Weekly Writing Prompt 6 (Quarter 2): America's Oil Industry
Prompt: Connect a current event to a historical event you have studied
America's sweeping oil industry took off around the 19th Century, in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. For the most part of the 18-1900s, America possessed the greatest oil industry in the world; now, America is the third largest oil-producing state. Many recognize Edwin L. Drake to be the first to establish an "oil commerical well" in America in 1859 (pbs.org, 2004). As far as written history goes, this was the very first time oil was derived from its source with a drill (history.com, 2004). Drake's success for drilling oil incited the Pennsylvania Oil Rush, which was a boom in the production of petroleum in Pennsylvania (pbs.org, 2004); a boom in production occured in several other states as well. The major success of the oil industry attracted the attention of an entrepreneur named John D. Rockefeller, who soon became one of the wealthiest man in the world that revolutionized the American economy by monopolizing the oil industry. Following the boom of the oil industry, oil became the dominant source of energy (fuel) in the 1900s, and became a fundamental aspect of the U.S. economy.
“The time has come to end the long debate over national energy policy in the United States and to put ourselves solidly on the road to energy independence. … This bill is only the beginning.” - President Gerarld Ford (ibtimes.com, Clark, 2014)
Petroleum is widely regarded as a fossil fuel, and utilizing it on a large scale can result in negative consequences for the environment. On December 22, 1975, President Gerarld Ford ratified the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which put a ban most American crude oil exports (ibtimes.com, Clark, 2014). It has been a slight disadvantage to Oil producers; however to the oil refiners' advantage, it allows them to gain exclusive access to American petroleum; they coould domestically purchase it cheaply and then sell it for a higher price in the global market (CNN, Egan, 2015). In most recent news [on CNN], lawmakers are lifting the ban on crude oil exports as part of their senate-approved $1.1 Trillion spending bill that will fund the U.S. government until 2016 (CNN, Egan, 2015). This is a triumph for the struggling oil industry in America, and it will open various opportunities to oil producers by allowing them to increase [oil] production "once prices rebound", which will result in greater income and the creation of jobs (CNN, Egan, 2015).