Punch line: Part of the formula for getting the economy moving is to have a new industry emerge – or have a latent one take-off.
Obama tried with his failed green energy initiatives.
Now, there’s increasing support for for turning the domestic oil, gas and coal industries loose.
Makes sense to me.
And, makes sense to Senators Webb & Warner who have introduced a bill that would expand oil drilling off the shores of Virginia … and split the royalty fees between the Feds and the state.
Their argument: raises revenues without raising individuals’ taxes, reduces dependency on foreign oil, potentially reduces – or at least contains – gas prices, and – oh yeah – adds jobs.
Keep reading …
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Excerpted from Forbes: Gassing Up: Why America’s Future Job Growth Lies In Traditional Energy Industries
The Praxis Strategy Group looked over data for the period after the economy started to weaken in 2006.
Not surprisingly “recession-proof” fields such as health care and education expanded some 11% over the past five years.
But the biggest growth in jobs by far has taken place in the mining, oil and natural gas industries, where jobs expanded by 60%, creating a total of 500,000 new jobs.
The average job in conventional energy pays about $100,000 annually — more than twice as high as those in either health or education.
Overall U.S. oil production has grown by 10% since 2008; the import share of U.S. oil consumption has dropped to 47% from 60% in 2005.
Over the next year, according to one recent industry-funded study, oil and gas could create an additional 1.5 million new jobs.
The relative strength of the energy sector can be seen in changes in income by region over the past decade. For the most part, the largest gains have been heavily concentrated in the energy belt between the Dakotas and the Gulf of Mexico.
Energy-oriented metropolitan economies such as Houston, Dallas, Bismarck and Oklahoma City have also fared relatively well.
In energy-rich North Dakota there’s actually a huge labor shortage, reaching over 17,000 — one likely to get worse if production expands, as now proposed, from 6000 to over 30,000 wells over the next decade.
With the proper environmental controls, these industries could provide a major jolt to the economy while cutting down on energy imports, reducing debts and bringing jobs back home.
As long as Americans consume oil and gas, why not produce close to the market and with reasonable environmental controls?
The Homa Files 