Onshore, the President has used his executive powers to limit oil and gas activity on vast regions of government lands. Congress has refused to authorize exploration on that small section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that was specifically set aside by law for possible exploration in 1980. More recently, the U.S. Forest Service moved to make it more difficult for our companies to explore for natural gas and oil on government lands when it announced a plan to bar road building in 43 million acres in the forest system. Advanced technologies make old environmental arguments irrelevant Technology has revolutionized how oil and natural gas are found and produced. For example, we now can produce more oil with fewer wells thanks to three-dimensional seismic equipment that locates hydrocarbons with greater precision and directional drilling technology that allows a variety of productive reservoirs to be accessed from one location.
Fewer wells mean less disturbance of the environment. .
Offshore wells can now safely capture oil and gas in ocean depths of thousands of feet in areas far offshore. We need to recognize that the oil and gas industry of the 21 st century has the tools to decrease our dependence of foreign oil while protecting our environment. The industry is ready to usher in a new era of energy so that we can once again see American companies and American workers producing more of the energy American consumers use. Americans have made it clear that they do not want to turn away from a lifestyle that allows them to go where they want to go when they want to go. American oil companies work hard to do what they do to ensure that we have the energy we need to fuel our cars, heat our homes and make the products essential to our way of life.