Inhofe: Natural gas production essential to Oklahoma and the country
July 8, 2008
By U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe
Link to Op/Ed
Utilized in all 50 states, natural gas makes up nearly a quarter of our nation’s energy supply. It provides electricity in over 60 million homes, and 40 percent of U.S. industry relies on natural gas for energy or as a necessary feedstock to produce a variety of products from chemicals and fertilizer to glass. To maintain a vibrant and internationally competitive economy, America must produce enough affordable natural gas to meet a growing demand.
Oklahomans stand ready to help meet this challenge. Presently, Oklahoma produces oil and gas from over 120,000 wells and is one of the top natural gas producing states in the country. In fact, Oklahoma alone annually produces nearly one-tenth of total U.S. natural gas production. The expertise and experience of Oklahoma’s producers lead the world in many exploration and extraction technologies. Additionally, the industry provides billions in tax revenue and employs tens of thousands in some of the highest-paid jobs in the state.
Today there are exciting new opportunities in the field of natural gas-powered vehicles. The promise of natural gas as a mainstream transportation fuel is achievable today, not 15 or 20 years from now. Most importantly, many state and local governments, businesses, and consumers have been able to cut their fuel bills by more than half when utilizing natural gas as a transportation fuel. From compressed natural gas (CNG) powered cars, to semi-trucks running on liquefied natural gas (LNG), no other commercially viable fuel burns cleaner. The federal transportation bill in 2005, which I authored, included a 50-cent-per-gallon excise tax credit for the sale of CNG or LNG for use as a motor vehicle fuel. In the coming weeks, I plan to introduce new legislation to further reduce regulatory barriers to CNG use and give states the flexibility to develop their own natural gas conversion programs.
Today’s chief obstacle results from the unbalanced implementation of the nation’s environmental laws. With the advent of horizontal drilling, unconventional sources of deep gas, tight gas, gas-containing shales, and coalbed methane are producing a progressively larger percent of U.S. supply. Yet despite the enormous potential of these unconventional sources, much of the time they are either off-limits to exploration, inaccessible, encumbered by federal policies, or subject to litigation by special interest groups. These interest groups – who only a few years ago praised natural gas as the bridge fuel to a clean environment – now oppose increasing supplies.
I have successfully worked in my leadership role on the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to author several key provisions of our national energy policy to encourage and increase natural gas supply to reduce regulatory burdens and encourage successful exploration methods such as hydraulic fracturing. As those in the industry know, hydraulic fracturing is a widely utilized and understood practice currently regulated by states that significantly improves production by allowing gas to move more freely through rock pores. The National Petroleum Council estimates that 60 to 80 percent of all wells drilled in the next decade will require fracturing, and without it, gas production from most unconventional sources would not be possible. I also included provisions to clarify that uncontaminated storm water was not subject to additional regulation. The U.S. Department of Energy estimated that this EPA-initiated storm water process could have resulted in the loss – from now through 2025 – of between 1.3 and 3.9 billion barrels of domestic oil and between 15 and 45 trillion cubic feet of natural gas through regulations never intended for oil and gas production sites. Finally, I included language promoting the development of all U.S. strategic unconventional fuel resources directing the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Petroleum Reserves to take action to accelerate the commercial development of strategic unconventional fuels both domestically and within North America.
In the face of an increasingly hostile atmosphere on Capitol Hill to domestic exploration and production, I will continue my efforts to incentivize the expanded use of environmentally responsible and exacting technologies like 3-D seismic exploration and to emphasize the enormous importance of the nation’s oil and natural gas marginal well production. The United States holds promising reserves of natural gas that will yield a promising future for domestic energy security. Congress must encourage the production of this valuable domestic resource.
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