Grasp two principles, says Lucian Pugliaresi, and "you will exceed the combined wisdom of Congress and the last four administrations."
First principle: "What things cost is really important."
Second principle: "How we think about economic value is we look at what something is worth in the marketplace and then what it costs to produce it. And if what it's worth in the marketplace is more than what it costs to produce it, we have this value, this net value for society."
Pugliaresi, president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation Inc., Washington, DC (and a friend of this writer), introduced an Aug. 21 lecture at the East-West Center in Honolulu with these principles. His discussion related the promise of unconventional oil and gas plays with the politics of inaction.
"You can decide you don't want to build the Keystone XL pipeline," Pugliaresi said. "You can decide you don't want to open up ANWR or you don't want to drill in the deep water. You can decide all those things. But what you can't say is that it's free to do that. It's not free because you give up this value. And sometimes the value you give up is quite high."
Unconventional resources represent "a remarkable opportunity for the United States," he pointed out, adding, "How we manage that opportunity and whether we take advantage of it is going to say a lot about our potential for economic growth, our energy security, and our strategic outlook."
The EPRINC president noted US economic has been at or below 2%/year for 10 years and observed, "In any other society, that should be a crisis."
Yet the Keystone XL border crossing remains unapproved, offshore leasing is slow, and the federal government soon will regulate state-regulated hydraulic fracturing.
"When we make these decisions not to take these high-valued opportunities, we are also making the decision to say that we accept low rates of economic growth," Pugliaresi said.
A video of his lecture appears at http://eprinc.org
