President Obama, this is your ‘energy moment’. From Mark Perry.

"Charles K. Ebinger is a self-described “lifelong democrat who voted for Obama twice” and director of the Energy Security Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He has joined a growing group of “those who are tired of protectionist policies that keep this nation from moving our energy strategy forward,” and he expressed his concerns about America’s energy boom in this letter to President Obama, here are some excerpts (with minor edits):

The United States is in the midst of an energy transformation in which our vast abundance of cheap natural gas and rising production of crude oil pose the opportunity for a manufacturing renaissance and a revitalization of the North American industrial base.

Our energy abundance has been spurred by the presence of competitive markets, the willingness of our entrepreneurs to take on risk, the availability of capital for those with pioneering technology and a vision of a future that challenges conventional wisdom of where oil and gas can be found. These developments have brought a historic opportunity to expand our economy, produce thousands of high paying jobs, reduce our balance of payments and add tax revenue to the federal treasury.

Yet groups such as America’s Energy Advantage continue with the chimera that exports of liquefied natural gas are injurious to our manufacturing resurgence and that the gas resource base is inadequate to both foster industrial expansion and export. This argument is misleading as well as out of date. In the last four years, the U.S. Department of Energy has raised its estimate of recoverable gas reserves by 34 percent as well as its forecast for 2035 production by more than 20 percent from the forecast it made just two years ago.
Upon examining the evidence, you have acknowledged that we may have 100 years of reserves at current production levels and that gas offers the opportunity to serve as a “bridge” to a cleaner energy future based on renewables. While I welcome your prescience, I would argue that rather than being a bridge, gas is the future. Given the quantity of gas that is being discovered around the world, it will be the future in many nations once shale gas development takes off in China, Algeria, Russia, Argentina, South Africa and elsewhere.

Mr. President, you have stated that your energy policy is “an all of the above” strategy, suggesting that all energy options are needed to insure the nation’s future well-being. Yet you have failed to show such balance. We can reduce national CO2 emissions by backing out coal in the power sector – as you have rightly promoted – and replacing diesel in the transportation sector (18-wheeler trucks, marine transportation and locomotives).
However, you have allowed your environmental constituency to guide your inaction on the issues of: expedited licensing of LNG projects; streamlining the permitting of oil and gas infrastructure needed to bring these new unconventional resources to market; making a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline despite five favorable environmental reviews; or using executive authority to lift the ban on U.S. crude oil exports.

While LNG exports represent the greatest opportunity, the current ban (with a few exceptions) on crude oil exports also needs to be reexamined, as current market conditions and policies based on assumptions about oil scarcity no longer reflect market realities. Here too, however, protectionist forces are already sharpening their knives to block exports under the mantra of “energy security.”

Mr. President, the opportunities afforded by the full development of our natural gas and crude oil resources need to be seized now, providing you a legacy for years to come. Mr. President, this is your energy moment!

MP: As Scott Lincicome pointed out at a Cato Institute event on Monday about oil and gas exports (see his slides here), there is a strong consensus emerging of energy experts affiliated with the following institutions who support oil and gas exports: American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Cato Institute, Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Council on Foreign Relations, Heritage Foundation, Heartland Foundation, Manhattan Institute, Marshall Institute, MIT Energy Initiative, Rice University James A. Baker III Institute, and University of Houston. According to Scott, there are only two organizations opposing increased energy exports: the Center for the American Progress and the Third Way. That’s an overwhelming 13-2 advantage in favor of institutions advocating increased exports of oil and gas."