Shale Gas Keystone of Obama Energy Plan
Friday, January 27, 2012
Declaring the United States as the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” President Barack Obama outlined an energy program to maximize use of the nation’s 100-year supply.
The proposals, most of which require congressional approval, stemmed from an economic plan that Obama outlined in his recent State of the Union address. The White House listed the energy initiatives in a Jan. 26 fact sheet.
The administration said it plans to “ensure safe shale gas development that, according to independent estimates, will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. These actions will include moving forward with common-sense new rules to require disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking operations on public lands.”
Another administration goal is to use more natural gas for transportation, thus reducing demand for imported oil. It will propose incentives to convert medium- and heavy-duty trucks to natural gas, offer funding for local projects to deploy natural gas vehicles, develop compressed-gas fueling stations on transportation corridors and support programs to convert buses and trucks to natural gas.
Obama also said the administration would proceed with a scheduled sale of federal leases in the Central Gulf of Mexico on June 20. Gulf leasing has been suspended since the April 2010 BP oil spill off Louisiana, U.S.A.
For more information: www.whitehouse.gov
