Fracking added $3.5 trillion to US economy and could add more with Trump deregulation

Daily Caller:
Hydraulic fracturing generated $3.5 trillion in new wealth between 2012 and 2014 in spite of falling oil prices, according to a new study, but today’s rising prices could be even better for the U.S. economy.

From 2012 to 2014, the shale oil industry generated 4.6 million new jobs due to an energy boom and the resulting low gas prices, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Expensive energy could be a huge net positive for the U.S. fracking economy because rising oil prices mean more drilling.

Oil prices fell to a record low of $30 a barrel during the previous year, sharply reducing the industry’s profit margins, which are now rising again. Researchers estimate that new economic activity from fracking technology created around 4.6 million net new jobs, but only about 1.6 million of these new jobs were directly linked to the oil industry, while many of the rest were due to lower gas prices and the positive effect that had on the American economy.

“What’s often overlooked is the impact that the shale revolution has had throughout the economy,” Chris Warren, a spokesperson for the pro-industry Institute for Energy Research (IER), told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Lower energy prices mean people have more money to save or spend on other day-to-day necessities. More energy production leads to job creation in other sectors of the economy, whether it’s manufacturing, healthcare, education, etc.”
...

Opening federal lands for natural gas creates a huge number of high-wage jobs inside and outside the energy industry, according to a the study published last December by Louisiana State University and IER. Fracking has already created an estimated 1.7 million jobs and will likely create a total of 3.5 million by 2035.

“The shale revolution is a product of American ingenuity and private property rights,” Warren noted. “It’s important to note that the boom in oil and gas production happened on state and private lands, while production on federal lands has lagged far behind.”

If environmentalists had successfully banned fracking in 2017, an estimated 3.9 million jobs would instantly dissappear due to indirect environmental effects, rising to 14.8 million jobs lost by 2022, according a report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Gasoline prices would almost double, as would electricity prices. U.S. household incomes would fall by $873 billion.

Opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) oil reserves would create an estimated 736,000 new American jobs, according to an economic analysis.
...
The anti-energy left would like to kill these jobs and replace them with jobs in less efficient energy production such as solar.  Trump's deregulation effort has the potential to create millions more jobs and add more growth to the economy.

Obama's recent attempt to restrict offshore drilling outsources energy jobs to the Middle East and Russia and aids the economy of adversaries.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains