“In the State of the Union, President Obama argued that government-enabled oil and natural gas technology was responsible for the oil and gas drilling doom sweeping the United States.”
The Institute for Energy Research’s Daniel Kish writes,
… This is a strange claim. The validity of the claim all depends on what the president means by the word “helped.” If he means that federally-funded scientists discussed geology and technology with the man most regarded as responsible for proving that hydraulic fracturing could economically produce large amounts of oil and natural gas—George Mitchell —the claim could be true. If, however, the president is suggesting that the “help” of the federal government was essential to develop and deploy hydraulic fracturing technologies, then his claim lacks merit…
So possibly the federal government’s involvement advanced by a few years the technologies that were finally blended in a sufficiently promising mix by George Mitchell. Even if we grant as much, it isn’t the whole of the shale gas boom that federal involvement gains credit for, just the added value that comes from shifting shale gas production forward by a few years…
The reality is that the federal government might have “helped” to advance the technology an incremental amount, but the government didn’t create the shale gas and oil boom. The boom was the result of innovation and experimentation by regular Americans, not the government.
snorbert,
you sho’ do have a way with words .. loved the last paragraph .. please keep writin’…
Perhaps, Obama meant that the EPA did not prohibit the fracking process and this lack of a negative response may be viewed as a positive assistance to the new technology.
His world view is that the only things that may be done are things that the government chooses to specifically allow. Most of us believe that we may do things that the government does not specifically prohibit.
Freudian slip, Steve Milloy assumed Obama would never have a positive view of any oil industry activity and misquoted the article as “doom” rather than boom.
After reading that typo in the headline, It took me about 5 minutes of careful reading to determine that the President was actually happy with the oil “boom” and not considering it impending doom for the country. The times they are a changing!