PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.—The U.S. energy business is in an enviable position today, thanks to the boom in unconventional plays that has occurred in the last decade. But a serious question lingers: Does the nation have the will to make the most of that advantage?

The industry itself has a major role in answering that question, according to Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Is the energy economy rebounding or faltering?” following the commodity price downturn, she asked in her keynote address at the INGAA Foundation’s annual meeting Nov. 4. The conference drew a record crowd of nearly 500 midstream operators and suppliers.

“No industry has changed itself so rapidly,” Harbert added. “We are now in a dominant position worldwide, an inconvenient truth for Russia and Saudi Arabia.” She gave her presentation immediately following a trade mission to Saudi Arabia, which she termed “challenging” given the world’s current energy situation.

Unfortunately, most of the American public is unaware of how important the energy business is the nation’s economy, she explained in her address.

“You are what got us through this recession. If it had not been for the energy renewal, we would not have had a recession but a depression,” she said. “You are what saved us,” Harbert added, pointing to thousands of jobs the industry added during the shale boom, the sharp reduction in energy imports—and balance of payments deficit—and the rise in energy-dependent petrochemical industries.

“The reduction in imports meant there was money left here, to be invested here,” she said. The shale boom dramatically reduced energy prices that, although a pain point now for the industry, will be a long-term gain for the U.S.

Harbert noted electricity costs, on average, in much of western Europe are four times what they are in the U.S., which has the second-lowest power costs in the developed world behind Norway, which has vast, low-cost hydroelectric capacity that cannot be duplicated elsewhere. European gasoline prices at the pump are three times the U.S. average, she noted.

European firms are taking note and that has spurred a growing move here and the addition of new U.S. petrochemical capacity, especially fertilizer and plastics production. “BASF is a U.S. firm now for all intents and purposes,” she added. “Energy represents one-third of all [U.S.] investment” currently, Harbert said.

Today’s energy situation is a far cry from gloomy projections the federal government made a decade ago while she served as an assistant secretary of energy in the George W. Bush administration, she noted. Instead of falling domestic reserves and a scramble to find new sources of imported oil and gas, the industry’s biggest challenge today is to make the public aware of national energy abundance—and that will not be easy given the success of environmental groups and the growing animosity of regulators to energy development.

“Now is the time to reset the narrative,” she told the conference. Emphasizing the industry’s positives, particularly to millennials, is critically important.

Contrary to a general view that the energy business is a backward, pollution-generating business, “there is no industry that is more technology-driven than you are: You are high-tech and millennials need to know that; how important you are.”

It will be critically important to engage the new administration and a new Congress in the need for further development of energy infrastructure, she added. Environmental activism continues to grow in importance “and it won’t get easier” as environmentalism has entered the mainstream and has gained significant regulatory power under the Obama administration.

It’s vital that the energy business “needs to put a human face on” to counteract that trend, Harbert said. “There are all kinds of stories we can tell. We all have dreams and energy can fulfill them.” That means making the public aware that oil and gas are more than motor fuels but also the feedstocks of products as diverse as shoes and hospital IV tubing.

She said a ban on hydraulic fracturing would eliminate 14 million jobs, just at the time the U.S. must create 20 million new jobs in the next two decades as the population grows. “And you have made a down payment of 5 million new jobs on that [14 million] number already,” thanks to the shale boom, she said. “We need to make people aware of this. These are pocketbook issues… we need to tell the narrative better,” she said.

Following on Harbert’s presentation, much of the INGAA meeting’s agenda focused on growing opposition to new energy infrastructure and discussions of how the industry can work to answer the public’s valid questions about energy development.

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