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You may have seen in the paper how the President is seeking to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas (the good news). But, part of his idea is to penalize companies that have undeveloped leasehold (the bad news). See below the facts on the matter:
Statistic of the Week: In an effort to diffuse criticism from his energy policy, last week President Obama blamed industry for not producing on millions of undeveloped federal acres. We continue to hear criticism from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that industry is only producing on about 12 million out of the 41 million acres currently under lease. Leaving aside for now the reasons that much of the acreage is undeveloped, such as lack of NEPA project approvals and permits, the leased acreage in effect is striking in that industry is more efficient, producing more oil and gas on fewer acres. Contrast the 30.6 million acres in effect in the Rockies in 2010, with the 85.6 million acres in effect in 1984. The number of acres leased has steadily declined over two and a half decades, will only a slight upward climb during the Bush Administration.