Search Results:
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Why are we transporting oil through a pipeline to Gulf Coast refineries? Why not build new refineries closer to the source?
Answer:
It makes sense to transport Canadian crude to the Gulf Coast because the Gulf region is by far the leader in refinery capacity, with more than twice as much crude oil distillation capacity as any other U.S. region. In fact, the Gulf is home to five of the top 20 oil refineries in the world. According to the Energy Information Administration, there is one operating refinery in North Dakota compared to 45 refineries operating in Texas and Louisiana.
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Won’t Canadian oil just be exported to other countries after it is refined here? How does that provide the U.S. with any economic benefit?
Answer:
Currently, more than 90 percent of the on-road transportation fuel refined in the United States is used in America. The less than 10 percent of on-road motor fuel that is exported consists primarily of heavier products that aren’t in high demand here. There’s no evidence this ratio will change with increased supplies of oil sands crude.
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Won’t most of the Keystone XL pipeline jobs be short-term?
Answer:
The Keystone XL pipeline is the largest shovel-ready project around, but the construction and permanent jobs it would create get little credit from people who oppose the pipeline or the Canadian oil sands crude it would carry. TransCanada has reported that the Keystone XL project will create 20,000 new jobs, and has even broken down that number to account for the welders and clerks that the project requires.
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Will China purchase Canada's oil sands crude if the Keystone XL pipeline isn’t built?
Answer:
Following Pres. Obama's decision to reject the Keystone XL permit, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is looking to ship oil sands crude to Asian markets and met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in February 2012.
Shipping oil sands to Asian markets is a loss for American job creation, the U.S. economy and overall U.S. energy security for years to come.
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Where is hydraulic fracturing occurring and how has that impacted local communities?
Answer:
Shale gas "plays" exist throughout the Mountain West, the South and the Northeast's Appalachian Basin. These plays are geographic areas where companies are actively looking for natural gas in shale rock.
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Our national debt is too high. Would increased taxes on oil and natural gas companies lower the deficit?
Answer:
Punitive tax increases on the oil and natural gas industry may provide short-term revenue, but they would undermine economic investment and cause the federal government to lose money in the longterm.
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If the industry is getting tax deductions, doesn’t that mean they aren’t paying their fair share?
Answer:
Absolutely not. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry pays more than $86 million every day to the U.S. Treasury in rents, royalties and income tax payments. That’s more than $31 billion a year. In 2011, the effective income tax rate for the oil and natural gas industry averaged 40.6 percent, compared to just 25.1 percent for other S&P Industrial companies.
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How would expanding access to domestic energy development help our struggling economy?
Answer:
Given the critical role of oil and natural gas in driving economic growth and improving the standard of living here at home and around the world, we need policies that encourage expanded domestic oil and natural gas production. More domestic production would raise government revenues, boost the economy, strengthen U.S. energy security and create much-needed jobs at a time when 13 million Americans are unemployed.
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People tell me the oil and natural gas industry’s job projections are misleading. How do they arrive at those numbers?
Answer:
The oil and natural gas industry currently supports 5.3 percent of total U.S. employment. To put this in perspective, the number of jobs supported by the upstream oil and natural gas industry segment alone in 2010—2.2 million—is larger than the populations of 15 states. The Wood Mackenzie energy consulting firm reported in September 2011 that, with the right set of pro-energy development policies in place, the oil and natural gas industry could create 1 million new U.S. jobs by 2018. This estimate represents direct industry jobs, as well as indirect and induced ones. It’s the “indirect and induced” calculation that critics say is misleading. In reality, “induced” jobs are hardly a seldom-used category. Virtually every employment study uses induced jobs to estimate employment impacts.
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