Report Advocates Opening Federal Lands to Oil and Gas Exploration

A report issued by the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University advocates opening federal lands to oil and gas exploration to avoid U.S. dependence on foreign natural gas supplies and to prevent the creation of an international gas-production cartel similar to OPEC. One of the report’s co-authors, Kenneth Medlock, reiterated this point to the Houston Chronicle, saying that tapping domestic gas supply “means the rest of the world will have a bigger basket of alternative supplies to pull from, significantly reducing market power that a cartel might try to create.”

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