Make way for the energy industry

Woody Stroupe, Las Vegas

Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.

The Obama administration and key supporters such as Sen. Harry Reid have made every attempt to thwart the nation’s booming energy industry with new taxes, more and more regulation, and stalling tactics on promising, job-creating infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL pipeline. Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed in Congress. Otherwise, working families in Nevada would today be paying much higher prices at the pump and on their home utility bills.

The chief reason that Congress has not imposed tens of billions of dollars in new oil and gas taxes is that most people have seen through this White House campaign as patently political. There are no “subsidies” for domestic energy producers or “special tax breaks” as claimed.

Let’s ask ourselves why North Dakota, in the midst of an energy boom that has created thousands of new jobs and generated surpluses for government budgets at all levels, leads the nation with a jobless rate of just 3 percent. The worst state in the nation for unemployment? Nevada, with a 9.5 percent rate, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. I wonder: How many Nevadans have left our great state for work in places like North Dakota, Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states where the energy economy is booming?

Let’s urge our Washington lawmakers to put policies in place the keep this energy juggernaut going. We need more growth and more good-paying jobs. New taxes, more and more needless regulation and political obstructionism will only set us back.