Monday’s Wall Street Journal contained a thought-provoking op-ed that focused on Texas’s contributions to the U.S. economy. The author, a doctor running for Congress in California, notes that “three of the nation’s five fastest-growing cities – and seven of the top 15 –are in Texas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”

A big part of that, of course, is the energy revolution brought on by hydraulic fracturing. Since 2010, oil production in the Lone Star State has risen by 119 percent. Texas, by itself, could soon be the sixth-largest oil producer in the world. That production means jobs that pay well along with economic activity that is rippling throughout the entire Gulf Coast region.

While energy is the big driver of Texas’s economic strength, there are other explanations as well – ones that help explain why the state has been able to capitalize on its abundant energy resources at the same time it has diversified the state’s economy into manufacturing, health care, finance, and other industries.

Among these explanations are a tax and regulatory framework that takes pain not to undermine sound energy policy and the economic growth and business investment that result. I have catalogued how such an approach matters here, here, and here.

The writer from California puts it this way in the Journal:

Texas has no state income tax, while California’s top 13.3 percent marginal rate is the highest in the country. Electricity prices are about 50-88 percent higher in California compared with Texas due to the Golden State’s renewable-energy mandate, and its gas is 70-80 cents per gallon more expensive because of taxes and blending requirements. A recent California State University study found the total loss of gross state output for California each year due to regulatory costs was $492 billion, equivalent to the loss of 3.8 million jobs each year.

These points were reinforced recently when I attended the BBVA Compass Economic Forum in Dallas.

The accompanying chart from BBVA Compass’s research team’s presentation tells quite a story.

Since 2007, the Lone Star State has been responsible for roughly 30 percent of U.S. GDP growth. During a period of global economic downturn, Texas’s performance has far outpaced both the U.S. and much of the industrialized world.

Given the recent and alarming announcement that the U.S. economy contracted nearly 3 percent in the first quarter, it is becoming clearer that Washington’s policymakers need to study what works to spur economic growth, investment, and development.

Texas has proven one of the best ways to unleash opportunity is to start with sound energy policy.