On Wednesday, after the President's speech on energy the following tweet popped up in our Twitter stream:

@whitehouse - Hey, Heather Zichal here with the WH to take your energy questions, send them along

And people did, quite a few actually. The White House team was unable to get to all of them, understandably, so we have decided to help them out. But first we have to address a gross inaccuracy in one of the five answers that they did provide. @wilcoxgolf asked:

@whitehouse why do you not drill in the US? We have enough oil!

to which the White House responded:

@willcoxgolf Last year US oil production reached highest level since 2003, oil cos. sitting on many unused leases http://wh.gov/a2u

The last part is simply not true. The administration only can make this statement by defining actio... more »

API Executive Vice President Marty Durbin had this letter to the editor in today's Las Vegas Sun in response to its editorial "Forging a new policy".

Nevada drivers have a right to be concerned about rising fuel prices, and the editorial's point, that there is no one way to achieve a balanced energy policy to bring stability to the energy markets, is on the mark.

For years we have advocated a comprehensive policy; in fact, U.S. oil and natural gas companies are among the leaders in increasing efficiency, in encouraging wiser use of all energy and in the development of alternative-energy technologies, such as solar, wind and geothermal power and biofuels.

Until those technologies are capable of providing more energy for all Americans at reasonable costs, we will need more oil and natural... more »

President Obama recently called on Americans to "win the future." In his State of the Union address, he challenged U.S. industry to create jobs, invest in technology and innovation, and lead alternative energy development.

We're on it. America's oil and natural gas industry has long been meeting these challenges--and with the right policies encouraging private-sector innovation and investment, we're ready to do more to win the future:

• The industry already supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs, and we could create more.
• Our companies are technological innovators, having invested hundreds of billions of dollars over the last decade.
• The industry has invested more than the federal government and more than all other industries combined in low- and zero-carbon emission energy technologies.

Despite t... more »

(Editor's note: Earlier today, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard responded to the President's budget proposal to raise taxes on the oil and natural gas industry which would harm job creation and lower government revenues long term. Below is the text of his statement.)

"It's no surprise the administration is proposing yet again to raise taxes on the U.S. oil and natural gas industry. But it's still a bad idea and comes at one of the worst times in our economic history. The administration continues to ignore the fact this industry is among the nation's largest job creators and delivers enormous revenues to government at all levels. The industry pays income taxes, royalties and other fees totaling nearly $100 million every day and pays income tax at an effective r... more »

The President raised the issue of taxes on the oil and natural gas industry in his State of the Union speech, and we fully expect they will be part of the budget he will release next week. He also referred to the oil and natural gas industry as "yesterday's energy" and suggested increasing taxes on our industry to pay for investments in tomorrow's energy. While it's not news that we disagree with the President on this point, we believe the administration's approach on taxes is misguided, misleading and simply bad public policy. So, we think it's critical that we address misperceptions around these issues. Such as:

• That our industry is awash in unfair government subsidies; when the fact is that we provide more than $95 million per day to the federal treasury; pay an effective tax rate far... more »