production. It’s a remarkable contrast.
It we weren’t discussing the Obama administration, this might seem too odd to be true. The shale revolution has arguably broken the back of OPEC, transformed the U.S. into an energy superpower, jumpstarted the economy following the Great Recession and even provided the cheap, clean natural gas that has driven carbon emissions from electric power plants to their lowest level in almost a quarter century.
The oil and gas industry’s “Thank You” from the president for the most remarkable energy success story in U.S. history? Try new regulations governing hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, newly proposed methane and ozone regulations, blocking the Keystone XL pipeline and the threat of a veto to block any legislation that would lift the crude export ban.
Has Team Obama lost its collective mind? If we care at all about preserving and hopefully further bolstering U.S. energy security in the future, America should be encouraging the shale revolution, not hampering it. It would be an unforgivable mistake to let the energy achievements of the past few years slip away. Perhaps President Obama needs a reminder from David Cameron about just how good he has it as president of a country that has entered a new era of energy abundance and security.
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