One of the problems in the economy today is the price of gasoline at the pump. Two years ago it cost me $25 to fill up my car, now it costs $50+. I am sure my story is not unique, and the cost of gasoline has a negative impact on everyone’s budget. There are very obvious ways to bring down the cost of gasoline at the pump–build refineries, drill everywhere, and generally develop a sane energy policy for America. One example of the impact of developing energy resources in America is the fact that North Dakota has an unemployment rate of about 3%. Why? The Bakken Formation, a geological phenomenon covering parts of North Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan, has an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion barrels of recoverable oil, only a tiny percentage of which has been tapped. As the state continues to recover the oil, employment grows and prosperity continues. However, even this prosperity is endangered by the Obama Administration.
Erika Johnsen at Townhall.com reported that on Friday President Obama signed an executive order creating a a high-level task force to coordinate federal oversight of domestic natural gas development. What that means is that “the government is planning to regulate any energy industry we have not yet destroyed out of existence.”
The article reports:
The task force is charged with ensuring that rapidly growing efforts to tap vast natural gas supplies in the country’s shale formations, which require advanced drilling techniques including “fracking,” are “safe and responsible.”
The order seeks to find a balance between encouraging expanded domestic natural gas development, a position Obama has touted in a series of speeches in recent months, and ensuring that the administration protects the public.
“[I]t is vital that we take full advantage of our natural gas resources, while giving American families and communities confidence that natural and cultural resources, air and water quality, and public health and safety will not be compromised,” the order says.
The Obama administration is taking new steps to increase federal oversight of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling method that has helped usher in a natural gas boom but brought with it environmental concerns.
The Environmental Protection Agency is slated to unveil final oil-and-gas air pollution regulations next week that would cut smog-forming and toxic emissions from wells developed with fracking. Separately, the Interior Department will soon float rules for fracking on public lands.
Unless we change the general regulation overload this administration has created, America will become a third-world country. If that appeals to you, vote for Democrats in November. If you love America and want your children to prosper, vote Republican. The future of our nation is truly at stake in 2012.
