Fueling Our Growth

Repairing the damage done to the economy by the Obama administration's tax increases and regulatory impositions, the oil and gas industry is almost solely responsible for whatever growth we have experienced in recent years. The fifty cent drop in gas prices this year is equivalent to a $75 billion tax cut - a gift to the country from this much maligned industry. Today's Wall Street Journal features an interview with Mark Papa, one of the unsung heroes of the windfall. Papa, the former CEO of drilling company EOG resources, is an enthusiastic spokesman for fracking, the revolutionary, wealth producing technology that he helped develop.

“I can’t think of any other single event that has caused such a positive economic benefit to the nation as a whole as shale oil and shale gas.”

...“there’s been a million frack jobs performed in the U.S. with zero documented cases of damage to the drinking-water table. For my set of statistics, those are pretty good odds.”

...“It’s my belief that for likely the next 40 or 50 years, we’ll continue to be in a hydrocarbon-powered economy, the main drivers of which are natural gas and crude oil. . . . You have to rely on the logic of the American people and our legislators to say, look at the economic benefits. The benefits are so obvious that an objective person would question whether we want to impose punitive regulations that will diminish what’s accrued.”

...“If you want to point to a success of private enterprise, and how the capitalist system works for the benefit of the total U.S. economy,” he says, “I can’t come up with a more glowing example.”