RALEIGH – Here’s some unsolicited – and probably unwelcome – advice to North Carolina environmental activists: if you think that by endlessly recycling clips from Gasland you are going to put the kibosh on natural-gas drilling in North Carolina, think again. You are wasting your time.
Recent innovations in the exploration and development of natural gas reserves are fundamentally changing the structure of American energy markets. “The United States has the capacity to become the Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” one industry executive recently told Bloomberg News. Even if he’s exaggerating things, as energy-industry CEOs are wont to do, the fact remains that gas exploration has been a rare bright spot for American industry during difficult economic times.
States willing to address legitimate legal and environmental concerns about gas exploration in ways that don’t strangle the industry are going to experience rising asset values, job creation, and tax revenue, plus lower-than-expected energy costs. States that refuse are going to be sorry they did.
I see North Carolina as likely to join the first group. Our proven or suspected gas reserves may not be as substantial as those likely to be tapped further to the north or west, but they still represent significant value.
That’s not to say that Gov. Perdue and legislative leaders, or their successors in future years, can simply find a switch marked “horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing for natural gas” and switch it from “off” to “on.” There are many complex issues that need to be resolved, including who has a legally enforceable claim to the assets, what regulations and bonding requirements are prudent to protect the public from harm, and how the development of new onshore and offshore gas resources will affect state revenues and infrastructure needs.
These are, however, “how to” questions. They are not “whether to” questions.
Gov. Perdue vetoed an energy bill earlier this year that would have begun the process of answering the “how to” questions. I know why she did it – because of tremendous pressure from the extreme Left of her party, who never met a viable energy source they didn’t dislike.
But public opinion points strongly in the other direction. Voters supported offshore drilling even after the highly publicized oil spill in the Gulf. They aren’t looking for perfection. They are looking for a sensible, realistic energy policy that responds to rising prices with enterprise and initiative, not with sackcloth and ashes. The vast majority will never willingly peddle themselves to work, scrounge cooking oil for motor fuel, pay higher prices for less-reliable “green” energy, or buy overpriced light bulbs that warm up slow, look weird, and are a bother to discard.
North Carolina will find a way to allow these valuable assets to be recovered and used to power the state’s utilities, manufacturers, commerce, and households. If you’re not already studying up on the promise and best practices of domestic oil and gas production, I suggest you do so.
And if you think such study is irrelevant because the industry will never come to North Carolina, I suggest that you unplug yourself from fantasyland and plug into reality.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.