API statement on Interior Secretary Salazar's speech at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen

WASHINGTON, December 11, 2009 – The American Petroleum Institute issued the following statement today from its President and CEO Jack Gerard on Interior Secretary Salazar’s speech at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen yesterday:

“Public lands are vital to the nation’s energy future, both in producing alternative energy – as Interior Secretary Salazar pointed out – and in supplying oil and natural gas, which remain available there in massive quantities and which could generate thousands of new jobs if allowed to be developed. Public lands also have potential for managing greenhouse gas emissions, using carbon capture and storage technology pioneered by America’s oil and natural gas industry many years ago.

“We share the Secretary’s optimism for alternative energy and would note the oil and gas industry’s more than $58 billion in investments in low carbon technologies between 2000 and 2008, more either than the federal government or the rest of the private sector combined. Oil and natural gas companies have invested in everything from lithium batteries to geothermal power to solar cells and are already producing alternative energy Americans use today.”


Updated: December 18, 2009