By some ways of thinking, affiliation with the oil and gas industry discredits whatever a person might say on the subject of energy. When an industry representative comments on an energy issue, too many politicians and reporters too frequently reject the message as tainted by vested interest or worse. A measure of skepticism is of course appropriate when economic interests are at play. But interests of that type often accompany valuable expertise, especially with oil and gas, about which outsiders tend to be strikingly uninformed.Anything beyond rudimentary understating of oil and gas, in fact, nearly always comes from someone with a financial interest in the subject, even if it's just a ...