The Wall Street Journal Jacob Fischler
Two pro-business energy leaders said Wednesday that federal regulations and taxes are putting the U.S. oil and gas industry at risk, delaying the creation of jobs and technological innovation.
“We’re making it very difficult to do the energy business here,” said Karen Alderman Harbert, the president & CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, who spoke at an industry event.
Federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and natural gas are holding back energy markets, Harbert said, arguing that states are best equipped to set and regulate their own standards.
“We’re literally at the point of unprecedented opportunities here in the United States,” said Jack Gerard, the president & CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, a key oil lobbyist, as he argued for continued growth in the natural gas industry.
Both Gerard and Harbert touted the potential that growth in the energy sector has for the overall economy. They urged President Barack Obama and federal regulators to be welcoming to ideas from the industry.
“You can’t be for the potential energy development in the United States and be against hydraulic fracturing,” Gerard said. “You fundamentally can’t regulate the very technology that has created the potential and deny the ability to use that in places where we can see job creation, revenue creation.”
But some contend the gas industry can’t be trusted to police themselves.
“The fracking process exploits loopholes in the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts to pump millions of gallons of water laced with undisclosed chemicals into the earth,” said Deb Nardone, campaign director of Beyond Natural Gas.
Wednesday’s speakers also had strong words for a possible carbon tax, which has resurfaced with increased awareness of climate change after Hurricane Sandy. Obama at his press conference alluded to the idea, which is making the rounds as a possible way to increase revenue during deficit-reduction talks.
“There’s some people out there who think that a carbon tax is a tax on the industry,” Harbert said. “A carbon tax is a tax on the consumer. Somebody pays for that. And the idea that the American people are going to welcome, with open arms, higher prices for electricity or gasoline is just poppycock.” She added that it would retard the economic recovery.
Neither speaker at Wednesday’s event was willing to take a position on the tax break for wind energy industry set to expire at the end of this year. A bipartisan group of governors urged Congress on Tuesday to extend the credit.
This was a rough election cycle for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with the vast majority of the national candidates they invested in losing their elections.
CNNMoney reported last week that the Chamber spent between $1 million and $4 million each on 15 Senate candidates, 13 of whom lost. Among the most prominent losses for the Chamber were George Allen in Virginia and Scott Brown in Massachusetts.
The Chamber said of the eventual winner in Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, that “no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise.”