From N.C. Sen. Bob Rucho, R-Mecklenburg:

After Jimmy Carter was elected president in 1976, he told Americans of the need for an “unpleasant talk.” America, he said, was facing “the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime.” America was running out of oil and natural gas.

Fortunately, he could not have been more wrong. Because while President Carter was warning of an “energy crisis,” an engineer-entrepreneur by the name of George P. Mitchell was dreaming up technologies with the power to unleash an energy revival. Mitchell decided to go after the energy contained in the extensive shale rock formations that existed in abundance deeper underground.

Mitchell used an emerging technology called hydraulic fracturing and mixed it with the innovation of horizontal drilling to free the energy resources locked inside underground rock formations. The results have been nothing short of transformational.

America’s greatest challenge has now become one of its biggest opportunities. And North Carolina must be prepared to seize it.

The benefits are clear. According to the latest report by the International Energy Agency, the United States now has over a century’s supply of gas, much of it stored in shale. As a result, a new energy jobs sector has emerged. This newfound abundance has also reduced energy costs for families and businesses. Indeed, companies are now bringing manufacturing jobs back to our shores.

North Carolina has similar opportunities right under our feet – plentiful reserves of clean, undeveloped natural gas.

This week the North Carolina Senate will vote on the Clean Energy and Economic Security Act, a bill designed to take the first step toward realizing these benefits. Its primary focus will be ensuring that shale gas exploration and development is done in a way that preserves the environment and protects the rights of North Carolinians. Everyone from Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson, to Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp, to North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, has agreed that the development of shale gas can be done safely and responsibly with the right regulations in place.

To formulate those regulations, our bill empowers three existing commissions – the Environmental Management Commission, the Commission for Public Health, and a revamped Mining Commission – to begin developing a comprehensive regulatory framework for North Carolina. Our bill also ensures the new rules will be the result of a balanced and thorough dialogue. This is a process that must be driven by data, not demagoguery.

Sadly, that is not reality. Rather than unite behind the goal of utilizing our God-given resources in an environmentally responsible manner, liberal fringe groups have sought to divide North Carolina with fallacies and fear. These groups would have us self-impose the reality that President Carter wrongly feared – that we are running out of energy resources. Such defeatism threatens to leave one of our state’s greatest untapped opportunities buried in the ground.

This is no time for such needlessly “unpleasant talk.” Shale gas development carries the potential to transform our state in many positive ways. The Clean Energy and Economic Security Act is about making sure we do it right.