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President Obama’s Support For America’s Shale Oil And Natural Gas

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“The natural gas boom has led to cleaner power, and greater energy independence….Natural gas isn’t just appearing magically…. We’re encouraging it and working with the industry,” Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States.


Lest we forget that the great U.S. shale oil and natural gas revolution started around 2008, right when Barack Obama took office for the first of his two terms as U.S. President. As seen in the figure below, the uptick in gas production and usage under his watch was immense. And really out of nowhere the U.S. is the largest oil and gas producer ever. Emerging as the world’s go-to fuel, from 2008-2016, gas increased its share of U.S. power generation – its main sector for use – from 21% to 33%, mostly at the expense of coal.  

·     Under President Obama, U.S. gas production increased 35%.

·     Under President Obama, U.S. gas consumption increased 19%.  

·     Under President Obama, U.S. crude oil production increased 80%.  

In particular, President Obama supported natural gas as an essential strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions by displacing coal and also backing up intermittent wind and solar power.

Gas emits 50% less CO2 than coal and has few local criteria pollutants to clear hazy city skies.

President Obama was right, and the International Energy Agency has specifically credited U.S. shale as the primary reason why we have been cutting CO2 faster than any other nation in “energy history.”  

U.S. CO2 emissions are at their lowest levels in a generation, mostly thanks to more natural gas, even over renewables as reported by the U.S. Department of Energy.

As such, we are already on pace to easily meet our Paris climate commitments years early, even though the Trump administration is now pulling the country out of the pact.

Importantly, this absolute drop of emissions from using more gas to generate electricity is in stark contrast to other sectors of the U.S. economy that confront flat emissions.

Further, the industry has been slashing methane emissions as well, in order to capture lost product and maintain a sustainability factor that favors gas over other fossil fuels.  

States and producers will continue making important progress toward addressing the methane issue, irrespective of near-term federal policy.

And because fracking has made natural gas — a feedstock fuel for manufacturing — cheap and plentiful, U.S. industrial electricity costs are 35-60% lower than those of foreign competitors, and our home prices are just a third of those in Europe.

The growing anti-fracking positions for shale oil and gas from his party, however, are the opposite of what the Obama administration promoted.

Not surprisingly, a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce report indicated just how devastating a fracking ban would be for us.

Released on December 19, a report from its Global Energy Institute projects “catastrophic” economic impacts of proposed fracking bans. Plummeting tax revenues, lost jobs, a worsening trade deficit, and skyrocketing energy prices would become the norm.

·     "Our analysis shows that if such a ban were imposed in 2021, by 2025 it would eliminate 19 million jobs and reduce U.S. Gross Domestic Product by $7.1 trillion.

·     Natural gas prices would leap by 324 percent, causing household energy bills to more than quadruple. By 2025, motorists would pay twice as much at the pump for gasoline as oil prices spike to $130 per barrel.

·     Cost-of-living impacts to residential consumers in Wisconsin and Michigan would grow by approximately $4,700 and $5,100 respectively between 2021 and 2025."

A fracking ban would "devastate" the economies of major oil and gas producing states, such as New Mexico, Texas, Ohio, Colorado, and Pennsylvania.

Many of these are battleground states for the 2020 presidential election, so candidates should learn from history: “Hillary Clinton's Mistake On Fracking For Natural Gas.”

Just take gasoline, an indispensible oil product that we use 410 million gallons of a day.

The Chamber’s report has U.S. prices at just $2.21 per gallon, compared to a devastating $5.24 in Europe.

Such low energy prices mean more money in your pocket.

Other sectors are quietly expanding as well thanks to fracking for shale: “The U.S. Natural Gas Boom Is Fueling A Global Plastics Boom.”

With fracking accounting for about 80% of our domestic oil and gas supply, and basically all new production, a ban would surely leave us dangerously reliant on foreign energy sources once more.

This would be a shame since: “The U.S. Oil Boom Is Sinking OPEC Imports.”

Given how much oil and gas we will consume, there would be a very painful day of reckoning point should we ban fracking: much of today’s rhetoric will violently collide with a wall of reality.

You should know that oil and gas are still expected to supply the bulk of our energy for decades to come, according to U.S. Department of Energy estimates.

A fracking ban would also crush our allies that want to leverage U.S. energy to buffer Vladimir Putin and OPEC, becoming more coordinated in their goal of global domination of such irreplaceable fuels.

The IEA has the U.S. supplying 85% of new crude in 35% of new gas through the 2020s, and we could become the largest exporter of both before 2024.

President Obama was also pro-LNG exports, with the domestic industry really beginning during his last year as president, when Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass facility started shipments in February 2016.

In fact, shale and accompanying export have been strongly supported by both the Obama and Trump administrations: “LNG Exports - A Rare Case of Policy Continuity From Obama to Trump.”

Further, it was President Obama in December 2015 who signed a bill into law to end the ban on U.S. crude exports.

In an energy short world where six in every seven humans struggle in still developing countries, exporting really is a moral imperative: “COP21 Means More Natural Gas and the U.S. Must Help.”

It is very telling that those U.S. states that our pushing for a “renewables only” approach actually use a ton of gas.

In 2018, for instance, gas generated nearly 70% of the power in Massachusetts, 50% in California, and 40% in New York.

To illustrate what can happen, an already embattled electricity sector in California, holding power rates 50% above the national average, has been warned about even worse capacity shortages and less reliability as it seeks to shut down natural gas plants prematurely.

Indeed, President Obama taught us that a mainstream, practical path to a secure, reliable, affordable, and clean energy system is our only way forward.

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