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Nicole Daigle / Brendan Bradley
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For Immediate Release
January 29, 2010

WASHINGTON - If there was one thing that President Obama conveyed to the American people during his first State of the Union address Wednesday night, it was that jobs is his number one concern. And with double-digit unemployment nationwide, leaders in Washington should be working tirelessly to help redirect our struggling economy and put Americans back to work.

So what next? Well, in his address to a joint session of Congress, the President highlighted the need to "make tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development." In a statement yesterday, IPAA's president and CEO Barry Russell applauded the President for his words of support for expanding access to job-creating American energy reserves offshore:

• "A clear majority of Americans support increasing access to more homegrown energy reserves, especially offshore. And it was heartening to hear the President convey his support of such sound initiatives that will help create tens of thousands of good jobs, drive down foreign imports and stabilize energy prices for struggling families and seniors."

Russell - speaking on behalf of those responsible for producing 9 in 10 wells drilled in America - said that higher taxes proposed by the President would discourage domestic energy production and cost jobs:

• "These punitive taxes [proposed by the President] would reduce investment in new US production by 20 to 40 percent. And, it could drive down US oil production by 20 percent and natural gas production by 12 percent; potentially killing thousands of jobs."

Independent oil and gas producers aren't alone in their fight to deliver stable and affordable energy prices to struggling American families. This week, Virginia Senators Jim Webb and John Warner - both Democrats - joined Gov. Bob McDonnell in working to unlock energy offshore. In a letter to Interior secretary Ken Salazar, Sens. Webb and Warner write: 

• "Support among Virginia's political leadership for the development of oil and gas resources is strong. If accomplished with a fair and equitable formula for sharing of revenues between the federal and state government, Lease Sale 220 will attract well-paying jobs to the Commonwealth to support a range of projects, from the transportation sector to coastal restoration. Further, it holds significant promise for boosting needed domestic energy production."

The Administration's efforts to keep job-creating energy off-limits and levy higher taxes on homegrown energy production has been squarely rejected by several newspapers, as well.

Investor's Business Daily writes this in an editorial this week entitled "Slow-Walking U.S. Energy Security":

• Ordinarily, even a little motion from federal bureaucrats to open America's offshore to domestic drilling is welcome news. But in a speech before Platts Energy Podium Monday, the interior secretary took back as much as he gave, announcing that the government would look into drilling in the Atlantic, but only after walking the whole process through a long regulatory gauntlet that will be rife with environmental politics.

[Salazar] showed no such urgency for oil. Yet it's oil, not alternative energy, that can be produced with verifiable efficiency, and America's Atlantic coast is just sitting there.

Salazar may sound as though he's serious about permitting the development of oil energy in the U.S., but the tactic he's using suggests he's putting environmentalists in the driver's seat. That serves their interests - but it comes at the expense of the country as a whole.

And in an recent editorial entitled "Keep oil, gas in energy mix," the Amarillo (TX) Globe-News writes this: 

• Oil and natural gas need to remain part of the energy strategy, even as the president's team pursues alternative energy sources.

Obama has proposed a 13-percent excise tax on offshore drilling.

"Without question, hiking the tax burden on America's oil and gas companies will mean less, not more, domestic energy production," Weinstein argues. The reduction will destroy thousands of jobs, taking millions of dollars out of the economy - and revenue needed to help fill the nation's coffers.

Punitive tax policies don't provide energy independence for a nation that still relies too heavily on foreign sources of fossil fuel.

A comprehensive energy plan should, by definition, include all sources available to it. That means oil and natural gas.