The energy boom despite Obama

Mark Perry:

It would be easy to look at the dramatic 35% increase in America's oil and natural gas production since President Obama took office and think the administration deserves much of the credit. But the energy boom has happened in spite of him.

Production could have been even greater if the administration embraced America's new energy superpower status instead of being so hostile to the development of our fossil fuel resources.

Since Obama took office, oil and gas production has soared on private and state land, for which he deserves little or no credit. Meanwhile, production on federal lands has dropped sharply due to a cutback in leasing of deepwater areas for energy development.

The U.S. government leases less than 2.2% of the energy-rich Outer Continental Shelf, and less than 6% of federal onshore lands. Offshore leasing is at half the level recorded during the Clinton administration, and its decline is indicative of Obama's hostility toward the oil and gas industry.

Nevertheless, thanks to drilling on private and state land, U.S. oil production is on pace to break a 42-year-old record next year.

When Obama was elected in 2008, U.S. oil production averaged 5 million barrels a day. In 2013, daily output averaged 7.4 million barrels, and is expected to climb to 8.5 million this year and 9.3 million in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Most of the recent growth has come from tight oil deposits in Texas and North Dakota. Those two states combined now produce more than 4 million barrels every day and supply almost half of America's total oil output.

Since 2010, oil production in Texas has risen almost three-fold to more than 3 million barrels a day in April. Texas, by itself, could soon be the sixth-largest oil producer in the world.

U.S. dependence on imported petroleum products has fallen from more than 60% in 2005 to less than 33% in 2013. It's expected to drop to 22% in 2015, which would bring reliance on imported oil to its lowest level since 1970.

To grasp the significance of the shale oil boom, the ramp-up in production from 5 million barrels a day in 2008 to 8.5 million barrels this year amounts to a whopping 70% increase.

That 3.5 million-barrel-per-day increase alone is larger than the output of all 12 OPEC countries except Saudi Arabia. It has energized the U.S. economy, created hundreds of thousands of jobs, produced savings for consumers and strengthened America geopolitically. 

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There is more.

The Us oil boom has allowed the world to impose tough sanctions on Iran and it is making Russian dominance in Europe less likely.  If we built the Keystone XL pipeline, we could completely replace Venezuela as a supplier which would make it more difficult for that country to buy influence in South and Central America.  The Democrats policy of artificial scarcity has aided and abetted many of the worlds despots and doing away with that policy would unleash American jobs and manufacturing.