Natural gas and oil play a critical role in our modern quality of life. In addition to fueling transportation and electricity, these resources provide the chemical building blocks for everything from lifesaving medical devices and 3-D printers to cosmetics and plastics.
The United States is fortunate to have ample energy resources to meet our needs and the technology to develop them safely. Strong domestic oil and gas production has reduced reliance on overseas energy, cutting costs for American homes and businesses and making us more secure. At the same time, carbon
Offshore resources are a key part of U.S. energy security, supplying more than 1 million barrels of oil per day for the past 20 years. And that’s with 94 percent of offshore areas—everywhere except part of the Gulf of Mexico—off-limits. Nations from Canada to Brazil are exploring for energy in the Atlantic, and Russia and China are doing the same in the Arctic—while U.S. resources in those same oceans are locked away. To preserve U.S. energy security and create hundreds of thousands of jobs, we need to get off the sidelines and see what U.S. energy resources are out there.