Professor Joseph R. Mason, who holds an endowed chair of banking
at the Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University,
released a study this month titled, “The Additional Economic
Effects of Immediately Opening Federal Lands to Oil and Gas
Leasing,” here’s the introduction and some of the key findings:
While headlines have reported a boom in US oil and gas
production, that boom has been related almost exclusively to
exploration and development on private and state lands and
waters. Even that limited expansion has had profound effects.
Opening up Federal resources — in addition to private and state
resources — to exploration and development can accelerate all of
those trends. But recent administrations have yet to follow
through on promises to allow access to Federal resources,
instead proposing to levy increased taxes on oil and gas
production. The findings of this paper demonstrate that opening
federal land that is currently closed-off because of statutory
or administrative action would lead to bro