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A Homegrown, Shovel-Ready Green Jobs Program — That Will Work!

In fact, it is working today...

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  August 4th, 2009 at 02:30 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Right now, today, we have an available source of energy that accomplishes the stated policy goals of the Obama Administration, by:

  • Reducing our reliance on imported oil.
  • Creating good-paying, green jobs for Americans.
  • Reducing greenhouse gases and atmospheric pollutants.
  • Providing affordable energy from a totally domestic, proven source in virtually inexhaustable amounts.

Of course, nothing’s perfect. This energy source comes with some distinct DISADVANTAGES, being contrary to the Administration’s goals:

  • It’s not government-centric.
  • It won’t allow the Administration to throw a sop to ACORN, SEIU or powerful Democrats in Washington.
  • American corporations (and American investors) sometimes actually make a profit on it.
  • Winners and losers are determined in the marketplace, not by government diktat.

So, I can see already why this fuel might not be popular with the current Administration, but some folks might even interpret those disadvantages as ADVANTAGES.

The U.S. has almost unlimited resources of NATURAL GAS. It is a clean, abundant and secure fuel: its source is almost entirely domestic. At today’s prices, it deliver a unit of energy at a third of the cost of oil and with about half of the carbon footprint per unit of energy as oil or coal. We have existing transportation infrastructure in place covering nearly the entire country.

Advances in drilling and production technology have unlocked the natural gas potential of shales, rock formations long believed to be non-productive. Industry’s recent success in producing natural gas from other shale formations (especially the Barnett Shale of Texas, the Haynesville of Louisiana, the Fayetteville of Arkansas, and others) has opened up the biggest, highest-potential natural gas play in the Eastern U.S., one that covers much of Western Pennsylvania: the Marcellus Shale.

A Penn State study reported in World Oil indicates the current and potential economic impact of the development of the Marcellus Shale for the State of Pennsylvania. As you read the following statistics, consider that PA is currently #15 on the list of natural gas producing states.


Marcellus Shale development expected to create 98,000 Pennsylvania jobs by 2010

The development of the Marcellus Shale will pump $14.17 billion into Pennsylvania’s economy in 2010 and create more than 98,000 jobs, while generating $800 million in state and local tax revenues, according to an economic study completed by the Pennsylvania State University for the Marcellus Shale Committee and the [bipartisan] Pennsylvania House Natural Gas Caucus.

The study notes a consistent increase in annual drilling and projects a $25 billion contribution to the Commonwealth’s economy in the year 2020. This level of activity would generate almost $1.4 billion in state and local tax revenue and create more than 176,000 new jobs.

Natural gas production had a $2.3 billion direct impact on Pennsylvania’s economy in 2008, adding more than 29,000 new jobs and $240 million in state and local tax revenue. More than thirty-percent of all tax revenues remain at the level local.

The industry will contribute a cumulative economic impact to the state of $265 billion by 2020, along with nearly $15 billion in state and local revenue. The study includes direct, indirect and induced jobs, and economic activity from Marcellus Shale development in Pennsylvania.

The study estimates that the Marcellus Shale may contain 2,445 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in place with recoverable reserves amounting to 489 trillion cubic feet – or enough natural gas to last the entire United States for more than 20 years. …

According to the Energy Information Association (EIA), natural gas usage is expected to increase more than 20% through the 2020 in the United States and 40% worldwide. The EIA also indicates that 57% of all new electric generation will come from natural gas, which is more than all other sources combined. [emphasis added]

Now, I will be the first to point out the optimism, bordering on boosterism, inherent in these state studies. (Another example is the much-hyped report of the State Geologic Survey of North Dakota on the Bakken Shale.)

That being said, it’s hard to understand why the Administration has given little more than lip service to placing a bigger emphasis on natural gas, at least a a bridge to the promised future of wind and solar energy, which remain heavily dependent on government subsidy to be economically competitive, while making up less than 1% of current electrical generating capacity. Proposed changes in tax policy punish natural gas drilling, and most of this burden falls on the independent producers who drill 90% of America’s gas wells.

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COMMENTS

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  • bobojake

    A John Deere Combine Harvesting Wheat.
    If couse most of the librals democrats and ecofreaks never seen where their flour came from.

  • cclive

    but it isn’t a big mystery why the Obama administration doesn’t support it. Natural gas is a “cleaner” fuel than say coal or oil but it is still a big CO2 emitter.

  • mdredstater

    “stated” goals of the administration. The underlying goal of this administration however, is to centralize power (name me one policy where they have demonstrated their intent of doing anything OTHER than this, in ANYTHING they do) and to cut America down to size since our free market individual-responsibility society is unfair, immoral and unjust. And it’s never more obvious when real energy solutions that actually fit their “stated” goals are blocked or ignored.

    It’s kind of like the race baiting crowd. They pounce on every opportunity to cry racism, but if racism was actually 100% completely eliminated, these types would no longer have a reason for being. So, for our country to be energy independent and energy profitable would be one step closer further from DEpendence on government, giving the statist one less reason for being.

  • Josh Painter

    It’s not “renewable” so it doesn’t fit their criteria. When you try to explain to them that NG burns cleaner than ethanol or biodiesel, they cover their ears and shout, “I can’t hear you.”

    Until the moonbeamers can harness the power of unicorns and rainbows, we need something to burn for fuel in this country. NG makes more sense than any of the other alternatives.

    Its only drawback is the lack of a refueling infrastructure, but for a fraction of what the Obamacrats have already poured down the rat hole, we could build it.

    *(Watermelons: Green on the outside, pink inside)

    - JP

    • http://web.mac.com/mayo99/iWeb/Site/VladBlog/VladBlog.html Vladimir

      …natural gas is a step in the right direction.

      We’ve got something like a 250 year resource base, and growing every year.

      If you just displaced coal with it, you’ve made a bigger dent in CO2 emissions than Cap’n'Trade will ever have. You’ve also eliminated a lot of SOx & a huge amount of methane that is liberated to the atmosphere in the process of mining coal.

      If we depend on growth of solar & wind, we’d better get used to brownouts, no AC & reading by candlelight.

      Oooh, I’d better stop this or my head is going to explode.

      • Kordo

        Do windmills not like to give juice to air conditioners? Or, are you complaining that we don’t have enough solar & wind generating capacity to power all the things we want to run? If it’s A, then we’re hosed. But, if it’s B, then what we need to do is take all the Oil/NG/Mining tax breaks and give them to the renewable energy companies. That would seem to be a big step in making these new technologies profitable, yes? Is it a government giveaway to hand them the same coupon we’ve been giving these other guys for a hundred-plus years? Forgive me, I’m not seeing the problem here?

        • cclive

          Wind farms and solar farms are being built in areas that might be great for wind or sun but that don’t have existing transmission lines to get the energy to grids that need it. As a result they are not performing at peak levels. Investment into those technologies requires transmission line investment too.

        • cclive

          that oil, coal and gas are physical and can be transport via and existing roadway, rail or boat to where they are needed. Wind and solar requires a direct connection, a double investment is needed, the production farm and then the grid,

          • Skanderbeg

            Yep, you’ve landed on two big problems that the crackpots lack the intellectual firepower to even consider.

            The first is “energy-density.” The sources the greenies profess to hate are nearly all very dense – i.e., lots of energy from a relatively small amount of “stuff.” As you note, in the case of nearly all of these things, you actually are using energy that is conveniently stored in some corporeal form, so that you can not only store and transport it – you can fire up the source (in both time and scale) at will.

            The only viable exception to that is hydro – since that’s an instantaneous-generation source. That only works because the flow of rivers is relatively predictable – at least it’s far and away more manageable than the wind. Of course, note how a key feature of hydro power is dams and reservoirs – which amounts to energy storage as well.

            The second problem is indeed that the present grid is not at all configured to accommodate diffuse sources. This is of course because of the energy-density of the major sources – you generate A LOT of kWh in one place and distribute them outward. “Renewables” are so diffuse that they require an entirely new grid to be built to collect all the diffusely-generated power and feed it into the distribution grid. Whether or not that’s desirable is for now not the point – it will be very expensive to go and do that.

            These things aren’t easy. That’s why it’s not a simple matter to go rewrite the rulebook on electricity/energy production and generation. Almost every path you go down turns into a massive sink for money and resources.

            I’m not in the energy domain at all. My main worry is as a downstream user – having enough of a supply of reliable electricity/energy to be able to engage in other productive economic activities. I also don’t want to see so much of a fraction of our resources put into “fantasy energy” that it takes away resources from more productive activities.

            My main fear is that whenever people have gone down the fantasy road, the collateral damage to everyone else has been catastrophic….

          • Kordo

            …but I do seem to remember the President mentioning something about investing in a “smart grid” capable of shifting this electricity around, well, smartly?. Won’t we need people to build it? Seeing as how every state will need to have a part of it, politicians can hardly balk at that many jobs, right? Well, until we figure out the whole “energy from unicorns and rainbows” thing Josh was talking about…

          • Skanderbeg

            Do you actually know anything?

            Or are you just stopping by to read off the DNC talking points that are sent out to all the volunteer cannon fodder?

            All you’ve done so far is babble and wave your hands. There’s no sign of any engineering experience or knowledge.

            Do go into details about the “smart grid” – that should be entertaining.

          • ehosterman

            and expose your ignorance of energy and economics, so now you change the subject to distribution to demonstrate your ignorance of energy and economics. The whole point of “smart grids” is to better monitor and control the end use of electricity. The point is not to waste hundreds of billions of dollars connecting non-economical intermittent energy sources that make the grid harder to control. Smart grids don’t produce any more energy and certainly don’t fuel vehicles. Conservation is great, but it won’t fuel long term economic growth. You need plentiful cheap energy for that. You won’t get either form anything this president is supporting.

        • skorrent1

          At the economic illiteracy of a poster who equates “tax breaks” (e.g., We will allow you to expense the drilling cost when it occurs rather than over the life of the well.) with direct subsidies (using tax dollars to defray part of production costs.) A subsidy does not “make a technology profitable”, only “shares the wealth.” Only a statist who considers all money as belonging to the government would make such an equivalence.

          Besides, I’ve heard that there is a natural antagonism between windmills and ACs. And solar panels hate TVs.

        • http://web.mac.com/mayo99/iWeb/Site/VladBlog/VladBlog.html Vladimir

          I really want to learn something from someone who is so deeply informed.

        • Skanderbeg

          Good grief. I’ve seen ignorant, self-deluded blather in comments before but this one may take first prize for all time.

          Problem One is that physics always wins. These “alternative” sources are by nature very diffuse – you need A LOT of them and you need to hook them all together AND find a way to feed the energy into the grid. They’re also “intermittent” – meaning they are grossly unreliable. Have you noticed how energy sources that don’t let you turn them on and off have fallen into disuse? You might want to ponder why that’s the case.

          If you’re going to spout, you owe us detailed calculations of how many windmills you’d need to replace a single nuclear or coal-fired plant – and I mean a calculation, not a link to some crackpot energy site.

          Then tell us how many tons of cement your plans will require, and where you will get it.

          Problem Two is that your knowledge of economics and public policy, umm, leaves a great deal to be desired. The cost difference between “conventional” feedstock sources and “renewable” sources is multiple-times. If you’ve got a spreadsheet laying out exactly how the alleged “subsidies” are the only thing causing a cost-difference, lay it on us.

          The problem is that you won’t because that’s just self-delusional nonsense. It’s the “renewable” outfits that are always clamoring for handouts.

          If you bother to look, other nations have been foolish enough to pretend that they can just go that way. They’ve either destroyed their economies, or become client states for unscrupulous but energy-rich countries.

          What you’re left with is the kooky conspiracy theories, such as the Rockefeller family’s secret Ninja squad that goes around knocking off anyone who comes up with a better energy idea.

          Tell you what. You’re on the way into the OR for emergency surgery for an immediate and life-threatening situation. There is a brief pause at the OR door that allows you to push a button on a panel to choose what source of electricity you want to be powering the OR during the surgery – nuclear, NG, coal, wind, or solar. What would YOU pick?

        • aesthete

          and what are the prerequisites for eligibility? How much money do they cost? And, oh yeah, which ones? I’d like to see what specific tax cuts you think are so big that switching funding and support from gas to wind + solar would completely change the energy balance in this country. I doubt very much that you have anything but your own opinion to back you up on this point, but if you have anything, feel free to post; otherwise, I suppose we’ll just assume that you’re in thrall to environmentalism activist groups, per your accusation of us.

          • Kordo

            to any group, but if I hafta choose, I’m gonna go with the group who’s ideas aren’t killing the planet. I realize anecdote is not the plural of evidence, but take my hometown (Tampa, FL). When I was a kid, 25-30 years ago, the neighborhood I lived in was almost rural. We had woods, and spring-fed lakes, and wildlife bigger than squirrels. You could actually eat the fish you caught, and not puke, or get cancer. All that’s gone now, or at least it’s moved 30 miles farther north. That kind of thing is happening all over the country. It’s not the sole fault of (insert corporation name here), but it’s helpful to keep coming up with ever more destructive methods of tapping what is, as I’m sure we can all agree, a finite amount of juice. Jeebus, we tossed a few trillion dollars down the rathole that is Iraq, and no one batted an eye. We’re building aircraft carriers, not an inexpensive item, at a rate that boggles even the Navy’s mind. If we’re gonna spend the money, let’s spend it on something that will pay off, financially and enviromentally, in the future. I’m just sayin….

          • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

            Yeah… well… yeah.

          • Skanderbeg

            Well, I see that Neil got him while I was off rolling out tonight’s homemade pasta.

            But this one was heading for a nervous breakdown. His obtuse ramble here needs no real comment, other than to note how he sees how the Tampa-St.P metro area is larger and more populous than it was 30 years ago…. and extrapolates THAT to infer what’s going on in the ENTIRE PLANET. Good grief.

            What’s really disturbing is to see so many people willing to sign up (on their own dime) to be the talking points cannon fodder for the DNC and that lot. They’re just being used and are regarded as expendable, and will be discarded – but that reality hasn’t penetrated their fuzzy minds yet.

            In China, you can still note a certain age group in the population that is strange – they are basically illiterate and completely unskilled. These are the fanatics who were the “shock troops” (more like social cannon fodder) of the so-called “cultural revolution.” They were used as cannon fodder by Mao and his minions, and were left uneducated, illiterate, and unskilled – and worthless for life.

            I hope I live long enough to pity our version of people like that.

          • aesthete

            There are far too many people in this world deserving of sympathy (those who live in ) to waste it on Kordo and those of his ilk who, having lived in the safest and most secure country in the world, haven’t bothered to learn how this wealth was acquired, but still insist on running the country into the ground.

          • aesthete

            Economically illiterate, arrogant, and unrepentantly insistent on making things personal. I know you’re gone, but I insist on tying up some loose ends so that you might hopefully learn something:

            1) Of course gas is a finite resource. So is most everything else that you’ve used today. In fact, there isn’t enough of everything to satisfy everyone’s wants, so there has to be a way to ration it, and the pricing mechanism does a great job of that in the free market. As the supply of oil decreases, the price will increase. As price increases, it makes other, more inexpensive sources of energy more attractive to consumers. Therefore, more people will adopt these alternate fuel sources to lower costs. This of course assumes that the demand for oil remains the same, which may be far from the case as we find alternative fuels in the future that may be more cost-effective than oil (*cough*nuclear*cough*).

            2) All you do when you increase the costs of oil manufactured in the US is make oil from other countries more attractive. These countries, by and large, have worse records on the environment than the US (with the arguable exception of Canada). Therefore, it’s quite possible that the negative effects on the environment that the production of more oil would cause would be offset by the fact that some of the oil from other, more negligent countries would be replaced by more environmentally friendly American oil.

            3) As to your non-sequitur concerning naval expenditures, you realize that at this point, military expenditures currently hover at about 20% of the budget, and are universally acknowledged as a legitimate function of government. As to Iraq, I’m not of the opinion that we should have gone in in the first place, but I can’t say that it was a complete waste of government funds to depose a dictator who posed a grave risk to the stability of that area of the world and to re-form the country from being a rathole beholden to Hussein’s twisted whims a constitutional modern republic and a valuable ally in the region. (Also, the stabilization process is going swimmingly ATM, thanks for asking). Heck, I’d have thought that out of all wars, a war against a regime propped up by religious fundamentalists and abusers of women would be right up the left’s alley, esp. when said country attacked religious and ethnic minorities (Kurds) and when said war was encouraged by the UN. But then I remembered that leftists hate women, and aren’t too crazy about people different from them, either.

            I doubt you’ll learn from this post, as it seems that you’re chronically unable to process facts that don’t fit your narrative rationally, but hopefully, someone else will be able to.

        • ehosterman

          You mean like depreciation? Actually allowing companies to charge off their drilling costs? As opposed to direct subsidies to make energy sources which will never (at least not in the next 20 years) produce economical power? Solar and wind power produce less than 1% of our electricity and disappear every time the subsidies disappear for a reason. Hint, it doesn’t have anything to do with “Big Oil”, but has everything to do with economics. Of course, if you understood anything about the later you wouldn’t make statements as ill informed as you’ve made.

      • Richard Mullins

        but if it can stay at it current price and hit $13 MBtu it will be cheap. Solar and wind are far to fickle to make any good energy sources. I’m still a Pro-Nuclear person.

        P.S. My head sometimes close to exploding when I here the crap of Wind and Solar only. Diversified energy is one thing, but only renewable sources for energy, you have to be nuts.

        • Kordo

          except for the disposal problem. What do we do with the leftover fuel? I saw an interesting idea in SciAm, about fast-breeder reactors being able to use spent fuel rods from older reactors, but even if you only wind up with 10% of the waste material, it’s still 10% that you hafta store somewhere for a few thousand years. I’ve been watching the polls, but I haven’t seen any support for the “Store your toxic waste in my town” party, ya know?

          • Skanderbeg

            Just for anyone sane who stumbles in this far….

            We could be doing much more with reprocessing fuel and using the plutonium to power reactors. The reason we *can’t* do this is because of a Jimmy Carter ban on that – don’t want to make any plutonium, might be a proliferation problem. France of course does this extensively without any trouble (technical or political).

            Dealing with the waste is a political problem, not a technical one. We’ve had a plethora of viable disposal methods for decades – it’s just that they’ve been continually blocked by the anti-nuclear fanatics. The whole Yucca Mountain circus is just the latest example.

            BTW, keep in mind that “long-lasting” is actually better than “short-lasting” in many ways. When something has a short decay life, it emits gobs of radiation. When something has a long half life, it emits low levels of radiation – and is more manageable. Ponder that.

  • Kordo

    1: “Advances in drilling and production technology have unlocked the natural gas potential of shales, rock formations long believed to be non-productive. Industry?s recent success in producing natural gas from other shale formations (especially the Barnett Shale of Texas, the Haynesville of Louisiana, the Fayetteville of Arkansas, and others)”

    Um, no. The mining industries’ recent “success” consists of using the massive tax breaks they already get to make this sort of thing look profitable on paper. You make a point of claiming that NG delivers the same energy for about a third the cost of oil. That’s only true if you fail to factor in the energy cost of cracking the NG out of these shale formations. Once you add that in, it’s a loser. You did have a point about the carbon footprint of BURNING natural gas, but again, you add the carbon costs of extracting the stuff from shales, and your back in the red, financially & enviromentally.

    2. Your “evidence” for the claims in this post come entirely from Oil/Mining industry advocacy groups, and paid PR firms->

    “A Penn State study reported in World Oil indicates the current and potential economic impact of the development of the Marcellus Shale for the State of Pennsylvania.”

    And those guys would never lie, right?

    “according to an economic study completed by the Pennsylvania State University for the Marcellus Shale Committee and the [bipartisan] Pennsylvania House Natural Gas Caucus.”

    I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that an industry-funded committee, & the politicians who have the most to gain from the industry’s prefered course of action might not be 100% impartial in this matter. Maybe I’m just too cynical…

    This was what got me thinking about your post, and not just yelling at the computer->

    “Now, I will be the first to point out the optimism, bordering on boosterism, inherent in these state studies. (Another example is the much-hyped report of the State Geologic Survey of North Dakota on the Bakken Shale.)

    That being said, it?s hard to understand why the Administration has given little more than lip service to placing a bigger emphasis on natural gas, at least a a bridge to the promised future of wind and solar energy, which remain heavily dependent on government subsidy to be economically competitive, while making up less than 1% of current electrical generating capacity. Proposed changes in tax policy punish natural gas drilling, and most of this burden falls on the independent producers who drill 90% of America?s gas wells.”

    “Boosterism” is a polite term. Where I come from, we call this “well-funded propaganda”, but I’m was glad to see you make note of it. As to the Administration giving only lip-service, the most cursory search of the Government’s online databases will show that the perqs, tax breaks, and outright subsidies enjoyed by the the Oil/NG industry are gargantuan, and have been for many years. These folks are not interested in a “bridge” to any technology that they don’t already own a majority share of. I’m sure you know this, since it’s been all over the internets for about 10+ years. Which sorta made me wonder about the gist of your post. Why would a seemingly reasonable, informed blogger go to the trouble of putting together this slick PR item on a subject that’s been chewed over forever?

    The devil, as they say, is in the last line->

    “Proposed changes in tax policy punish natural gas drilling, and most of this burden falls on the independent producers who drill 90% of America?s gas wells.”

    “proposed changes”? Astro-turffing, indeed…

    ROFL, one day I’m going to find a responsible, sane, and not bought-and-paid-for Conservative on this site to have a serious discussion with. Guess it’s not gonna be today.

    • Leon H. Wolf

      Nobody seems much inclined to spend millions of dollars researching the comparative efficacy of various methods of extracting fossil fuels from the earth’s subsurface, other than the oil companies. Guess that means there’s no reliable science on the question. Or you could ask the good folks from the universities and other independent entities they fund how they like the insinuation you are making.

      PS Please be a little more respectful in your tone.

    • E Pluribus Unum

      ROFL, one day I?m going to find a responsible, sane, and not bought-and-paid-for Conservative on this site to have a serious discussion with. Guess it?s not gonna be today.

      Since this hypothetical person would prefer to have a debate with a free-thinking adult and not just a bought-and-paid-for leftist and Global Warming Hoaxist.

      • Richard Mullins

        sealed the crap. They all think were purchased by something like Big Oil,Big Gas or whatever they come up with. I’m sure it’s only here for a little while and gone latter on.

    • http://web.mac.com/mayo99/iWeb/Site/VladBlog/VladBlog.html Vladimir

      You’re confused, dude. You lost me here, and the rest of your pitiful post is just anti-industry drivel. Say hi to Mother Jones.

      “Cracking” is something that happens in a refinery, which I admittedly don’t know much about. “Fracking” is something that, as it happens, I do know something about. And to the extent that it makes wells produce better than they would otherwise, I’m thinking it’s a pretty big energy gain.

      “You make a point of claiming that NG delivers the same energy for about a third the cost of oil.”

      Yeah. As in an mcf of gas is about $4.00. That equates to the energy content of a barrel of oil for $23.20 (using 5.8 mmbtu per barrel). And that’s about a third of the price of a barrel of oil. Arithmatic.

      Why is it that the opinions of oil companies are always considered tainted on energy issues, but Al Gore is as pure as the driven snow when he pushes a Climate Change agenda?

      • Rod_Patrick

        In Oil drilling, there are cases when gaseous fuels (NATGAS) are found instead of crude oil.

        Nat gas is independent of shale oil.

        Shale oil is the one that requires processing, like crude oil. It has a lower enthalpic quality or heating value (as engineers say) as compared to crude oil.

        Crude oil requires Catalytic cracking to form refined fuels like gasoline, diesel and kerosene, among others.

    • http://web.mac.com/mayo99/iWeb/Site/VladBlog/VladBlog.html Vladimir

      …your comment make more sense (?!) if you’re addressing the issue of the extraction of oil from shale.

      Gas is a different deal.

      It flows out of the ground on its own. There is no “carbon footprint” associated with its extraction.

    • ehosterman

      Of course that’s the major source of your information, as opposed to academic study at a good four year engineering school. Your problem is that you aren’t suitably well informed to judge the difference between academic studies and barking moonbattery. You probably also believe that the government is spraying chemicals over the country (re: chemtrails) to make the population easier to control. After all, that’s been all over the internets for the last ten years or so also. By the way, I’m not bought and paid for by “Big Oil”, I’m bought and paid for by the nuclear industry, but I like putting gas into my car to get to work.

  • dennism

    Kordo – IF THAT’S YOUR REAL NAME – that the Tax Code benefits all natural resource endeavors, not just oil & gas. There are big breaks for timber, coal mining, gold mining, silver mining, clam shell mining, clay… but it’s only the oil and gas industry that’s at hazard of losing the favorable treatments. The only way it makes sense to make Vladimir pay more taxes relative to the clam shell digger is if you want him to drill less and thus produce less so prices will rise.

    By the by, natural resources aren’t the only tax favored endeavors. So are invention, farming and fishing, home ownership, medical insurance… charitable giving to the very institutions that educated all the common sense out of you.

    You are confusing a tax break with a subsidy. The oil business gets a tax break. The auto companies get a subsidy.

    There isn’t a honey pot in Washington filled with unspent subsidies. There isn’t a Social Security Trust Fund. There isn’t an Easter Bunny.