API: Administration's energy policy will add jobs for Brazil
Jack Gerard
Posted March 21, 2011
Editor's Note: API President and CEO Jack Gerard said the administration's offer to exchange batteries for oil from Brazil reflects its inadequate and illogical energy policy:
"It is beyond comprehension the administration would encourage trade for Brazilian oil while obstructing U.S. oil and natural gas development, eliminating related jobs here at home, and decreasing oil and natural gas revenues to the U.S. Treasury when the government is trillions of dollars in debt. The message from the White House to America's oil and natural gas workers: we're going to outsource your job.
"The administration is missing the obvious: what makes sense for Brazil also makes sense for the United States. Like every other nation, we should be developing our own oil and natural gas resources. It's good for energy security, good for the economy, good for jobs, and it will help bring down our deficit.
"The administration says it supports more oil and natural gas development here in the United States, then at every turn discourages it. And today, the White House is making a deal with Brazil for the oil it is not allowing companies to produce here. There's nothing wrong with buying Brazilian oil, but there's a big problem when we're forced to because we're held back from producing our own."
API represents more than 470 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America's energy, supports more than 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.5 percent of the U.S. economy, and, since 2000, has invested nearly $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.
About The Author
Jack N. Gerard is president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the national trade association that represents all aspects of America’s oil and natural gas industry. He also has served as the president and CEO of trade associations representing the chemical and mining industries. Jack understands how Washington works. He spent several years working in the U.S. Senate and House, and co-founded a Washington-based government relations consulting firm. A native of Idaho, Jack also is very active in the Boy Scouts of America, a university graduate program on politics, and his church’s leadership. He and his wife are the proud parents of eight children, including twin boys adopted from Guatemala.