According to the American Petroleum Institute (API), as the world leader in both emissions reduction and production of oil and natural gas, the U.S. is “well-positioned to secure our energy future.” However, in its “2016 Principles for American Energy Progress,” API maintains a path forward is only clear if the next U.S. president adopts “policies based on science and economics that take full advantage of the American energy revolution.”
API President Jack Gerard outlines several specific ways Washington can make “energy policy choices that will continue our national progress.” These recommendations include:
1. Implementing policies that recognize our energy reality today and tomorrow and are based on sound science and economics.
2. Embracing our new era of American energy abundance and protecting the progress made rather than returning to a time of insecurity and scarcity.
3. Seizing the career opportunities the oil and gas sector provides to a diverse American labor force with the potential to break the cycle of generational poverty.
4. Insisting government regulatory systems perform their duty of protecting the public in a timely and efficient manner, avoiding unnecessary or duplicative rules that place undue burdens on energy development and distribution.
5. Recognizing the best way to achieve our energy and environmental goals is not with government mandates but through private innovation and investment, in cooperation with governments at all levels.
Gerard emphasizes given recent technological advances in the oil and gas sector that have resulted in more efficient fuels, reduced carbon emissions and cleaner air, fossil fuels can “remain the foundation upon which our modern society rests for decades to come.”
API highlights a number of particular problems in current energy policy it would like to see the next U.S. president address, including restrictions on offshore energy access and energy-related technological innovation.
In regard to offshore energy access, the report finds “today 87 percent of federal offshore acreage has been placed off limits, and less than 15 percent of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management is currently leased … In order to continue America’s energy leadership and lay a foundation for decades of affordable and reliable energy, we must unlock our vast reserves to safe and responsible American energy production.”
With respect to market-driven innovation, the report focuses primarily on the shale revolution, noting the key role recent technological advancements have played in developing extraction methods “at a scale and efficiency level that was unthinkable not long ago.”
After detailing the current energy policy’s restrictions on fossil fuel-based innovation, API asserts “the federal government should not use direct or indirect means” to limit such innovations that have “safely launched an energy revolution” in the U.S. while “reducing the environmental impacts of energy production.”
According to API’s voter polls, American voters consistently support increased production of domestic oil and natural gas and “prefer candidates who share their energy priorities.” Looking ahead toward November’s presidential election, the report concludes, “To realize our nation’s true potential as an energy superpower, we need the best infrastructure in the world and government rules that support, not hinder, building and maintaining that infrastructure.”
For more information, visit www.api.org or call (202) 682-8000. To read the report, visit www.vote4energy.org.