WASHINGTON – This week was anything but dull for the oil and natural gas industry.  As natural gas prices dropped below $2 for the first time in over a decade, lowering electricity bills for consumers and reviving American manufacturing, rising gasoline prices knocked consumers on their feet, tip-toeing towards the $4 mark, and forcing consumers to cut back their household spending.  And while the key to decreased gasoline prices and continued natural gas development centers on increased access to reserves and appropriate regulatory infrastructure, agencies under the Obama administration have stepped forward with new regulations that stand to paralyze the oil and natural gas production upon which our nation relies.

Yet at every turn, the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) was there to set the record straight and lay out the facts.  From highlighting the vast benefits of oil and natural gas development for our nation, to why duplicative federal regulations stand to threaten development, IPAA has the facts.

In the Oil and Gas Journal IPAA’s Lee Fuller addressed concerns over EPA’s new source performance standards proposal:

“Due to the expansive nature of these rules, hundreds of thousands of American natural gas development operations could be affected and, as such, risks the jobs of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose livelihoods are dependent on the ability to explore for, and produce, oil and natural gas in the United States,” he said in an Apr. 12 letter to Valerie B. Jarrett, senior advisor to US President Barack Obama…IPAA recommends delaying implementation of the NSPS rule until new data could be collected and a more-thorough cost benefit analysis for the emissions control requirements could be undertaken, he said. As an alternative, IPAA would encourage EPA to exempt gas wells without horizontal legs (i.e., vertical wells) from the requirement, and supports proposals to limit the rule’s application to wells meeting a minimum VOC threshold.”

The Houston Chronicle also highlighted IPAA response to the EPA’s suggested findings:

“Fuller said the EPA used limited emission estimates provided by some producers working “a very limited number of wells.” That may have thrown off the agency’s required cost-benefit analysis. Fuller adds, “Reports have shown that, in some cases, the EPA overstated emissions estimates by over 1,400 percent. When these numbers are corrected, EPA’s proposed requirements grossly fail its own cost-effectiveness standards.”

As the Bureau of Land Management moves forward with plans to implement new regulations on hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, IPAA’s Dan Naatz spoke to the Houston Chronicle, detailing the extensive regulations already set in place at the state level and the duplicative nature of additional federal regulations.

“The secretary’s Achilles’ heel analogy is a little dated at this point,” said Dan Naatz, a vice president with the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “Industry has moved forward. The states are moving forward. Things have progressed, and in many ways, the secretary is trying to address a problem that doesn’t exist anymore.”

IPAA’s Julia Bell was featured in Detroit Free Press, highlighting the great increase in truck sales as a result of increased American oil and natural gas development:

“Julia Bell, public affairs and communications coordinator for IPAA, said independent oil and natural gas companies have an average of 12 employees and drill about 95 percent of new wells. ’The benefits of oil and natural gas development don’t end at the wellbore,’ she said. ‘It goes well beyond the industry. It’s even going to the auto industry, for example.’

And as highlighted by Oil and Gas Journal, IPAA immediate past chairman Bruce Vincent highlighted America’s ‘remarkable’ energy growth”

Rapid growth of US oil production is “remarkable” in the current political climate, says the Bruce H. Vincent. {He} told the Decision Strategies Oilfield Breakfast Forum that recent production gains from unconventional resources have come “in the face of an administration that has threatened you at every turn.”  Vincent disputed Obama’s recent claim of responsibility for rising oil production, saying the administration has done “everything they could to limit oil and gas production in this country.”

As IPAA noted in this week’s Declaration of Independents, “The turnaround in U.S. oil and gas production, with independents at the helm, is concrete evidence of the growing commercial resource base of American oil and natural gas–and great encouragement for America’s energy future.”  Creating jobs, securing our nation’s energy base, and stimulating our economy, the continued development of America’s oil and natural gas reserves is key to the health of our nation. Independent oil and natural gas producers—responsible for developing 95 percent of domestic oil and natural gas wells—are dedicated this future, and devoted to providing the real facts to the public, media, and government officials.