How to Create Jobs and Save the Environment
Nicolas Loris /
There’s a plan out there that will create jobs, collect revenue for state and federal governments and improve the environment. And it won’t come at any cost to the taxpayer but if the administration doesn’t act, it will be a net drain on the economy. 1.) What is it? 2.) Why haven’t Congress and the administration acted? The answers are increased oil and natural gas production in the United States and we have no idea.
The costs of the ban: A new study commissioned by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) details the social, economic and environmental effects of oil and natural gas exploration on and beneath federal lands. The report estimates that consumer energy costs will increase and cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) will decrease by $2.36 trillion over the next two decades.
The other cost on inaction is an environmental one and specifically relates to offshore drilling. Off the coast of Santa Barbara and elsewhere, oil seeps from the ocean floor release oily bubbles or droplets of oil. The non-profit organization Stop Oil Seeps (SOS) California details that these “Oil slicks of varying thickness form on the sea surface and spread out under the influence of wind and currents. As the oil loses its lighter fractions and undergoes weathering, some of it sinks to the ocean floor, some is dispersed by wave agitation into the water column, and some eventually washes up on shore or sticks to rocks near the high tide line.”