Speeding up Gulf oil permits would have positive effect on jobs

IHS Global Insight and IHS CERA Report:

Energy security and job creation are fundamental to reinvigorating the American economy.  Efforts that result in both adding jobs and increasing domestic energy production would help the US economy overcome such economic headwinds as high gasoline prices and high unemployment. Safely restoring oil and natural gas exploration and development levels in the US Gulf of Mexico is potentially one of the most significant sources of new jobs over the next two years and could help sustain a nascent trend of rising US oil production and lower crude oil imports. Failure to do so would have a major toll in jobs lost and lower energy security. The “activity gap” between proactive action and the pace of plan and permit approvals is the focus of our study.

Swift action to reduce the growing backlog of plans and increase the pace of plan and permit approvals to explore for oil and natural gas resources in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico would increase employment opportunities in almost every state, boost tax and royalty revenues for governments, and help stabilize US energy security. And these benefits could materialize rapidly. Early alignment between the capacity to properly regulate oil and natural gas activities and the pace and scale of investment opportunities would capture the largest possible share of the activity gap, which in 2012 results in:

• 230,000 American jobs
• more than $44 billion of US gross domestic product (GDP)
• nearly $12 billion in tax and royalty revenues to state and federal treasuries
• US oil production of more than 400,000 barrels of oil per day (bd) (equivalent to  approximately 150 million barrels in the full year)
• reducing the amount the United States sends to foreign governments for imported
oil by around $15 billion

The employment effects would not be limited to the Gulf states. One-third of those jobs would be generated outside the Gulf region in such states as California, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.

There is more.

It is a point I raise often, but this report has the data to back up the claims. The administration needs to get out of the way of the development of US energy and jobs and the revenues that flow from those efforts.