President Obama has made it perfectly clear in each of the presidential debates that he intends on slashing, what he calls subsidies, the tax incentives of the oil and gas industry. His comments are straightforward – the oil and gas industry makes too much money and he intends on stopping this success through cutting incentives. As each major industry in the United States receives some sort of investment incentive to stimulate that particular industry, his campaign to cull down the very industry that powers our country is absurd. Again though, the industry has an open view into the next four years as he has already made a 90 billion dollar investment into green energy – green companies that have already proven to be failures. Why would his disdain for capitalistic growth in the oil and gas industry end now?

The Obama administration has also empowered the Environmental Protection Agency during the first term to slowly but surely intrude upon oil and gas through regulations surrounding hydraulic fracturing. While the federal government claims that they are uninterested in regulating fracking, they are steadily sending out regulation notices that are nothing but an encroachment on state sovereignty on the issue. Just last month, the EPA sent out additional regulation that requires additional reporting of chemical disclosure. As chemical disclosure is already a practice of the industry, especially in Louisiana, this is only another avenue to the EPA taking control of the process. As a side note, the EPA has yet to clarify the exact details of this latest regulation requirement, but now that the election is behind us, surprisingly the details will be revealed.

Lastly, the long wait will hopefully be over for the completion of the Keystone Pipeline. As the Obama administration has continually stalled the progress of completing the pipeline from Canada, now that the election is secured, the industry will be looking for his campaign promises to be fulfilled. The pipeline will not only bring about 20,000 U.S. jobs, but it will help establish America’s energy security for years to come. Importing energy from Canada rather than an OPEC empowered regime can only increase the strength of our country from an economic, national security and free trade standpoint.

While President Obama did not seem like the best option for the oil and gas industry particularly, the oil and gas industry will remain resilient. For over a century, the men and women of this great nation have poured their time and efforts into exploring and developing the vast natural resources of this country. The current shale revolution has not been brought about by the policies of President Obama and will not be swayed by any new actions of this administration. The oil and gas industry has a job to do: develop our natural resources, create thousands of jobs for our economy and most importantly, move this nation forward to achieving energy security that will impact future generations.