100 Days of Energy

May 9, 2017

Think about energy.  It’s all around us – in fuels and products that make life better, more comfortable. 

Yet energy’s value goes even deeper: What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you want to become? Energy is integrally involved in the answers to all three. It’s absolutely fundamental to both prosperity and opportunity.

This American Petroleum Institute infographic breaks it down into 15 different topics: 

Energy Foundation

• Oil and Natural Gas - Think about energy. It’s all around us – in fuels and products that make life better, more comfortable. Yet energy’s value goes even deeper:  What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What do you want to become? Energy is integrally involved in the answers to all three. It’s absolutely fundamental to both prosperity and opportunity.

Energy and the Economy

• Consumer and Workers - You don’t have to look very far to see the American energy renaissance at work for U.S. consumers. In 2016 U.S. retail gasoline prices were at their lowest level since 2004.  Falling prices at the pump reflect reduced crude oil prices worldwide – in part, because of rising U.S. crude output over the same period.Energy and the Economy

• Hydraulic Fracturing - The link between hydraulic fracturing and U.S. global leadership in oil and natural gas production is direct: Without fracking, there would be no American energy renaissance – or the array of benefits it is providing to our economy, to individual households, U.S. manufacturers and other businesses.  

• Exports - “I believe that a focus on energy security can and must be a critical new element in the American strategic partnership in Central and Eastern Europe, and will benefit Poland, Europe as a whole, and the United States.” General James L. Jones, Former National Security Advisor to President Obama

• Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) - There might not be a sharper contrast with the innovation and market-driven success of the U.S. energy renaissance than the broken federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) – a program rooted in the era of U.S. energy scarcity that has been made obsolete by the ongoing surge in domestic oil and natural gas production.

• Taxes - The U.S. oil and natural gas industry invests $232 billion in domestic capital investments every year. That’s steel in the ground, paychecks for families and American production helping to grow our economy. This type of investment is a main driver of economic growth, technological advancement and jobs and should be considered wisely when making any changes to the tax code.  

• Trade - The United States is the world's leading producer of oil and natural gas. Free trade allows the U.S. to maximize the benefits of our status as the world’s largest producer of oil, natural gas and refined products.

Energy and Security

• Access - One of the important conversations in Washington this year should center on strategies to secure and extend an American energy renaissance that has made the U.S. the world’s leading oil and natural gas producer.Refining - Our nation’s refineries provide us with high-quality fuels used for transportation, energy for heat and light and petrochemicals needed to manufacture the products we use every day – they are essential to our economy.

• Infrastrucuture - American consumers’ growing energy appetite means greater demands on our nation’s energy infrastructure, including pipelines, railroads, highways, waterways and ports.

• Arctic - Alaska is home to some of the largest oil and natural gas reserves in the United States, with the state’s North Slope at one time supplying about a quarter of total U.S. crude output.

• Safety - “The oil and natural gas industry has shown the world how entrepreneurial spirit, innovations in energy production techniques, a core commitment to safety – pioneered and reaffirmed every day by the millions of women and men of the oil and natural gas industry – and smart, effective regulations have transformed the United States from a passive consumer on the world energy stage to a leader in only a decade’s time.”  Jack Gerard, API President and CEO

• Climate - “A lower natural gas price forecast...has a greater effect on emissions levels, the retirement of fossil steam resources and new entry of natural gas combined cycle resources than even the most stringent of the studied compliance pathways...Because of accelerated retirements, therewould be no cost to achieve compliance, and the resulting emissions would be below the final Clean Power Plan targets, even without the Clean Power Plan.”  PJM Interconnection

• Natural Gas - “The constant stress of fluctuating commodity prices and unpredictable weather is softened a bit with additional income from leasing, royalties and pipeline right of way. Over the long term, I believe natural gas development will actually preserve our precious open space. Successful farmers will farm the land rather than subdivide it.” Jackie Root, Pennsylvania farmer and president of the National Association of Royalty Owners

• Environmental Process - By 2015, the combined emissions of the six common pollutants dropped 71 percent since 1970. This progress occurred while the U.S. economy continued to grow, Americans drove more miles and population and energy use increased.” Environmental Protection Agency (Air Trends Report)

See original infographic introduction at American Petroleum Institute.

 

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