Energy Production Restricted : Progressive's Agenda

The author here states he believes the Obama administration should open public lands and other areas of our country to exploration and leasing to expand our natural fossil fuel reserves which the entire country depends for survival now and the foreseeable future.

What he apparently doesn't understand is the future of the country has nothing to do with Mr Obama's stand on keeping as much public land closed to exploration as possible, and his belief that only renewable sources of energy are the wave of the future.

He also seem to not understand that Mr Obama doesn't care if the renewables are not a viable alternative to fossil fuels, or that he demands all coal energy production be stopped even though coal represents more the 45% of all energy production in the America.

The author also misses the point of the progressive Democrats agenda for energy in our country, their agenda for energy is a tool to be used to restrict prosperity and individual freedom for ultimate control of the population. For without adequate supplies of energy for expansion of industry and therefore jobs the population will have no choice but to accept a new life style based on the precepts of the socialists ideology were the goal for the individual is determined and controlled by government.

Welcome to the new and brave new world of the progressive socialist liberal Democrat agenda! I wonder if those that voted for this got the government they wanted?

Fracking Reverses Decline in U.S. Energy Production
Source: H. Sterling Burnett, "Fracking Reverses Decline in U.S. Energy Production," Austin-American Statesman, November 11, 2013.
November 13, 2013

In just three years, oil production in the United States has nearly reversed a 20-year-long production decline. A few short years ago, many analysts argued that oil was nearly tapped out and America needed to plan for a post-petroleum future.  What's changed? In a word: fracking, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis.

• Since 2010, domestic oil production has increased from a low of 4.5 million barrels a day to about 7.5 million barrels a day.
• Since summer 2011 alone, U.S. crude production has increased 2 million barrels per day.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, combined with technological advancements like horizontal drilling, has created something of a revolution in U.S. oil and natural gas production. By injecting a mixture of water, sand and a small amount of other additives deep underground to fracture rock formations, exploration companies are releasing isolated pockets of oil and gas trapped in the surrounding shale rock that are otherwise inaccessible.

• Fracking is also responsible for more than 30 percent of U.S. domestic oil and natural gas reserves, and the National Petroleum Council estimates that 60 percent to 80 percent of all U.S. drilling during the next decade will require fracking to remain viable.
• Partly as a result of fracking, U.S. oil imports have declined to the lowest levels since the early 1980s.

Despite study after study indicating that fracking has only a relatively few, isolated, negative environmental consequences, current restrictions on offshore oil production and on public lands and in Alaska prohibit the exploration and production of billions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. Production from these reserves would increase supplies, reduce prices and imports, and provide high-paying jobs to Americans.

The federal government should accept the mountain of evidence that fracking is largely safe, and it should streamline the permitting and leasing process on public lands -- leaving regulations on private land to the states -- in order to reap the fiscal, economic and energy bounty of fracking.