原创力文档GDP Per Capita Overview Part I American Politics History of American Politics Present of American Politics (A Gift That Keeps on Giving) Part II American Economy Dismal Science Well, What Now? By one estimate, Pennsylvanians who allow drilling on their land earned some $1.2 billion in royalties last year. Suburban office parks are proliferating outside Pittsburgh, the biggest city in the area, with space being snapped up by oil firms, their suppliers and subcontractors, lawyers and environmental consultants. Even the most basic restaurants are overflowing at lunchtime, a local complains. All told, the Marcellus already supports over 100,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, according to an analysis by IHS, a research firm. That figure is expected to rise to over 220,000 in 2020. Shale gas gave the local economy a $14 billion boost last year, IHS reckons, and will buoy it by almost $27 billion in 2020. All the extra economic activity generated nearly $3 billion in taxes, it calculates. A new fee (the Republican word for tax) on gas production adopted by the state legislature last year should help raise yet more in future. Pennsylvania is just one of several states enjoying a shale-gas boom. Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas have all seen similar rushes. Shale-gas production in the United States as a whole rose more than fourfold between 2007 and 2010, says the Department of Energy. That has helped push up its gas output by 20% over the past five years, making the country the world’s biggest gas producer. The successful extraction of natural gas from shale has dramatically lowered the price of energy. PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accountancy firm, reckons that these lower American energy prices could result in 1m more manufacturing jobs as firms build new factories. Companies such as Dow Chemical, a speciality chemicals firm, and Vallourec, a French steel-tubes firm, have announced new investments in America to take advantage of low gas prices and to supply extract
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