Setting goals and measuring every aspect of government's progress toward those goals is the way forward for the U.S., said Congressman Kevin McCarthy in his keynote address at the SPE Annual Conference and Exhibition in Denver. Congressman McCarthy is the majority whip and hails from Bakersfield, CA, one of the nation's venerable oil-producing areas. He has served in Congress since 2006.

The world's economies have been globalized and today the world is flat. America faces great challenges, and its citizens must discover solutions to the problems of excessive debt and excessive government, said McCarthy.

"We live in a global economy and we have to stop funding government the way we have done in the past," he said. "To move forward, the country needs to change."

McCarthy espoused the "moneyball" theory of government, taken from the recent baseball movie and book about the success of the Oakland Athletics baseball team under manager Billy Beane. That translates to definition of goals and measurements of every aspect of government.

"We need a tax code that lets us compete worldwide, and we need an energy policy that emphasizes price and reliability," he added.

The pace of technological innovation has been rapid during the past three decades, and the oil industry has been in the forefront of this revolution. The way oil is produced today is quite different than the ways of the past, and new technologies and environmental advances mean that exploration and production have a crucial role to play now and in the future, he said.

McCarthy proposed that energy exploration be expanded to help fuel the country's economy, and that the industry be unshackled from excessive regulation.

"With today's technology for oil production, whatever resource we have we should be allowed to produce in an environmentally sound fashion," he said. The use of such "new-generation" technologies as horizontal drilling means that America can become more prosperous and also less reliant on foreign sources of oil. "We have to get our economy moving again; and energy exploration and development is a job-producing engine."

Contact the author, Peggy Williams, at pwilliams@hartenergy.com.