In the Wall Street Journal today, Harold Ford, Jr., who represented Tennessees ninth district in the U.S. House for a decade, writes about the tens of thousands of jobs being created in the energy sector-and about the thousands more that are at our fingertips.

He writes,

We spend so much time theorizing about new steps government can take to create jobs that we sometimes overlook the jobs that are right in front of us waiting for government approval.

Take the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL oil pipeline running from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. It would create tens of thousands of new jobs in construction, maintenance and refining. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supports the project, yet regulatory hurdles remain.

Regulatory barriers stand in the way of other projects as well, and it’s hard to overlook what we are losing the longer we delay.

A study released last month by the Woods Mackenzie research firm found that 1.4 million jobs and $800 billion in new government revenue could be created over the next two decades by removing barriers to increased domestic oil and gas production.