The campaign against the free trade of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) generally goes down a few of tracks:

• Consumers will be hurt as “excessive” LNG exports stretch demand, making natural gas more expensive here at home.
• Blocking or restricting LNG exports will best fuel U.S. economic growth.
• The federal government needs to prevent “unrestricted” or “unlimited” LNG exports.

Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be one opinion against another. The U.S. Energy Department has a recent, comprehensive study on these issues in hand, in addition to reports and studies by other reputable organizations. The conclusions, based on scholarly research, should guide the federal decision on licensing the construction of LNG export facilities – more than a dozen of which are awaiting appro... more »

More video interviews from the recent State of American Energy event in Washington, D.C. In this clip Devon’s Richard Sawaya and Paula Jackson, interim president and CEO of the American Association of Blacks in Energy, talk about energy development under pro-growth policies as a dynamic economic engine. Jackson:

“If you don’t think energy is a driver for the economy, go to a place where they don’t have access to energy and see what that looks like.”

The video:

America’s oil and natural gas industry is bullish on America, having delivered a direct stimulus to the U.S. economy in 2011 worth more than $545 billion in capital spending, wages and dividends, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. That’s $1.5 billion a day in economic lift from developing oil and natural gas. And industry is ready to do more.

Investing in America’s future is the oil and natural gas industry’s main focus, API President and CEO Jack Gerard told the United States Energy Association’s State of American Energy Industry Forum.

America certainly has the reserves to make it happen. The International Energy Agency says the U.S. could overtake Saudi Arabia in oil production by 2020, and our natural gas supplies are described as generational and game-changing.  We have the te... more »

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers study reveals some important numbers about the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, in terms of employment, labor income and value added in 2011:

• Industry supported 9.6 million jobs.
• More than $580 billion was paid in labor income, and industry’s estimated total addition to U.S. GDP was $1.1 trillion, accounting for 7.3 percent of the national total.
• Industry invested about $292 billion in capital expenditures and paid out $28.7 billion in dividends to the real owners of America’s oil and natural gas companies – including dividends paid to retirement plans.

Those are national figures. The real economic impact of oil and natural gas development is being seen vividly in individual states. The impact is large enough that even states with little... more »

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue in his annual State of American Business address, rightly identifying American-made energy as a critical to broad economic recovery and to solving the nation’s fiscal problems:

“Today, 23 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work. A record 47 million people are poor enough to be on food stamps. Median family income has dropped to 1995 levels—so we’re going backward. … From top to bottom we need more success in America. We need to nurture success, empower it, reward it, and celebrate it. … Proceeding swiftly and responsibly to develop more American energy can help us immeasurably with our fiscal problems, but it can also do so much more for our country.”

Policies to foster more domestic... more »