REACHING FOR UTOPIA

摘要

Utopia. In my mind, it would include the following: a U.S. unemployment rate hovering around 2% or 3%, plentiful domestic oil and natural gas so that Americans pay less for their energy and rely less on foreign supplies, a sustainable balance between finding and development costs and profit (at $4 gas), and growing demand for all the new shale gas and oil we can—and will—produce. That's really not such a tall order. The upstream and midstream are steadily marching toward this goal already, one of the few sectors creating jobs. One of the other sectors recovering, at least somewhat, is American manufacturing. Coincidentally, these two rely on each other. Jobs. Energy. Energy. Jobs. But President Obama's job-creation plan never mentioned the oil and gas industry. (He did mention new incentives for employers to hire more veterans—something the oil and gas industry is already doing.) And woefully, he says that to pay for his jobs bill, he wants to take away certain oil industry tax "loopholes" worth $41 billio.