Anthony Liveris | A revolution without an army

By 2020, the United States will be the world’s largest energy provider. Due to recent discoveries of shale gas, American manufacturing is on course to enter a renaissance, or rather, “the Shale Revolution.”

Multiple structural problems undermine the possibility of this revolution taking off. Some of the notable ones include a heavy American bias to over-exporting — which favors short-term economic growth — and preferentiality to low-end versus advanced manufacturing.

These are the effects of a greater American workforce pandemic. Simply, there is a skills shortage in the United States that could prevent a much-needed manufacturing revitalization — America does not have enough engineers to restructure its economy and has an immigration policy preventing growth.

A recent article by Bloomberg reported that this dearth of “skilled workers to tap the abundant supply in shale rock [puts] $100 billion in planned petrochemical projects at risk.”

We don’t have enough scientists to compete with China, seriously undermining any American manufacturing potential. The Chinese Communist Party has launched another five-year plan with seven strategic emerging industries. The government directly funds programs that encourage both an engineering education and new high technology areas of development.

We don’t have enough technicians and apprentices in trade to compete with Germany. From welders to robotic specialists, the United States lacks the capacity to employ full-on specialty factories.

This leaves the United States with handicapped resource potential, forced to export its shale gas instead of using it domestically and employing Americans of various professional backgrounds.

The long-term solution is to re-skill, retool and re-educate our graduates from all levels on the new sciences and new technologies to create jobs for the new era.

Companies such as Siemens are sponsoring such programs for their factories in the United States. General Electric is converting the curricula of community colleges into a more modern skills-based education. This involves nanotechnology, automation and advanced sensing technologies. IBM has made similar investments in high schools. However, privatized restructuring of community colleges is not enough to prepare workers for a full-fledged energy transformation.

For the short term, the American government needs to further open its borders to skilled scientists of multiple nationalities if it wishes to enable the Shale Revolution.

The United States has an immigration policy that neglects the prowess of foreign scientists, even those educated at American universities. Green cards and H1B visas should be more easily granted to science, tech, engineering and math students. Experts have argued for the elimination of country-specific caps on visas that highly limit manufacturing potential (calm down, I have my green card).

“This is not just an issue for Microsoft and Intel, it’s an issue for the American heartland,” said Neil Ruiz, an immigration expert at the Brookings Institute, in a recent article in the Financial Times. “There are a lot of companies that need specialist skills, especially in STEM fields, and they just can’t find them locally so they have to search globally.”

Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey and many other emerging nations have adopted such policies. Countries that provide high-tech, skills-based visas aren’t limited to the stereotypically low-end manufacturing that many Americans assume is occurring. These countries are attracting intelligent human capital, an edge once dominated by the “American Dream” chronicle.

The Dream Act rewards foreigners for fighting in the American military — how about one for the modern American work force? The American government has a history of rewarding those who help protect its culture — how about we better reward those who help grow it?

Saudi Arabia will lessen in value as a geopolitical interest due to the growth of natural gas domestically. With this, it is time America refocuses its policies to rewarding those it needs for the new most valuable energy resource.

The United States should adopt an immigration policy that increases the caps on H1B visas and repeals the per-country limit on green cards. The United States needs a national human capital strategy directed at the needs of a modern society. We cannot rely solely on corporations to retool the populace, nor can we accept a government that so heavily ignores scientifically qualified potential immigrants.

The Shale Revolution needs more soldiers. Until the American public is properly retooled, hire some more expats. We’re eager.

Anthony Liveris is a College junior and vice president of College Republicans from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. His email address is amliveris@gmail.com. Follow him @AnthonyLiveris. “Liberatus” usually appears every other Monday.

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