“Inside the beltway” normally refers to those politicians, bureaucrats, and other interested citizens who work in the US capital, as well as the often insular nature in which they go about their business.
Even those who live and work inside Washington, DC, but are in no way involved with the government are sometimes startled to find out that the rest of the country simply isn’t concerned with (or perhaps even aware of) the most recent plot twist of governance.
If you live there, it’s simply part of the environment, as ubiquitous as the monuments.
If you don’t, however, only the broadest or most spectacular “inside the beltway” happenings might never even reach you.
And when they do, the sensation isn’t necessarily pleasant.
The Houston loop
Much the same can be said of life inside Houston and the energy industry.
The likelihood of living and working in Houston and not knowing somebody who makes their living in some aspect of the oil and gas industry is very small. When the ancillary financial, service, supply, and other businesses that feed into the oil and gas community are factored in, the odds get even smaller.
To be sure, the economy has diversified since the 1970s-80s, but oil and gas are still synonymous with Houston’s place in the world. And if one works in a segment of Houston’s economy somehow attached to oil and gas, its day-to-day minutiae become as commonplace as the latest Capitol Hill gossip is in Washington.
It all seems very natural.
One doesn’t have to travel far, however, to be reminded of the fact that this isn’t the case everywhere.
Most of the country, much less the world at large, has no idea what an oil industry professional-any oil industry professional-does. People generally seem aware of the fact that oil comes out of the ground and that something happens to it between getting it out of the ground and putting it in their cars. But what this is, as well as how, when, why, and under what circumstances it happens, is more than likely entirely foreign.
Over the course of one’s travels, however, it becomes clear that the broad and spectacular information does get out, even if the lens through which it’s viewed is often startlingly opaque.
Just this summer I encountered a liberal arts professor at a small Midwestern college who is convinced that the entire oil and gas industry “works for Bush” and that President George W. Bush in turn works almost entirely for the industry.
I was also introduced to a man staying at the cottage next to mine who is a senior aid worker in Mali. After trading the typical social pleasantries and questions, he stated matter-of-factly that he considers it a blessing that the country he has grown to know and love has no significant potential hydrocarbon reserves, lest the resulting “money grab” rend it asunder.
These are some of the more extreme examples. But there seems to be a growing general sentiment that gasoline and natural gas cost too much and that the people who run the companies that provide these products are becoming disproportionately wealthy as a result.
Why it matters
When considering the latest giant pipeline proposal or celebrating the most recent ultradeepwater Gulf of Mexico discovery from inside the industry or inside Houston, it’s easy to believe that these are universally understood developments.
But they aren’t, and being reminded of this fact from time to time is helpful.
It’s easy to talk shop with one’s fellow oil industry professionals. Everyone knows the language, and everyone, to one degree or another, knows what has been happening in the industry at large.
The experience of trying to discuss energy matters with the population at large, if somewhat more difficult, is helpful in at least two regards. It reminds us of how far into the lives of how many this industry reaches, and, perhaps even more importantly, it provides an opportunity to educate people about how the industry works.
When oil and gas issues do register in the broader public, everybody seems to have an opinion, and the encounters those who work in the industry have with the world at large can help make this opinion a better-informed one.
Put together, they might even help make our own industry accessible in a way that the other “beltway” is not.
