Texas and California and Oil

Last week I linked an article about the meteoric rise of oil and gas production in the state of Texas which has doubled since 2005. It helped create hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs, and pumps billions of dollars into the economy.

California has vast reserves too but isn't taking advantage of them. Guess why.

Another contrast is that most Texas oil is on private lands, which owners are willing to lease at a price. In California much of the oil-rich areas are state or federally owned, and leasing doesn’t happen because of political constraints. In California it can take weeks or even months to get approval for an oil rig. The average in Texas? Four days. In short, Texas loves being an oil-producing state while California is embarrassed by it. And it’s no accident that Texas has been leading the nation in job creation since the recession ended. The energy boom is creating thousands of jobs related to drilling but also in downstream industries such as transportation, high-technology, construction and manufacturing. The Texas jobless rate is 6.4% while California’s is still the third highest at 9.4%.

Who needs jobs and billions of dollars if it means pissing off environmentalist whackjobs because it's that dirty nasty stuff in the ground that's killin Gaia?

Oh, right, California needs those things. Very much.

posted by Dave In Texas at 04:49 PM

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