{"id":3999,"date":"2019-03-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www-prod.greenpeace.org\/usa\/campaign-updates\/3999\/meet-the-fourteen-house-members-who-pump-most-of-our-oil\/"},"modified":"2024-11-19T18:58:05","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T18:58:05","slug":"meet-the-fourteen-house-members-who-pump-most-of-our-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/meet-the-fourteen-house-members-who-pump-most-of-our-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Fourteen House Members Who Pump Most Of Our Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten Republicans and four Democrats represent the regions of the country where the vast majority of U.S. crude oil is produced \u2014 showing why we need a just transition away from dirty energy now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pumpjack near Houses in Colorado
A pumpjack oil well near homes in Dacona on the Niobara shale formation, one of the most heavily fracked areas in the United States.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ten Republicans and four Democrats represent the parts of the country where the vast majority of U.S. crude oil is produced. As the 116th Congress gets down to work, we take a look at these districts and what their Representatives received in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. <\/span><\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t a readily available current dataset of oil and gas production broken down by House Districts, so what follows is a rough estimate that can hopefully be improved. Data collected by the Economic Research Service of the USDA tabulates <\/span>oil production by county for the years 2000 to 2011<\/span><\/a>. The map below shows this county-level data for the lower 48 states in 2011, with the boundaries of the House Districts overlaid.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Greenpeace USA\/Tim Donaghy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The map clearly shows the <\/span>major regions<\/span><\/a> that are the source of the booming oil and gas production in the U.S. The dark purple splotch in west Texas and New Mexico is the Permian basin, which has shown rapid growth in the past decade thanks to the shale boom and is currently seeing a <\/span>rapid build-out of pipeline capacity<\/span><\/a> to get its product to domestic and international markets. Other key oil-producing basins are the Bakken (in North Dakota, source of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline), the Eagle Ford (south Texas), and the Niobrara (Wyoming and Colorado). Unsurprisingly, the geographic pattern of oil and gas extraction matches the locations of <\/span>communities where oil and gas jobs make up a large fraction of the available employment<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, a lot has happened since 2011. In recent years, oil production has <\/span>increased rapidly<\/span><\/a> in places like the Permian, the Eagle Ford, and the Bakken, while declining in other places. To get a (very) crude estimate for which Congressional Districts are currently home to the most oil production we can make a few assumptions to create the map below (see the Endnote for more details on the calculation).<\/span><\/p>\n

We find that only 14 Congressional Districts produced roughly 80% of onshore U.S. oil in 2017. These districts, marked in dark purple above, form a corridor through the center of the country, stretching from Texas to North Dakota. (Alaska\u2019s at-large district is not shown on the map, but is one of the 14.) Together the politicians who represent these 14 districts accepted over $1.7 million in campaign contributions from the <\/span>oil and gas industry in 2018<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Greenpeace USA\/Tim Donaghy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The single House district with the highest oil production is <\/span>North Dakota\u2019s At-Large District<\/b> which encompasses the majority of the <\/span>Bakken<\/b> region and which produced <\/span>390 million barrels of oil in 2017<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n