To members of the Hatch family, Vernal always feels like home. That is why I enjoyed traveling to the eastern Utah city this week to speak about domestic energy at the Uintah Basin Energy Summit.

My great-grandfather, Jeremiah Hatch, helped establish a small settlement in what
became Uintah County. It was first called Jericho, and then Hatch Town and Ashley Center, before becoming the city we all now know and love as Vernal.

But family roots are not the only ties that bind me to eastern Utah. Talking with
leaders, energy producers and workers at the summit reinforced the fact that we share the belief that energy is the lifeblood of a healthy economy, and that Utah is poised to lead in the production of domestic energy. 

In the past, light sweet crude dominated global oil production. But that is now making room for oil sands, oil shale, natural gas and other unconventional oil products – abundant oil from oil sands now flow from Canada, making Canada second only to Saudi Arabia in proven oil reserves and has emerged as the top energy supplier to the U.S. . In fact, there have been times that as much as 40 percent of the oil refined and sold in Utah has come from Alberta oil sands.

This is part of a geopolitical shift taking place away from the Middle East and toward the area with the largest, best and most accessible unconventional resources – North America. And much of that is located right here in our own great state of Utah.

A recent U.S. Department of Energy survey conservatively estimates that recoverable
oil from oil shale in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming totals more than 800 billion barrels. The Oil Shale and Tar Sands Development Act, which I have worked hard to enact, would pave the way to begin harnessing this untapped resource in energy rich Utah and surrounding states so that we can increase jobs and lower energy costs.

Lest anyone think that notion is unrealistic, let me assure you that it is already beginning to happen. Commercial oil shale production is on its way in eastern Utah and other areas of the Intermountain West, despite the best efforts of the present Administration in Washington to stop it.

Indeed, the lion’s share of the world’s oil shale sits in the United States, largely on
federal lands already active in energy development.  The Rocky Mountain Energy Corridor, which extends from Alberta down through New Mexico, contains more recoverable oil from oil shale, oil sands, coal, coal-to-liquids and natural gas than the entire world’s fossil fuel reserves a few times over. This is why Utah, which sits squarely within that corridor, has such a vital role to play in America’s energy future.

Our nation can become energy independent if the federal government will allow the
free market access to tap our domestic resources. Instead, this President has kept us dependent on expensive energy and overseas oil by throwing up regulatory roadblocks to domestic coal production and oil production off shore and on public lands.

Just by approving the Keystone Pipeline, for instance, the President could cut Middle East oil imports from 47 percent to 35 percent. Unfortunately, the Administration seems more interested importing oil from the Mideast, Russia and Venezuela than developing it at home or getting it from Canada. This misguided philosophy has cost the U.S. more than a million jobs and billions of dollars in lost energy revenues to federal and state governments. 

It is time for this White House to wake up to the fact that more domestic energy production will lead to more jobs, deficit-reducing revenues and lower energy costs. That is important in good economic times, but even more so during bad ones.

As my friends in eastern Utah know, when it comes to energy, there truly is no place like home.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah