Hello there. It is Eric Erikson here. Delighted to have you with me. The phone number is 8779-73425 if you would like to be on the program. I have news for my Texas listeners.

I learned something new from the foundation for economics education.

It's a headline, and it actually goes back to January 22nd of 2019.

It's an older story, but it's worth focusing on for a moment.

Texas now produces more oil than every country in the world besides Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

That's from 2019. I am told the situation is pretty much the same today because

so much of Texas oil is produced on private lands and the federal government has deterred

exploration and drilling on public lands and in the

Gulf of Mexico. But I want to read you some of this. And again, it's from 2019. As a result of the

impressive eye-popping ongoing surges in Texas's oil production over the last decade, the

Lone Star State recently surpassed Canada's oil output for the first time this year,

except for a few previous outlier months when production in Canada dropped sharply.

And Texas now produces more oil than all other countries except Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

And if the recent year-over-year output increase of 25 to 35% in recent months continues in Texas,

it won't be long before the state's crude oil production tops Iraq's daily output,

and it would only be Russia and Saudi Arabia that outproduced the lone star state.

The near quintupling or quintupling of oil output in Texas from about 1 million barrels per day in 2008 is what will likely be more than 5 billion, 5 million barrels of oil by the end of 2019 ranked the state of the world's number four oil producing nation, in quotes, fueled by 35% annual increases in recent months.

Texas, if it was a standalone nation, would be an oil producing nation. Instead, it has made the

United States an oil producing nation.

Texas has frankly sustained our national appetite for oil more than most.

And again, because so much of the oil produced in Texas is produced on private lands

that the federal government can't undermine by restricting access to it on federal lands and in the ocean.

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