Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

If budget negotiators have to rely on just two buckets—spending and taxes—to control the huge deficits we’re facing, they can’t get there. We need a third bucket—and we’ve got it in energy. And it’s fuller and deeper than anyone imagined just a few years ago.

- U.S. Chamber President and CEO Tom Donohue

Washington leaders are doing the hard math of solving our debt and deficits crisis. The trouble is, they’re only working with two sets of variables: taxes and spending.

Add energy and we can balance the fiscal equation.

A new abundance of American energy can create a larger tax base and drive higher revenues and direct royalties—all of which will make our deficits lower and reduce debt levels. Every dollar in revenue generated from energy is a dollar we won’t have to take from defense or entitlements, or raise in taxes.

Five Simple Steps Will Create More Than a Million American Jobs

It's time to unleash an American energy revolution, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create jobs, grow the economy, cut the deficit, and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. The economic windfall we need to put Americans to work is sitting right off our coasts, under our rocks, and in the air and sun. We have vast quantities of oil, natural gas, and coal—enough to power our nation for hundreds of years. We have technology that enables us to develop our resources more safely, cleanly, and cost effectively than ever. We have the ingenuity to increase efficiency and add alternative and renewable fuels to our mix. Unfortunately, we have a government that is standing in the way of many of these opportunities. By taking five concrete steps, we can create more than a million new American jobs, cut our dependence on overseas imports, and pump hundreds of billions of dollars into government coffers over the next several years. Here’s how:

1. Unlock Federal Lands to Vastly Expand Oil and Gas Production. While there has been some increased production due to past policies, under current policies 94% of federal onshore lands and 97% of federal offshore lands are not leased. To create jobs and boost our economic security, it’s time to reverse that restrictive course. By opening up onshore federal lands, we could create 530,000 jobs, reduce imports by 44% by 2025, and raise government revenues by $206 billion. The administration should also speed up rulemakings so that the private sector can access the oil shale resources that are poised to make energy more affordable and revitalize American manufacturing. Take a look at North Dakota. Thanks to its shale resources, the state enjoys the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. Developing resource-rich shale deposits could create more than 300,000 jobs by 2015 in Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia alone. The administration’s five-year offshore leasing plan should be revised to include areas off the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and the Atlantic Coast that were previously open for leasing. Nearly 190,000 new jobs could be created by 2013 if offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico returned to pre-moratorium levels. In Alaska, if the government would allow ramped up production off the coast, we would create an annual average of 54,700 new jobs over the next 50 years and generate upward of $167 billion in new revenue.

2. Streamline Permiting and Remove Barriers. Energy producers and entrepreneurs complain that even when new areas are opened for development, all too often they can’t get the permits to proceed. Mr. President, we ask you to use your executive authority to overcome this bureaucratic resistance that is standing in the way of your own publicly stated policy intentions. We ask that you immediately issue an executive order to streamline the permitting process to be fair, predictable, timely, and transparent. Across the United States, energy projects are stalled due to shortsighted government policies, a legal system run amok, extreme environmentalists, Not-In-My-Backyard activism, and antigrowth advocates. By removing these impediments while still allowing for rigorous reviews, we could create 1.9 million jobs annually.

3. Approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. Green-light the pipeline connecting Canada’s oil sands with Texas refi neries and put 20,000 Americans to work immediately and create 250,000 jobs over the life of the project. The pipeline would stimulate local and state economies and raise billions in government revenue. And a steady supply of energy from our northern neighbor would lessen our reliance on oil from unfriendly regimes around the world. There is no justification for continuing to block the pipeline. The project has passed every environmental test. It has the support of business, labor, and a bipartisan majority of lawmakers. It holds too much promise to be a casualty of politics. And if we don’t take advantage of the opportunity, our competitors will.

4. Ensure a Reliable, Cost-Efficient Power Supply. America is still reliant on coal for nearly half of its electricity. It’s time to stop demonizing this crucial resource and start working with this vital American industry to produce, use, and export coal more safely, cleanly, and effi ciently than ever before. If we are to meet the needs of our economy, we must continue to be able to access this supply. Rather than piling on job-killing regulations with unrealistic timetables—such as EPA’s Utility MACT rule that threatens our electricity grid and could cause rolling blackouts—we must ensure a reliable power supply using both existing resources and new ones, including renewable technologies. For that to happen, we must also build new transmission lines, which are too often delayed and derailed by bureaucratic red tape.

5. Adopt an All-of-the-Above Approach. The President said it in the State of the Union address, and said it right. We need an all-of-the-above energy strategy to grow and secure the American economy. Now we need the leadership and policies to turn rhetoric into reality. We must develop a diverse portfolio. In addition to oil, natural gas, coal, and renewables, we should aggressively pursue nuclear energy. This clean, safe power source is a critical part of our energy mix that already accounts for 20% of electricity. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s recent approval of the first new nuclear reactors in 30 years is a positive step, which we must build on without delay.

Our country has been blessed with the resources to put Americans back to work—if we let them. Realizing the vast potential for job creation, revenue generation, and national energy security isn’t a foregone conclusion. We’ve got to choose it. We’ve got to do it. And it must be done now. Energy is not the industry of yesterday; it is the industry of tomorrow. It is indeed the next big thing we’ve all been seeking so that we can build a more prosperous and competitive country that benefits every American. We are calling on the administration to seize this extraordinary opportunity by working with Congress and the business community to launch an American energy revolution.

View the full ad that ran on the Wall Street Journal.

PROJECT NO PROJECT

One of the promises in the development and deployment of new energy technologies is the creation of “green jobs,” and it is a promise we embrace. But the sad fact is all to often these “green jobs” run afoul of “green tape.” Even more unfortunate is that many of the same groups who are thinking globally are often acting locally to stop the projects that would create jobs and reduce CO2 emissions.

Learn more at ProjectNoProject.com

INCREASING ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS THROUGH EPA

The Executive Branch agencies and offices tasked with environmental issues—the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the Department of the Interior (DOI) and others—are undertaking a wide range of new rules and regulations that either tighten existing environmental standards or impose entirely new environmental obligations on the business community. Often, these agencies give little or no consideration to cost on businesses or jobs that might be lost. American businesses are increasingly feeling suffocated by the volume, scope and cost of all of these new regulations.

Learn more about the increasing environment regulations

HERE COMES THE EPA

Under the current administration, the EPA as either proposed or finalized 29 regulations whose implementation will cost industry over $100 million, including:

• Criteria and standards for cooling water intake structures
• National primary drinking water regulations: radon
• Effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the construction and development point source category
• Standards for the management of coal combustion residuals generated by commercial electric power producers
• Revising underground storage tank regulations.–revisions to existing requirements & additions to incorporate the provisions of Energy Policy Act
• Oil pollution prevention: spill prevention, control, and countermeasure rule requirements – amendments for milk
• Revisions to the spill prevention, control, and countermeasure (SPCC) rule
• Review of the NAAQS for carbon monoxide
• NESHAP for area sources: Industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers
• Implementing periodic monitoring in Federal and State operating permit programs
• Review of the NAAQS for particulate matter
• Transport rule (CAIR replacement rule)
• NESHAP for coal- and oil-fired electric utility steam generating units
• Control of greenhouse gas emissions from heavy-duty vehicles
• NESHAP for major source industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and process heaters
• NESHAP: Portland cement notice of reconsideration
• Review of NSPS – Portland cement
• Review of primary NAAQS for sulfur dioxide
• EPA/NHTSA joint rulemaking to establish light-duty greenhouse gas emission standards and CAFÉ standards
• Reconsideration of the 2008 ozone NAAQS
• NESHAP for reciprocating internal combustion engines – existing stationary spark ignition (gas-fired)
• Review of the secondary NAAQS for oxides of nitrogen and oxides of sulfur
• Review of the NAAQS for ozone
• Review of the primary NAAQS for nitrogen dioxide
• Renewable fuels standard program
• NESHAP for reciprocating internal combustion engines – compression ignition
• Lead: renovation, repair and painting program for public and commercial buildings
• Lead: clearance and clearance testing requirements for the renovation, repair and painting program
• Lead: amendment to the opt-out and recordkeeping provisions in the renovation, repair and painting program