The home heating oil industry has a long and proud history, and Fuel Oil News has been there supporting it since 1935. It is an industry that has faced many challenges during that time. In its 77th year, Fuel Oil News is doing more than just holding
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/120555
E ne r g y P o l i c y Energy Policy Under President Obama Fuel oil dealers, petroleum marketers and refiners declare their energy policy priorities B y S t e p h en Benne t t P Obama has nominated Ernest Moniz, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as secretary of the Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency official Gina McCarthy as EPA administrator. The American Petroleum Institute welcomed the choices, while the Petroleum Marketers Association of America's president, Dan Gilligan, said the nominees seemed "practical," and appeared to indicate a recognition on the part of the Obama administration that it needed soften its opposition to fossil fuels. resident As competing forms of energy jockey for position, a boom in domestic drilling for both natural gas and oil is changing energy choices in the U.S. The New England Fuel Institute's public 24 April 2013 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com policy agenda for 2013 calls on state and federal governments "to embrace policies that promote an 'all-of-the-above' approach to energy and that encourage market competition and consumer choice. Government policies should work for all industries – not against any one." Here is more on what API, NEFI and PMAA said they would be lobbying for in the Obama administration's second-term energy policies. API: 'A game-changing opportunity in the energy sector' "We hope the new heads of both agencies will encourage policies that help facilitate what our industry is doing to produce and refine the fuels – heating oil, other refined products and natural gas – that our nation will continue to heavily depend on for the rest of this administration and for many administrations after," said Bill Bush, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute (API). "Industry is ready to provide this energy, but it needs a policy framework of reasonable access, fair tax policy and sensible regulations to have the best chance of getting the job done." API President and CEO Jack Gerard said the president's choices were "critical." Talking to reporters after the nominations were announced, Gerard said, "The new Cabinet appointments will have a major impact on the game-changing opportunity in the energy sector underway. Gains in oil and natural gas production will create thousands of new jobs, and help spur economic growth for a generation. Increased production in the oil and natural gas upstream and midstream sectors alone could create more than three hundred thousand jobs." Innovations in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have unlocked both natural gas and oil from shale formations in quantities "that would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago," Gerard said. "To give you an idea of the scope of this new found abundance, the National Petroleum Council, just a decade ago, estimated total remaining natural gas resources in the contiguous 48 states at just over 1,100 Tcf, or about 45 years at current consumption rates,"