Bill Bush | 202.682.8114 | bushw@api.org
WASHINGTON, September 12, 2011 – API's President and CEO Jack Gerard said President Obama's jobs plan announced today ignores the vast potential of the oil and natural gas industry to create jobs:
"Nothing said today indicates the administration is moving on the one million potential new jobs our industry could be creating, including thousands of shovel-ready jobs that could be filled next year. That is a tremendous disappointment when millions of Americans remain unemployed.
"The administration is not just turning its back on oil and gas jobs. It is proposing more taxes on an industry doing one of the best jobs of creating them while also delivering more than $86 million a day in revenue to the government.
"Let's exhaust every opportunity to create jobs and start by building on what works.Create more U.S. jobs by producing at home more of the oil and natural gas our nation will be consuming. With a few common sense changes in energy policy, an industry that created more than 9,000 jobs this summer alone – and now supports 9.2 million across the nation – could do far more."
API represents more than 480 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America's energy, supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers $86 million a day in revenue to our government, and, since 2000, has invested over $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.