Because of rising oil production, more efficient cars and trucks, and a world-class refining sector that last year was a net exporter of petroleum products for the first time in 60 years, we have cut net imports by a million barrels a day in the last year alone. By reducing our dependence on foreign oil, we will make our Nation more secure and improve our trade balance — creating jobs and supporting domestic industry.
In order to realize these potential benefits, we need an energy infrastructure system that can keep pace with advances in production. To promote American energy sources, we must not only extract oil — we must also be able to transport it to our world-class refineries, and ultimately to consumers.
The need for infrastructure is particularly acute right now. Because of advances in drilling technology that allow us to tap new oil deposits, we are producing more oil from unconventional sources — places like the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, where production grew by more than 200 percent last year, or the Bakken formation of North Dakota and Montana, where output has increased tenfold in the last 5 years alone. In States like North Dakota, Montana, and Colorado, rising production is outpacing the capacity of pipelines to deliver the oil to refineries.
Cushing, Oklahoma, is a prime example. There, in part due to rising domestic production, more oil is flowing in than can flow out, creating a bottleneck that is dampening incentives for new production while restricting oil from reaching state-of-the-art refineries on the Gulf Coast. Moving forward on a pipeline from Cushing to Port Arthur, Texas, could create jobs, promote American energy production, and ultimately benefit consumers.
Although expanding and modernizing our Nation’s pipeline infrastructure will not lower prices right away, it is a vital part of a sustained strategy to continue to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and enhance our Nation’s energy security. Therefore, as part of my Administration’s broader efforts to improve the performance of Federal permitting and review processes, we must make pipeline infrastructure a priority, ensuring the health, safety, and security of communities and the environment while supporting projects that can contribute to economic growth and a secure energy future. In doing so, the Federal Government must work in partnership with State, local, and tribal governments, which play a central role in the siting and permitting of pipelines; and, we must protect our natural resources and address the concerns of local communities.
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