Help wanted. If you're against natural gas drilling, you need not apply.

The energy industry supports, directly and indirectly, 9.2 million jobs in these United States, says the American Petroleum Institute. The oil and gas part of that makes up 7% of gross domestic product, the institute notes.

IHS Global Insight, at the request of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, conducted a study on this topic. We know independents are vital to the economy, but to what extent?

The study shows independent producers operate in 32 states and will drill nearly 94% of the country's oil and gas wells. They have led the technical innovations in shale drilling that the majors and national oil companies now seek to emulate.

Indies working onshore alone supported 2.1 million jobs in 2010—and made up 2.2% of our GDP. If the business ecosystem surrounding onshore independents was a state, it would rank 15th based on $320.6 billion of value creation in 2010!

This ecosystem includes direct jobs they create (engineers, geologists, accountants), jobs associated with their suppliers and service network, and the ripple effects on the economy when all these workers buy a pickup truck or a cup of coffee; visit the dentist or the movies; donate money to charity; or pay taxes.

One out of every 62 jobs in the U.S. can be attributed to upstream activities, IHS finds.

Now that's some great ammunition to take to Capitol Hill, the media, and every statehouse in the nation.

To the federal government we say, Don't lead, don't follow, just get out of our way.

Not to belabor the point, but the American oil and gas industry can and does create jobs. One big incremental wave of new jobs is coming from natural gas, and the shales in particular.

The Eagle Ford shale is one instance where natural gas is creating more jobs. Just recently, both Halliburton and Weatherford International announced they will build new field-service bases near Interstate 37 outside San Antonio. Each company plans to hire 100 people. They will have to service the Eagle Ford in increasing numbers, because more than 1,900 well permits have been issued in the past three years, according to Texas Railroad Commission data.

North Dakota, proudly sporting the lowest unemployment rate in the nation—under 4%—has a state budget surplus thanks to the Bakken shale boom. Community leaders, politicians and academics are debating how to pay for new housing stock in rural towns that are besieged with oil workers, now living in trailers and temporary housing left over from the Vancouver Winter Olympics. That means construction workers and more pickups.

There will be plenty of natural gas-related jobs ahead. A new MIT study, "The Future of Natural Gas," concludes that the U.S. and the world have plenty of gas and need to develop it to bridge us to other fuels by 2050.

"Natural gas issues should be fully integrated into the U.S. energy and security agenda…

"Despite its vital importance to the national economy, natural gas has often been overlooked, or at best taken for granted, in the debate about the future of energy in the U.S. Over the past two or three years, this has started to change, and natural gas is finding its place at the heart of the energy discussion," says MIT.

The study addresses a key question: What is the role of natural gas in a carbon-constrained world, under different gas-supply and policy scenarios? The MIT Energy Initiative staff that authored the study was advised by the likes of Hess chairman John Hess, Vello Kuuskraa, president of Advanced Resources International; Mike Ming, president of RPSEA (Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America), and Greg Staple, CEO of the American Clean Skies Foundation.

One of MIT's main conclusions: "In the U.S., natural gas sets the cost benchmark against which other clean power sources must compete to remove the marginal ton of CO2."

To bring all this gas potential to fruition, we need more people addressing the problem—rather, the opportunity. In Detroit, factories converting vehicles to natural gas need to hire more people. Cities large and small, from east to west, need to hire people to install CNG stations, drive gas-fueled buses and convert local cars to natural gas. Utilities need to fire up their gas-fueled power plants, and build more.