Still plenty of buzz around the Potential Gas Committee report this week – a biennial review of available U.S. natural gas reserves that found we may be sitting on a resource base 58% higher than previously thought. To what do we owe this extraordinary circumstance? The safe and responsible utilization of hydraulic fracturing, which, paired up with horizontal drilling, has allowed us to capture and deliver energy resources that were previously in rock too deep, too hard and too expensive to access. Hailed by Energy In Depth in a press release, the study further demonstrates that serious resources are available right here at home to help drive down energy costs and make America less dependent on Middle Eastern nations to fuel our economy.

It’s very simple. More American energy means more American jobs. Look no further than Shreveport, Louisiana for proof of that. As the Potential Gas Committee found, most of the newly discovered energy reserves are locked thousands of feet below the surface in thick, deep shale-rock formations. Without hydraulic fracturing, these resources could not be produced, and the associated jobs and massive government revenues, would not be generated.

Today’s Shreveport Times is a case-study of how responsible energy development is being used in communities across the United States as a key driver of local economic growth. The Haynesville Shale formation has been an economic game-changer in northwestern Louisiana. In fact, BusinessWeek ranked the energy-producing city “as 15th among its top 20 places in the U.S. where companies are hiring and the quality of life is high.”

The paper writes:

“Interest in the Haynesville Shale…continues to fuel employment in the region. The natural gas formation…has pumped millions of dollars into some property owners’ pockets — including local governments — since the discovery was announced in April 2008. A recently completed economic impact study estimates Haynesville Shale activity created about 32,742 jobs, about $2.4 billion in business sales statewide and nearly $3.9 billion in household earnings, including almost $3.2 billion in lease and royalty payments to private landowners, in 2008.”

Unfortunately, some in Washington are focused on hampering this positive growth and production of clean-burning natural gas through burdensome red-tape and duplicative mandates.

In today’s New York Times, the Energy In Depth coalition summarizes what fracturing techology means to America’s energy security — and how without this safe practice, the economic expansion seen in Shreveport, would not be possible:

“Hydraulic fracturing is the Rosetta Stone of natural gas development. With it, otherwordly amounts of shale and tight-pocket gas can be found, produced and delivered to Americans who need it. Without it, those resources remain trapped underground.”