DENVER—The former chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission believes three “missing pieces will bring equilibrium to the market going forward” and bring the U.S. oil and gas business to true success in the world energy market.

In a keynote address Aug. 16 to EnerCom Consulting’s 21st Oil and Gas Conference, Elizabeth Ames Coleman covered the astounding success the industry has seen in the past decade with the advent of the unconventional shale revolution. However, she added, more can be done to help the nation’s struggling energy industry and also speed the lethargic growth of its overall economy.

Current low commodity prices “are just a symptom” of what’s wrong with the business, Coleman emphasized.

First, the U.S. needs “demand restoration—the restoration of demand that can only be achieved through sound economic policy coming out of the Congress,” she said. The nation needs a “real recovery not yet seen. People must have jobs, not part-time work; not propped up by government subsidies. And don’t let the official unemployment rate fool you; people are under-employed but they want good-paying jobs; they want to be a part of a growing economy that makes use of our newfound energy reliability.”

She added that the shale revolution and swelling production “hasn’t been put to its best use—fueling a growing economy—because just as it was starting up the Great Recession hit.” The lingering recession and slow economic growth are global problems, but if the U.S. can fix its economy “then the rest of the world will catch up with us.”.

Coleman is part of a family that has roots in the start of the modern Texas oil industry early in the 20th century. She was a member of the energy-regulating Texas Railroad Commission from 2005 to 2011, serving two terms as the commission’s chairman.

Secondly, Coleman stressed that reforms be made to “an undisciplined government agency culture where government bureaucrats make extralegal, non-jurisdictional decisions” slow multibillion-dollar projects that create jobs and grow the economy.

“We should liberate U.S. hydrocarbon production and let it take its place on the world stage,” Coleman said.

The audience laughed when she said, “kind of like we did for Iran.

The only way to do that is to rise up against bureaucratic delay that has plagued federal agencies for years. It didn’t just happen overnight,” she added.

Streamlining permit and export approvals will allow the U.S. to economically supply oil- and gas-short nations with energy before they turn to other world suppliers, moves that would harm our national security.

Many federal bureaucrats “hold disdain for American trade and commerce. Who in the world of commerce is the American government a friend of? I know it’s not American businesses,” she said.

Her third point was a call for fair trade.

“Any country that is flooding the market with their artificially low-priced products at the expense of our American products is typically hauled into the World Trade Organization. It’s called dumping,” she said, adding that the U.S. needs to account for subsidies from foreign governments.

Many foreign producers “are benefitting from unfair financing capabilities that can undercut the price on the market,” she said. “Making a profit for a national oil company is not always a top priority of a government that, rather, wants to employ people in social programs.

If this isn’t a violation of free trade, I don’t know what is,” Coleman said, mentioning Saudi Arabia as an example of a foreign producer that is selling oil at a loss to protect market share.

The U.S. could do this too “if we wanted to be a socialist state… and destroy our competition.”

One way to “level the playing field” would be for importers to get a U.S. Department of Energy import permit “that includes an environment impact statement on every barrel of imported crude, because [the environment] is a global problem,” she said.

The permit would cover such issues as proper well casing, water disposal, netting to protect migratory birds over open pits, and other standards “that our industry does as a matter of course—it’s just fair.” But such measures are ignored by many producers, to the detriment of U.S. producers and the environment.

There are other moves “that could get some sense of equilibrium back” to the energy industry, she said, but the three points she emphasized would significantly impact the U.S. energy industry and the entire economy.

It’s vital to now give U.S. consumers “something they can count on,” that will help restore the nation’s economic growth, she said.

Paul Hart can be reached at pdhart@hartenergy.com.