API’s Gerard highlights ‘New American Energy Moment’ in State of American Energy Event
WASHINGTON, January 4, 2017 – API President and CEO Jack Gerard delivered the keynote address at API’s Seventh Annual State of American Energy event on Wednesday, releasing the State of American Energy 2017 report and highlighting the energy issues that will shape America’s economic and political news this year in a press conference for journalists.
“We have helped to disprove, conclusively, the long held assumption that leading the world in the production and refining of oil and natural gas is incompatible with an improving environment,” said Gerard. “America no longer has to choose between more energy and a cleaner environment. The United States has dramatically increased energy production and use even as emissions continue to decline. We now know oil and natural gas are part of the solution.”
According to the EIA, in the first 6 months of 2016, carbon emissions from electricity generation were at their lowest point in 25 years even as electricity demand continues to rise, due largely to greater use of natural gas – now our nation’s largest fuel source for electricity. Thanks to America’s world class refineries and more fuel-efficient vehicles, U.S. air pollutants have fallen by 70 percent since 1970, even as vehicle miles travelled have increased by more than 170 percent. Further, thanks in part to the increased use of domestic natural gas, ozone concentrations in the air have dropped by 17 percent since 2000; all of which makes the United States not just an energy superpower, but also a global emissions reduction leader.
“Our success was achieved through private sector innovation and investment,” Gerard said. “The oil and natural gas industry’s innovation in the decades-old technique of hydraulic fracturing, paired with horizontal drilling, is the driving force for the American energy revolution.
“The oil and natural gas industry stands ready to continue forging solutions that help meet the energy needs of our nation and the world and to work with elected leaders at all levels of government to ensure that the American consumer continues to benefit from affordable and reliable domestic energy.”
API is the only national trade association representing all facets of the oil and natural gas industry, which supports 9.8 million U.S. jobs and 8 percent of the U.S. economy. API’s more than 625 members include large integrated companies, as well as exploration and production, refining, marketing, pipeline, and marine businesses, and service and supply firms. They provide most of the nation’s energy and are backed by a growing grassroots movement of more than 30 million Americans.