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Energy and the Economy

For the next week, I will be the host of The Daily Beast’s “Energy Tweet Sheet,” where I’ll be tweeting about energy news stories from around the world. You can follow me @KenPCohen to keep up with the latest, or join the discussion by tweeting the energy stories you’re reading to #EnergyTweetSheet. To get started, I thought I’d share some of the interesting energy stories I’ve read in the past couple of days. Read on …

You may have heard the old adage “you have to go where the jobs are.” For some residents of southern New York, that means crossing the border into neighboring Pennsylvania to take advantage of the job growth flowing from the natural gas boom on the Marcellus Shale.


Pipeline politics hurt U.S. jobs

Posted: November 11, 2011 by Ken Cohen

Washington, D.C., has once again decided to put the short-term jobs of politicians ahead of the long-term needs of U.S. workers. The latest bit of evidence comes from the State Department’s decision to stop progress on the Keystone XL pipeline – one of the most important updates to America’s energy infrastructure in decades.

For those who are following the debate in this country on shale gas development, as I am, today’s column by David Brooks in the New York Times is a must read. In balanced terms, Brooks summarizes the future energy and economic potential of America’s enormous shale gas endowment – and the current debate surrounding its safe and responsible production. The benefits of shale gas development in terms of economic growth, job creation and energy security are without question, as he points out. The only question is whether our political leaders will permit these benefits to be realized.


To hear the opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline project, you might think this was the first pipeline to be built in the United States, and the first built to carry crude oil from Canada to the United States. While critics and protestors try to portray the Keystone XL pipeline project as something new and unnecessary, it’s simply not true. There are thousands of miles of pipeline carrying Canadian oil from Canada to the United States, and for good reason: Canada, by far, is the largest supplier of imported oil to the United States.

ExxonMobil announced estimated third quarter results today, and most news coverage is likely going to focus on the global quarterly earnings total of $10.3 billion. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, it’s also important to look beyond the bottom line of oil company earnings and consider how much a company’s operations and investments contribute to the economy in order to generate those earnings.



  • Worth a deeper look...