Do Americans realize the risks we take by not having an energy plan in place?

Simple answer? No. There’s been a total lack of leadership on both sides of the aisle.

Presidents since Richard Nixon have said that we need to end our dependence on foreign oil. Yet our imports have jumped from one-quarter of our oil consumption in the 1970s to almost two-thirds now.

Politicians have been talking about energy and energy policy as far back as Nixon. And if you fast forward 50 years, we still haven’t put in place a broad-based, comprehensive plan to take advantage of our natural resources, to take advantage of the innovation and technological advantages we can bring to this space, and to become far less dependent on foreign sources of oil.

You are a proponent of utilizing America’s abundant shale gas reserves to offset this imbalance.

Mother Nature gave us a whole bunch of natural gas. We could be the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. That’d be okay.

Much of the Marcellus Shale lies beneath Pennsylvania.

From Pennsylvania’s perspective, it’s a gift that could keep on giving for the foreseeable future if we create the right legislative and regulatory structure to encourage investment, to help create additional demand, and to simultaneously bring in the most extraordinary burst of economic energy that we have ever seen to Pennsylvania in general and to rural Pennsylvania specifically.

What are some next steps?

There’s a lot of excitement in Pennsylvania. All these things together bode well for Pennsylvania if we don’t frustrate the upfront investment. Pennsylvania has been blessed with natural resources. Obviously, coal comes to mind, and we’ve learned some tough lessons, including how we deal with the environment. The greatest sensitivity Pennsylvanians have is with regard to water because we still have streams in 40-plus counties dealing with acid mine drainage.

The fact of the matter is I think most Pennsylvanians, once they understand the drilling techniques involved, once they understand the layering in the well bore of steel-concrete-steel-concrete, once they understand that the distance between these wells and the water table at minimum is normally a mile, if not greater, once they understand that there have been over a million wells that have been fracked, and there’s no single incident where it’s been demonstrated that any impurity into the water is directly related to the drilling, there will be a comfort level that I think will – I hope – means that Pennsylvanians will not just accept the industry, but embrace it as a strong economic, environmental, and competitive catalyst and advantage that it will create in our state.

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE