Texas Tries To Fend Off Pennsylvania’s Energy Push

Gov­er­nor Cor­bett has made it clear he wants to make Penn­syl­va­nia the “Texas of nat­ural gas drilling.” By that, he means the cen­tral hub where energy com­pa­nies are headquartered.

How do they feel about this plan in The “Texas of oil”? (That would be..the actual Texas.)

Our part­ners at StateIm­pact Texas looked into it:

In Hous­ton, where the busi­ness boost­ers count 3,600 local com­pa­nies doing energy-related work, the title “World’s Energy Cap­i­tal” is taken very seri­ously. And not just because of pride or profit.

“If you begin to lose the con­cen­tra­tion in Hous­ton as the Energy Cap­i­tal, you start get­ting into, in my opin­ion, national secu­rity issues,” said Lane Sloan,a for­mer long-time top exec­u­tive with Shell.

He heads a com­mit­tee with the Greater Hous­ton Part­ner­ship with the goal of “per­pet­u­at­ing Hous­ton as the Energy Cap­i­tal of the World”. Sloan sees Bei­jing or Shang­hai as the biggest threats to Houston’s posi­tion as China’s liv­ing stan­dards rise and cre­ate new and enor­mous demand for fuel.

“It’s not going to the East Coast or the West Coast (of the United States). It’s going some­where else in the world,” said Sloan of the Cap­i­tal title. Los­ing the title would weaken the United States’ posi­tion in a world where energy and influ­ence go hand in hand.